Ubuntu / Xubuntu for the O2 Joggler.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 2:56 pm

@BuZz - It's probably a good idea to go with a Joggler-friendly skin for XBMC. The latest nightly version of the Confluence skin goes for a "Ten Foot User Interface" much like the Apple TV. It's great for a TV or computer monitor but I don't know if it would scale well for a small device like the Joggler. The sub-menu items are so close to the main menu that you'd probably have to use a mouse to navigate accurately (although I'd recommend a mouse anyway to accurately select files).

Post by **BuZz** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 3:02 pm

i shipped xbmc with the "joggler" skin before, but although made originally for the joggler, the design / features were overkill, and i preferred something a little more minimalistic. the main problem with confluence is getting stuck due to not being able to send certain events. confluence with easystroke is usable though. the xeebo skin works better though. I know the developer, a nice chap, and he has already added a requested feature or two for me

Post by **BuZz** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:02 pm

xbmc update is uploaded to my repository. make sure you have the latest emgd drivers running before trying. the new xbmc is a standard opengl build with vaapi enabled. however the vaapi support is suboptimal. some artifacts on some formats, a/v desync on a 720p h264 i tried (but it decoded nice and quickly compared to cpu only). For most use you probably want to switch of vaapi in the video settings within xbmc.

runs nicely for me with the xeebo skin (making sure you change the xeebo skin settings so that it shows close buttons for touchscreen).

My image updates are imminent now, including a new linux mint.

Post by **BuZz** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:52 am

pushed another xbmc update out. has a fix for the sync issue. now i am successfully playing some 720p h264 videos on xbmc with vaapi acceleration. still glitches on some codecs, but h264 seems mostly ok.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:18 pm

BuZz wrote:pushed another xbmc update out. has a fix for the sync issue. now i am successfully playing some 720p h264 videos on xbmc with vaapi acceleration. still glitches on some codecs, but h264 seems mostly ok.

I've downloaded the XBMC update but get a "remote communication server failed to start" error message on start up. I haven't noticed any ill effects in use so far and all my shares are accessible. Any idea what the error message refers to?

Post by **BuZz** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:22 pm

I guess the build in webserver didn't start. Unless you need that I wouldn't worry.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:35 pm

Thanks BuZz for the super-quick answer. The new build is great but I've noticed that it frequently crashes when attempting to download with vaapi enabled. I'm not sure why this should be and it's too late at night to examine the logs and put them up on pastebin. I'll try to do it in the next day or so.

Streaming is fine with vaapi enabled, which is what most Joggler users will use XBMC for, and I've only tried downloading with Navi-X so far.

Post by **BuZz** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:39 pm

gegs wrote:Thanks BuZz for the super-quick answer. The new build is great but I've noticed that it frequently crashes when attempting to download with vaapi enabled. I'm not sure why this should be and it's too late at night to examine the logs and put them up on pastebin. I'll try to do it in the next day or so.

Streaming is fine with vaapi enabled, which is what most Joggler users will use XBMC for, and I've only tried downloading with Navi-X so far.

I wouldn't recommend using vaapi, unless you have something that doesnt play. there are still plenty of issues with it. dont turn on any of the screen video sync stuff either as that also crashes.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 5:03 pm

BuZz wrote:runs nicely for me with the xeebo skin (making sure you change the xeebo skin settings so that it shows close buttons for touchscreen).

I tried the xeebo skin on the Apple TV2 but my kids preferred the default confluence skin (though I'd prefer something simpler and less resource-hungry). I thought xeebo would be good on the Joggler but it is now marked as 'broken' in your new xbmc update.

---EDIT---

What a difference a day makes! I just got home from work and xeebo is no longer showing as broken in xbmc.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:48 pm

@BuZz ... Hmmm...

vaapi now disabled but trying to download from Navi-X almost always crashes xbmc now. I'm running Ubuntu Maverick 10.10, should I upgrade to 11.04 and if so can I do that using Update Manager or would I have to start again with a new image? I'm running on a portable hard drive if that makes any difference.

When I updated xbmc I got a message about only being able to perform a partial upgrade; I don't know if this is normal or if it's what's causing difficulty.

Post by **BuZz** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 11:47 pm

you could open a terminal and do

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

my new images are imminent. built and i need to move some files around

personally i don't use navi-x these days. I use icefilms and iplayer. does most stuff

Post by **BuZz** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 12:19 am

Images updated:

New Ubuntu Natty (v1.1)

* New EMGD v1.8 - xbmc now works without having to build against gl-es
* Don't ship squeezeplay by default, but add install script to install squeezeplay from birdlikewires (Thanks Roobarb!)
* Updated packages to current versions - including latest xbmc with excellent Xeebo skin (Thanks Hitcher)
* Ditch uncompressed btrfs version - the compressed works better and there seems little use case for the uncompressed currently compared to ext4.
* Use 256MB swap by default. On a smaller memory stick, it makes more sense.

I know I'm losing the battle against android - but I ask you to try xbmc and see what it can do. I must make a video so people can see what they might be missing!

dwl99 · Post by **dwl99** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:56 am

I don't think you're losing the battle - it's awesome how well Ubuntu runs on a device as tiny as the Joggler and XBMC is nothing short of amazing. Android does much less but is finger-friendly. Apples and oranges.

Post by **roobarb!** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 12:22 pm

Same here, BuZz - there's no battle as far as I'm concerned! Android just doesn't give the flexibility I need and in my experience it feels 'cludged' in comparison (that's entirely subjective and IMHO - I don't have enough insight on the Android builds to comment on a technical level).

Been running SqueezePlay on Ubuntu 10.10 on the Joggler in my kitchen for six months now and it's rock solid, even though the 4GB stick bumped into that BTRFS free space problem ages ago and reports as no space remaining! Think I'll put that right with this new release. It all runs much better than SqueezePlay on the native OS, which unexpectedly quits on me occasionally (for reasons I can't fathom).

Think I may do a video as well - made one a while ago (which I think I've lost) which showed Freeview on the Joggler too.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 12:37 pm

BuZz wrote:I know I'm losing the battle against android - but I ask you to try xbmc and see what it can do. I must make a video so people can see what they might be missing!

You are most definitely not losing the battle against Android with me. Although it might be more finger friendly it is also less feature-rich and therefore less worthwhile as far as I'm concerned.

I mainly use the Joggler for Squeezeplay and XBMC and have Ubuntu running from a 60 gig partition on a portable hard disk. 190 gigs of the drive is FAT32 formatted and reserved for storing media. I use the Joggler to stream media to my Apple TV2 which has a measly 8 gigs of storage and no USB host controller (therefore USB devices can't be physically attached to it). On the Joggler itself I also watch TV channels (courtesy of the XBMC iplayer and TVcatchup plugins), watch movies and listen to internet radio (using Squeezeplay). My Joggler is also the Squeezebox server for all my Squeezeplay enabled devices.

Android might look slick but its capabilities are poor in comparison with your linux based distros. If I really wanted Android I'd have it on a portable device I can take with me wherever I go, not running on something that has to be plugged into the wall.

Post by **BuZz** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:40 pm

I probably chose my words poorly. the post was written after a pub visit

It's not really a battle, and it's good to have the choice between operating systems. Still, it's nice to know the new releases will be given a spin. just to add, if you are already running ubuntu natty, you probably don't need the new release as everything can be updated via the repository. I did preconfigure xbmc a bit but apart from that, it's just driver/application updates. no new kernel or anything.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:25 pm

BuZz wrote:you could open a terminal and do

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

My troubles getting Navi-X to work properly with the new version of XBMC on Ubuntu 10.10 made me bite the bullet and do a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.04 from your new image. This also gave me the chance to clean out all the programs I'd downloaded to try, subsequently rejected but neglected to delete. I've still got some stuff to do, like set up my Squeezeserver plugins, but so far I'm loving Natty.

Navi-X though is still buggy (it froze xbmc once when I was testing) but it now doesn't make the program close unexpectedly (although it was becoming increasingly expected on Ubuntu 10.10 because it happened all the bloomin' time). I'm not sure why Navi-X has problems on the Joggler because it's a great addon and very stable on the Apple TV2. Having said that, I think it's more buggy when trying to download but is usually OK for streaming.

Post by **BuZz** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:36 pm

gegs wrote: Navi-X though is still buggy (it froze xbmc once when I was testing) but it now doesn't make the program close unexpectedly (although it was becoming increasingly expected on Ubuntu 10.10 because it happened all the bloomin' time). I'm not sure why Navi-X has problems on the Joggler because it's a great addon and very stable on the Apple TV2. Having said that, I think it's more buggy when trying to download but is usually OK for streaming.

i have to admit I didn't try navi-x. could be some driver bugs still showing up. What do you use it to stream mostly? Have you checked out the icefilms plugin too? note the new image has a "addon repository" installer addon, so you can add third party repositories from within xbmc (needs a restart).

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 4:53 pm

BuZz wrote:i have to admit I didn't try navi-x. could be some driver bugs still showing up. What do you use it to stream mostly? Have you checked out the icefilms plugin too? note the new image has a "addon repository" installer addon, so you can add third party repositories from within xbmc (needs a restart).

I tried Navi-X last night on the Joggler and it appears that I was a bit lucky on my first try. It looks like attempting to download with Navi-X crashes XBMC about 80% of the time. The older version of XBMC on Ubuntu 10.10 worked flawlessly with it.

I have to admit that I do use XBMC a bit unconventionally. I download some content to my portable drive meaning that I can unplug the Joggler and take it on holiday (securely boxed, of course) and it is a great entertainment device for my kids even without internet. That's another reason why I don't use JoliOS much, even though I like it; it's too web dependent. I also use my Joggler as a media server, streaming video content to Apple TV2. Not all Navi-X streams are available all the time (though most are) so downloading something that might not be available as a stream when I want to watch it does make a kind of warped sense.

Icefilms is great and my son uses it a lot to stream TV shows but HD content is usually split over two files due to Megaupload file limits. This doesn't matter on the Joggler screen where HD is unnecessary but it prevents me from watching Icefilms HD content on the ATV2 (whether streaming from the Joggler or not) because I hate watching things in part1/part2 mode. I especially hate it when there is a 30-or-so seconds delay between each half. Navi-X files don't have size limits.

I added Navi-X with the repositories installer, which is a great default addition.

I can post xbmc logs and xbmc crash logs but I won't be able to do it tonight - I'm off to see Mark Thomas on the Festival Fringe.

gegs · Post by **gegs** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 1:11 pm

With regard to xbmc Navi-X addon crashes on the new Ubuntu Natty, here are my logs captured after a crash.

XBMC crash log - http://pastebin.com/Y9GUs0xM

XBMC log - http://pastebin.com/PYKgwBAT

I'm not sure if this is due to the specific Joggler image set up or if it is a general problem with the program. I'm reluctant to post the error to the XBMC admins because it's running on an unsupported device but let me know if you think I should.

P.S. - the new version of xbmc crashed using Navi-X on Ubuntu Maverick too. I thought the upgrade might sort the problem but it hasn't.

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