XBMC on Raspberry Pi - Wonder if this will work out? (Historical Discussion Thread)

Jimmer Wrote:That arch linux image will be basic, bare-bones, no frills commandline only. You'll need to use the pacman package manager to install the GUI system. If you're lucky someone will have compiled xbmc for the arm-distro and made it available via pacman. If not, you will need to compile it yourself (after compiling or installing the list of dependancies).

There are no wrong beginners questions! But, I would say in my experience, Arch is not a distribution for beginners.

However, you sound like you're up for learning, so why not take one of the other "official" distros like fedora and have a go at installing xbmc yourself on that. That'll be a good first step. If you run into massive difficulties, you can always try the OpenELEC or Sam's distro's... just a case of swapping another sdcard in at the end of the day! No reason why you can't try all the approaches in parallel if you've got a couple of sdcards hanging around - be a great learning experience

Thanks Jimmer, you are absolutely right I am up for learning!

Thanks will have a further think!

Cheers

Alan

Ned Scott Wrote:You are asking if a bare bones OS that will require you to install and configure a bunch of extra stuff is better than a pre-made installation that "just works"?

No end-user even has one of these in their hands, so no thread move for now. Even when they do, just make a new thread.

Thanks Ned, I know that now but as a newbie you have to ask sometimes.

Also understand re thread move.

Thanks

Alan

Can you please stay on topic. And just talk about XBMC on the Raspberry PI. Do your private war in private messages.

castalla, Millhouse. 7 day ban if you can't play nice. Now stay on topic.

We have no problems with other specially forums being mentioned here, or even directly XBMC related forums being mentioned. However, Raspberrymod is a spam site. RPi Foundation thinks so, and I'm inclined to agree. A user made one single post here, to mention that site. He also made only one single edit on the XBMC wiki, to mention that site. Other forums for XBMC and the RPi have been mentioned on our forums, but they are by users with established histories and good relations.

Any links to the Raspberrymod site will be treated as spam and deleted.

Let's take a step back from all this here.

nooryani84 Wrote:I definitely won't be getting a Raspberry Pi anytime soon seeing as the guy behind the XBMC-port, Sam Nazarko is the same guy who claims that his Crystalbuntu is superior to AppleTV and OpenELEC quite blatantly. I don't like developers that bad mouth other projects, that's just poor taste.

The other issue is that it seems like he's the sole developer on this project and instead of being a community driven project. Can anyone confirm this?

First up, why would my opinions on anything stop you from buying a Raspberry Pi? You will be able to install XBMC on the Pi in many ways, and you are free to chose any way you wish to do so. In future I will remain an objective view, and let users voice their opinions however I am sure that OpenELEC devs will feel their project for Apple TV was better just like I felt my project was better. One thing is for sure both implementations are better than the Native OS. It doesn't matter though. At all. You must appreciate there are two projects supporting the AppleTV 1g which is becoming a dated platform. Now, in terms of the Pi, I'm sure the OpenELEC distro will be very nice, especially for those who have used it before. It will offer a nice 'appliance' feel as they term it, but if they want to install other packages behind it, Raspbmc will be able to accommodate that. They will have different niches in the userbase, the overall goal being to deliver a media center. The advantage to the user will be more freedom to choose a project they are happy with. With the Pi, there isn't going to be one better than the other. There will be one that the individual user will prefer themselves. I wish OpenELEC team the best in getting their distro up and running

As for the community aspect, both will have a good community. My project is already getting contributions in terms of logo design, ideas, and I will be developing addons with some Python devs. Anyone can get involved by checking out the SVN repo. There is also a CDN being established being established by volunteers.

gimli Wrote:Please keep the distribution war out of this thread. Lets stay at xbmc on the PI.

Indeed. Forget the distros, the focus here is getting talking about XBMC on the Pi.

If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

How is it going the development of XBMC on RaspberryPi? Are there already many limitations on the platform? Are we going to get news anytime soon?

Just to add some clarification, Gimli (who has done the heavy lifting) and I are the two XBMC devs behind the XBMC port to the Raspberry Pi. Code has been brought in from other embedded ports that are still private.

Source code for XBMC port to the Raspberry Pi can be found here https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc-rbp

There's still lot's to be done and a big refactor before it can be brought into mainline source tree.

Raspbmc is a disto based off of our work. Run by Sam Nazarko.

OpenELEC is another distro, again based off our work. Run by Sraue.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages which we will NOT discuss here as it's OFF TOPIC.

I think the Raspberry Pi is great, and I was one of those who experienced a frustrating morning trying to order one, but outside the third world why would anyone use one in anger (as opposed to just for fun)?

The difference in cost between a RBPi and a Revo 3700 (in the UK) is about £150. Now that's not a trivial amount, but we're talking about something that's an important part of your life (well, my life anyway :-). The 3700 is **much** more powerful than the RBPi, and both are a lot cheaper than the average LCD TV.

jhsrennie Wrote:I think the Raspberry Pi is great, ...
The difference in cost between a RBPi and a Revo 3700 (in the UK) is about £150. Now that's not a trivial amount, ....

...but it would be quite a sum for those considering one for every TV in the house fed by a more powerful PC?

Or do you not feel this is a sensible route if the RPi can handle it or do you have some doubts?

Cheers

Alan