XBMC installation Guide

Yesterday out of a sudden, the sound on my Acer Revo stopped working. Don’t ask me why, I didn’t update anything in between New Years eve and today. Just no sound. Tried removing my .asoundrc, tried rebooting, tried powering off; but nothing worked.

Since the Revo was running Jaunty Jackalope, I decided to reinstall the box (yeah, yet again) – but this time with Karmic Koala. Took this forums post and this blog entry as pointer (ie what needed to be installed), and started from there. And guess what … after finishing all that, changing the settings in XBMC – tada sound works. After finishing, I turned the box off and then back on, booted to the “old” installation – guess what .. Sound is working again. I really don’t have a single clue as to why the heck the sound stopped working and the started working without any doing, but I’m glad :-P

As a pointer to myself, here’s a complete list of commands that need to be done to get a working installation of XBMC. Requirement for this is a minimal installation of Jaunty Jackalope/Karmic Koala.

  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 14
 15
 16
 17
 18
 19
 20
 21
 22
 23
 24
 25
 26
 27
 28
 29
 30
 31
 32
 33
 34
 35
 36
 37
 38
 39
 40
 41
 42
 43
 44
 45
 46
 47
 48
 49
 50
 51
 52
 53
 54
 55
 56
 57
 58
 59
 60
 61
 62
 63
 64
 65
 66
 67
 68
 69
 70
 71
 72
 73
 74
 75
 76
 77
 78
 79
 80
 81
 82
 83
 84
 85
 86
 87
 88
 89
 90
 91
 92
 93
 94
 95
 96
 97
 98
 99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
# I need to blacklist the internal WLAN device, since I'm using an external one
cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf
blacklist ath5k
EOF
# Also need to blacklist the not working RAlink drivers
cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ralink.conf
# The below drivers don't work with the Atheros AR5001
# (Linksys WUSB600N)
blacklist rt2800usb
blacklist rt2x00usb
EOF

# Add the necessary PPA's
cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xbmc.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nvidia-vdpau/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nvidia-vdpau/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-svn/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-svn/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
EOF
# Add the GPG keys to the APT keyring
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com
                 --recv-keys 64234534 40618B66 CEC06767 318C7509
                             91E7EE5E 64234534
sudo aptitude update
# Install necessary prerequisites (like nvidia-glx
# for VDPAU rendering)
# debhelper needs to be added, otherwise dkms is gonna fail.
# I need nvidia-glx-180 because the -190 apparently brings
# a large framedrop (as in I'm getting 18 FPS instead of 24)
sudo aptitude install nvidia-glx-180 debhelper linux-sound-base
                      alsa-base alsa-utils
# unmute the Master an PCM channels with alsamixer. Press ESC to quit
sudo alsamixer
sudo alsactl store 0
# Install XBMC as standalone (i.e. no desktop environment like GNOME)
sudo aptitude install xbmc-standalone

# Configure the Xserver
sudo nvidia-xconfig

# Add the init-script (no need for fancy tty login stuff)
cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/init.d/xbmc
#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          inputlirc
# Required-Start:    $network
# Required-Stop:     $network $remote_fs
# Should-Start:      $syslog udev
# Should-Stop:       $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Starts XBMC standalone
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

test -d /var/run || exit 0

test -x /usr/bin/xbmc || exit 0

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "$1" in
  start)
        xinit /usr/bin/xbmc --standalone &
        ;;
  stop)
        killall xbmc &>/dev/null
        ;;
esac
exit 0
EOF
sudo update-rc.d xbmc defaults

# Install usplash, configure our resolution and
# regenerate the initramfs
sudo aptitude install usplash usplash-theme-ubuntu
cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/usplash.conf
resx=1920
resy=1080
EOF
sudo update-initramfs -u

# Install lirc
sudo aptitude install lirc inputlirc lirc-modules-source
cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/lirc/lircd.conf
#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.7.1pre2(any) on Mon Jul  4 22:11:52 2005
#
# contributed by
#
# brand:                       Technisat
# model no. of remote control: TTS35AI
# devices being controlled by this remote: Skystar 2.6D
#

begin remote

  name  Technisat_TTS35AI.conf
  bits           13
  flags RC5|CONST_LENGTH
  eps            30
  aeps          100

  one           882   803
  zero          882   803
  plead         905
  gap          112766
  toggle_bit      2

      begin codes
          Power                    0x1A8C
          Mute                     0x1A8D
          1                        0x1281
          2                        0x1A82
          3                        0x1283
          4                        0x1A84
          5                        0x1285
          6                        0x1A86
          7                        0x1287
          8                        0x1A88
          9                        0x1289
          0                        0x1A80
          -/--                     0x128A
          A/B                      0x1AA3
          Red                      0x0AAB
          Green                    0x02AC
          Yellow                   0x0AAD
          Blue                     0x02AE
          Ok                       0x0A97
          Up                       0x12A0
          Down                     0x1AA1
          Left                     0x1291
          Right                    0x1A90
          SFI                      0x12AF
          Back                     0x1AA2
          Info                     0x028F
#          Prog+                    0x1AA0
#          Prog-                    0x12A1
          TV/Radio                 0x0293
#          Volume+                  0x1A90
#          Volume-                  0x1291
          Menu                     0x0A92
          Hilfe                    0x1A8F
          TXT                      0x12BC
          STOP                     0x1AA9
          EXT                      0x12B8
          HILFE2                   0x0AB6
      end codes

end remote
EOF
sudo sed -i -e 's,REMOTE="",REMOTE="TechnoTrend USB IR receiver",'
       -e 's,REMOTE_MODULES="",REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_serial",'
       -e 's,REMOTE_DEVICE="",REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0",'
       -e 's,START_LIRCD="false",START_LIRCD="true",'
       /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
sudo sed -i -e 's,EVENTS="",EVENTS="/dev/input/by-id/usb-Formosa21_USB_IR_Receiver-event-mouse",'
       -e 's,OPTIONS="",OPTIONS="-g -m 0",' /etc/default/inputlirc

cat << EOF | sudo tee /usr/share/xbmc/system/scrapers/video/nfo-file-scaper.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Forces XBMC to gather the settings, that are on disk
         (ie no downloading of content information -->
<scraper framework="1.0" date="2010-01-02" name="NFO File Scarper" content="movies" language="en" />
EOF

# Reboot the system
sudo reboot

Now we just need to configure the audio output to pipe everything through HDMI. For that change the settings in Settings -> System -> Audio Output like this:

Or if you like messing with ~/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
    <audiooutput>
        <ac3passthrough>false</ac3passthrough>
        <audiodevice>alsa:plug:hdmi</audiodevice>
        <customdevice></customdevice>
        <custompassthrough></custompassthrough>
        <downmixmultichannel>true</downmixmultichannel>
        <dtspassthrough>false</dtspassthrough>
        <mode>1</mode>
        <passthroughdevice>alsa:hdmi</passthroughdevice>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep2></sep2>
        <sep3></sep3>
    </audiooutput>

As for the changed device names of the input device (ie usb-Formosa21_USB_IR_Receiver-event-ir (Jaunty) vs. usb-Formosa21_USB_IR_Receiver-event-mouse (Karmic), just take the Lircmap.xml from here, and change the remote-Line accordingly.