Best OS for XBMC ?

[Tommes]

Hi,

i want to run mainly XBMC on the Joggler.
Has anyone compared the OSs for XBMC ?
I mean liquidly runtime & good usability ?
I think a 'small' window-manager would be better for performance,
like openbox/fluxbox, than unity for example.
Or is it no matter ?
Also I could imagine xfce would be an alternative (xubuntu)


thx & greetz, Tommes

[roobarb!]

Any of BuZz's releases (in the software thread at the top of this forum) have XBMC ready installed, and they work very well. There's also an Xubuntu release that he's made which I believe also includes it. Just download, write to a USB stick, pop the stick in the Joggler and turn it on.

[james]

hi there i can confirm the xubuntu build is MUCH faster than the current ubuntu build

jolios I find wwwwaaaayyyyy toooooooooooo s ... l ..... o ..... w

but xubuntu is pretty zippy! so i highly recommend that one! xbmc works straight away from the menus when you boot it up. though i had problem installing navidata ...

so i tend to just use firefox and vlc for my streaming media needs (i can control vlc using my android phone which is cute!)

[james]

forgot to mention.. if you want a fast joggler, turn up the throttling temperature as per the guru that is buzz's instructions:

http://joggler.exotica.org.uk/ubuntu/

this is the link for xubuntu version (thanks buzz!! is your amazon list still uptodate?)

http://joggler.exotica.org.uk/img/xubun ... rfs.img.gz


Overheating / Throttling issues
As you may be aware, the Joggler has problems with the cpu throttling when the temperature reaches 70°C making the system pretty unusable. Previously there was only one option when it comes to the CPU throttling and that was to add a better heatink or cooling. Not wanting to start chopping up my joggler to fit something, I looked into some possible alternatives. First I tried undervolting the CPU which is something I had done in the past on my laptop with good success. This however didn't work with the Joggler hardware. I then learnt that you could control the thermal trip points of many CPU's via software - which would mean the joggler could be allowed to run a little hotter but would hopefully throttle less during normal use. An unmodified Joggler, after being powered up for some time seems to idle at around 60 - 66°C with the LCD on (less with it off), so it doesn't take a lot of usage to bring the temperature up to 70°C at which point the throttling starts. By increasing the throttling trip point, the device becomes much more usable for longer periods, and for many tasks, doesn't throttle at all. Read on to find out how.
Note if you make the changes below you are allowing the machine to run hotter than it is set to run by the firmware. You could permanently damage your device by playing with the thermal trip points. Do this at your own risk!
The default throttling trip point is 70°C. I have successfully increased this to 80°C on my Joggler. There is another safety trip point at 100°C where the cpu will halt/stop. We won't of course be playing with that one. Boot up the image and enter a terminal and type.
sudo nano -w /boot/grub.cfg
At the end of the line that contains "splash" add the parameter "thermal.psv=xx" where xx is the trip point you want for the passive cooling (throttling) - for example to increase the passive throttling point to 80°C use "thermal.psv=80". This means that your machine will not start throttling until it reaches 80°C rather than 70°C. It is possible this could shorten the life of your device, however I have been running my Jogglers like this for some weeks with no problems.

[BuZz]

Amazon list is kept up to date. note it isn't specific to joggler, i use it for xmas, and for stuff i want to buy personally, but there is always a cheap dvd or something on there and I think it means more than a monetary donation. and of course, i am happy if people dont donate too. im not much of a capitalist

[hawsey]

+1 for the above which makes xbmc quicker
I have tried xbmc on the joli build, ubuntu, and XP But settled on ubuntu at the mo as it seems more responsive ; will now have to try out XUBUNTU ......
I think there was a xbmc live type build for the joggler but it was ethernet only without manually sorting the wifi, is anyone using that build?
i also use a joggler with Android on in the bedroom, i stream my XBMC music library VIA the bubble upnp app to it and its pretty good too, but i dont think video will work!due to android limitations.
Possibly talking rubbish about the xbmc build above, may have dreamed it ..

[pete]

I have a small Aopen core duo box that I installed XBMC on a couple of days ago. Very impressive and much nicer than MCE (for me at least) on the big LCD family room television. I never really played with it much.