[User69]

First, let me say I'm quite savvy with how to make an .iso file into a boot CD/DVD or even a USB boot device (with UnetBootIn or Yumi or something). So no need to go over the basics there. In fact, I love playing with other Linux distros and even have other OS's like Mint, LUbuntu and even Windows XP running virtually with VirtualBox and Windows 7 as host (on a completely different machine). However, I'm just barely Linux functional despite being a near expert with Windows. Just so you know where I'm coming from...

So when I boot XBMCbuntu "Eden" (version 11) with either a 8Gig USB thumb drive (Sandisk Cruzer) or CD, I can only get to the home screen where you see a whole bunch of empty theater seats. But I have absolutely no input device. IOW, my mouse and keyboard are frozen and do not work even though the Ubuntu side seems to work since I can click on "Try Ubuntu" during the boot up process (with CD). Other versions of Linux work just fine but not XBMC. I suspect it has something to do with XBMC's UI and not so much Linux. But what? And How do I fix it?

* * System I want XBMC to work on:
HP model dc5100 (horizontal flat - not tower) with Pentium IV 2.8GHz and 1GB (DDR2-400) system memory. Embedded Intel 915GV graphics (128MB shared with system).

* * Things I've tried:

Thinking I had a bad XBMC .iso file (despite it passing checksums) I re-downloaded another one only to end up with the same problems. (I'm pretty sure I downloaded a 32-bit version although I don't seem to recall seeing a choice for 64-bit anywhere.)

Now, I can report that trying the exact same problematic XMBC 11 boot disk (USB or CD) works on a slightly more modern system (AMD Athlon II 3-core with ATI embedded graphics and 4Gig system memory). So I can see XBMC 11 work. Therefore, it would seem that I do have a good distro - it just doesn't want to work with my older HP for some reason.

Installing Vista Home Premium (32 bit) and updating all the way to SP2 seems to work just fine. Even Windows Media Center works with my "Vista" remote control including the ability to make the system go to sleep with that remote control too. I'd probably elect to just keep Vista and go that way but I need to purchase a Windows license if I do that. So that's out. (I won't even go into the the Vista codec problems - wrong forum.)

Booting Mint 12 (Live CD) works just fine. Mint even see's my remote control although it doesn't seem to work 100%.

Debian 6 boots just fine too. No issues to report there either (other than maybe my Broadcom WiFi card not having any firmware support).

Even certain Puppy Linux distros work including wifi card support.

Any ideas what's going on? Is there a magic key combo I missed reading about or something? Is there a way to drop out of XBMC and into Ubuntu (holding down a control key or something like that) so I can see if it's a OS or UI thing? And if I do, how would I do that?

Thanks in advance.

[wsnipex]

The pentium IV is probably just too slow, the 128MB Gfx Ram are not enough.
Either way, if xbmc launches, at least the keyboard should do something, albeit slowly...

[User69]

As I said, when booting I can use keyboard and mouse to select whether to "Try Ubuntu" or "Install Ubuntu" (this only comes up when booting from a CD - presumably because it's only using Grub to handle all the booting). And since I don't want to install I always choose to run the live version by selecting "Try Ubuntu." I can even go to a command line terminal (ctrl-alt-f1) at that point too. Therefore I know my keyboard and mouse will work with the OS and presumably with whatever GUI Ubuntu is loading. But when XBMC itself launches I wind up having no way to use anything - it's all frozen. It's something really fundamental too since I can't even get to a command line terminal any more either.

After I posted I checked XBMCbuntu's Wiki and it would seem that a Pentium 4 is supported: http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Supported_hardware (last updated 11/25/2011)

So it would seem I have everything necessary to use XMBCbuntu. Even using regular embedded Intel graphics with 128Meg of shared memory works just fine with nearly any other distro. It's even the maximum memory for most virtual environments too. So you would think that it would also work on a real world system. (In fact, I already know it will since I have been able to use the XBMC Windows app with Windows Vista on the exact same box.)

So has anyone else had this problem? Has anyone found a solution?! Does anyone know of a way to boot without letting XBMC launch? Is there a patch, workaround, procedure to let a person troubleshoot? It's kind of hard to figure things out when the XBMC application apparently freezes everything up including the OS.

Thanks in advance...

[cotton]

I can confirm I got a hard OS freeze of xbmcbuntu.iso when starting it in Virtualbox within Archlinux (64 bit) - Had to power cycle the PC.

Have not retried starting it since.

[User69]

I can confirm I got a hard OS freeze of xbmcbuntu.iso when starting it in Virtualbox within Archlinux (64 bit) - Had to power cycle the PC.

Have not retried starting it since.

It must be something in Linux cause I tried it virtually with Windows 7 as host and it worked - sort of. I was able to use keyboard and drop out to the desktop (Ubuntu with the Xfce desktop I think it was). Then and only then was I able to use a mouse. So I'm hoping someone might know a simple fix for XBMC that a user can patch/edit/configure if they did an entire install.

[sirgbo]

First, let me say I'm quite savvy with how to make an .iso file into a boot CD/DVD or even a USB boot device (with UnetBootIn or Yumi or something). So no need to go over the basics there. In fact, I love playing with other Linux distros and even have other OS's like Mint, LUbuntu and even Windows XP running virtually with VirtualBox and Windows 7 as host (on a completely different machine). However, I'm just barely Linux functional despite being a near expert with Windows. Just so you know where I'm coming from...

So when I boot XBMCbuntu "Eden" (version 11) with either a 8Gig USB thumb drive (Sandisk Cruzer) or CD, I can only get to the home screen where you see a whole bunch of empty theater seats. But I have absolutely no input device. IOW, my mouse and keyboard are frozen and do not work even though the Ubuntu side seems to work since I can click on "Try Ubuntu" during the boot up process (with CD). Other versions of Linux work just fine but not XBMC. I suspect it has something to do with XBMC's UI and not so much Linux. But what? And How do I fix it?

* * System I want XBMC to work on:
HP model dc5100 (horizontal flat - not tower) with Pentium IV 2.8GHz and 1GB (DDR2-400) system memory. Embedded Intel 915GV graphics (128MB shared with system).

* * Things I've tried:

Thinking I had a bad XBMC .iso file (despite it passing checksums) I re-downloaded another one only to end up with the same problems. (I'm pretty sure I downloaded a 32-bit version although I don't seem to recall seeing a choice for 64-bit anywhere.)

Now, I can report that trying the exact same problematic XMBC 11 boot disk (USB or CD) works on a slightly more modern system (AMD Athlon II 3-core with ATI embedded graphics and 4Gig system memory). So I can see XBMC 11 work. Therefore, it would seem that I do have a good distro - it just doesn't want to work with my older HP for some reason.

Installing Vista Home Premium (32 bit) and updating all the way to SP2 seems to work just fine. Even Windows Media Center works with my "Vista" remote control including the ability to make the system go to sleep with that remote control too. I'd probably elect to just keep Vista and go that way but I need to purchase a Windows license if I do that. So that's out. (I won't even go into the the Vista codec problems - wrong forum.)

Booting Mint 12 (Live CD) works just fine. Mint even see's my remote control although it doesn't seem to work 100%.

Debian 6 boots just fine too. No issues to report there either (other than maybe my Broadcom WiFi card not having any firmware support).

Even certain Puppy Linux distros work including wifi card support.

Any ideas what's going on? Is there a magic key combo I missed reading about or something? Is there a way to drop out of XBMC and into Ubuntu (holding down a control key or something like that) so I can see if it's a OS or UI thing? And if I do, how would I do that?

Thanks in advance.

Had a similar prob with my hp5100 and here is what I did to fix the problem.
Enter into your pc bios and on the advanced tab -> device option toggle the "Num Lock State at Power-On" to On.
That fixed it for me

[sirgbo]

First, let me say I'm quite savvy with how to make an .iso file into a boot CD/DVD or even a USB boot device (with UnetBootIn or Yumi or something). So no need to go over the basics there. In fact, I love playing with other Linux distros and even have other OS's like Mint, LUbuntu and even Windows XP running virtually with VirtualBox and Windows 7 as host (on a completely different machine). However, I'm just barely Linux functional despite being a near expert with Windows. Just so you know where I'm coming from...

So when I boot XBMCbuntu "Eden" (version 11) with either a 8Gig USB thumb drive (Sandisk Cruzer) or CD, I can only get to the home screen where you see a whole bunch of empty theater seats. But I have absolutely no input device. IOW, my mouse and keyboard are frozen and do not work even though the Ubuntu side seems to work since I can click on "Try Ubuntu" during the boot up process (with CD). Other versions of Linux work just fine but not XBMC. I suspect it has something to do with XBMC's UI and not so much Linux. But what? And How do I fix it?

* * System I want XBMC to work on:
HP model dc5100 (horizontal flat - not tower) with Pentium IV 2.8GHz and 1GB (DDR2-400) system memory. Embedded Intel 915GV graphics (128MB shared with system).

* * Things I've tried:

Thinking I had a bad XBMC .iso file (despite it passing checksums) I re-downloaded another one only to end up with the same problems. (I'm pretty sure I downloaded a 32-bit version although I don't seem to recall seeing a choice for 64-bit anywhere.)

Now, I can report that trying the exact same problematic XMBC 11 boot disk (USB or CD) works on a slightly more modern system (AMD Athlon II 3-core with ATI embedded graphics and 4Gig system memory). So I can see XBMC 11 work. Therefore, it would seem that I do have a good distro - it just doesn't want to work with my older HP for some reason.

Installing Vista Home Premium (32 bit) and updating all the way to SP2 seems to work just fine. Even Windows Media Center works with my "Vista" remote control including the ability to make the system go to sleep with that remote control too. I'd probably elect to just keep Vista and go that way but I need to purchase a Windows license if I do that. So that's out. (I won't even go into the the Vista codec problems - wrong forum.)

Booting Mint 12 (Live CD) works just fine. Mint even see's my remote control although it doesn't seem to work 100%.

Debian 6 boots just fine too. No issues to report there either (other than maybe my Broadcom WiFi card not having any firmware support).

Even certain Puppy Linux distros work including wifi card support.

Any ideas what's going on? Is there a magic key combo I missed reading about or something? Is there a way to drop out of XBMC and into Ubuntu (holding down a control key or something like that) so I can see if it's a OS or UI thing? And if I do, how would I do that?

Thanks in advance.

Had a similar prob with my hp5100 and here is what I did to fix the problem.
Enter into your pc bios and on the advanced tab -> device option toggle the "Num Lock State at Power-On" to On.
That fixed it for me

I also disabled hyperthreading in bios

[HevvieEvvie]

I also disabled hyperthreading in bios

Yep, had the same problem and disabling the hyperthreading did the trick for me

Thanks sirgbo