Raspbmc - XBMC Linux distribution for Raspberry Pi

Thanks for making the distinction between what you're doing Sam and an Openelec vector. I've played with Openelec, and it definitely has its niche, and if the Openelec team wants to pursue development on the RPi, more power to them.

I, for one, don't care for Openelec as a PC option because of the lack of custom driver support. I have a motherboard with a Realtek NIC PHY that doesn't work as well as it could because of the most current driver not being the best for this particular PHY. The problem is easily fixed by using an older driver. Because drivers compiled into the kernel of Openelec, the problem is not fixable unless you compile it yourself. Such is the caveat of an "appliance-only" type of build where the hardware is not also controlled. I've mentioned this problem on the Openelec boards, others have chimed in as having the same issue, and it died on the vine due to lack of dev interest.

Crystalbuntu, OTOH, allows extensibility of the underlying OS. This allows for growth and modification well beyond the scale of Openelec, even though the hardware platform is pretty much static. All of that is open to the user through an SSH session, or dropping to a terminal, but the user doesn't have to do this if they so desire. Crystalbuntu autoupdates and "Just Works©". It's this approach, IMO, that will allow for a RaspberryPi development of XBMC to flourish.

I'm also sure that there will eventually be something similar to Openelec on the RPi, and I think there will be people that use it and like it. Both implementations have their respective advantages and problems, as well as their own audiences.

Sam.Nazarko Wrote:Debian based -- Canonical have given up on ARM.

That's not strictly true - Canonical have merely ended support of the older ARMv6 architecture on which the Raspberry Pi ARM11 SoC is based. Canonical continue to support ARMv7 (Cortex-A8 etc.).

Bug about it here.

Re: OpenELEC developers - I doubt they'd be able to get a stable release out for the Pi in a month of Sundays, their release procedures are laughable. Going through the v1.0 Release Candidate process with them was painful enough, I don't think they even know what RC means, they kept making major changes from one RC to the next and breaking what was previously working functionality. Rank amateurs IMHO. Well intentioned, but amateurs. And yes, very rude - they won't accept they're wrong or that they can do things better. /rant

MilhouseVH Wrote:Re: OpenELEC developers - I doubt they'd be able to get a stable release out for the Pi in a month of Sundays, their release procedures are laughable. Going through the v1.0 Release Candidate process with them was painful enough, I don't think they even know what RC means, they kept making major changes from one RC to the next and breaking what was previously working functionality. Rank amateurs IMHO. Well intentioned, but amateurs. And yes, very rude - they won't accept they're wrong or that they can do things better. /rant

Code welcome.

natethomas Wrote:Code welcome.

Sometimes it's not about code, but process. And it's difficult to improve a process when the people behind it won't admit or acknowledge there's even a problem.

Releasing six v1.0 RC's based on Dharma code - more than a few of which introduced major and unnecessary regressions - then suggesting the first v1.0 release would actually be based on Eden not Dharma (which is what had been tested up to that point) is hardly the sign of good process. It was infuriating. And as a professional software developer by trade, embarrassing.

This is great news, I was very impressed with your Crystalbuntu so thanks for doing this with the R-Pi Sam.

hmmm....this thread is full of anger, and I came here for information, release dates, progress updates....

oneadvent Wrote:hmmm....this thread is full of anger, and I came here for information, release dates, progress updates....

Definitely not anger (at least not on my part) - just opinions (borne out of frustration). Maybe it's all OT, but IMHO it does add some additional colour as to why going with OpenELEC may not have been the best option, even though on the surface it may have been the obvious choice.

On topic: Probably a little early for release dates considering the hardware isn't yet on sale.

Quote:Definitely not anger (at least not on my part)

Either way drop the discussion about other solutions in this thread.

Do we have a working copy though?

One more thing: I noticed here: http://www.stmlabs.com/2012/01/30/raspbm...spberrypi/

that multixbmc setups were mentioned and I think that can be the big push for this device. It is so cheap to wire the whole house up. Do you think that it will be capable of recording in 1080i with tvheadend? I would think that is pretty processor heavy. I currently use the hdhomerun and there are some custom kernel requirements for that too.