[RobotTwo]

Greetings,

I've submitted a patch on behalf of the Zeppelin Project which adds a tool to create Ubuntu 8.04 bootable USB sticks running XBMC. Below is a link to the patch, and an excerpt from the patch description.

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php...tid=581840

Ubuntu 8.04 StickBuilder
This patch provides a utility which creates an Ubuntu 8.04 - based bootable
USB distribution.

It will boot directly into X and automatically start up XBMC. In many
cases, it will launch XBMC fullscreen (although that isn't yet perfect on
non-standard screen resolutions).

To build the image, you must use a 32-bit Ubuntu 8.04 host OS, as the
process uses components and utilities from the host.

The main OS filesystem does not have persistancy enabled, but there is a
second filesystem on the stick to store media files.

There are 2 ways to build a stick image: and advanced which works nicely
when inserting the stick into a Windows computer, and a compatible mode,
which will boot on computers with buggy BIOS.

[Bram77]

Wow, you are living up to your promise fast!

[davilla]

I've submitted a patch on behalf of the Zeppelin Project which adds a tool to create Ubuntu 8.04 bootable USB sticks running XBMC. Below is a link to the patch, and an excerpt from the patch description.

Hi RobotTwo,

Thanks for the effort on your submitted packaging tool. As you might/might not know, l.capriotti and I are currently handling the XBMCLive CD/USB packaging under the Ubuntu Moblin Image Creator environment. Optional methods are always good and we will certainly keep this tool in mind as we proceed with XBMCLive CD/USB packaging development.

Scott

[yuvalt]

questions:
1. is there lirc as part of these ubuntu systems?
2. how is network configuration done? Is it expected to happen using XBMC?
3. how do you handle network disconnections? linux can't handle it without network manager.
4. do you have ntpd installed?
5. is there a wizard to configure the system for the first time (resolution, audio settings, timezone, etc)??
6. how do you handle usb drives mounting/unmounting?

Thanks,

-Yuval

[RobotTwo]

Hi,

An ideal target for this USB-build would be for kiosk-type installations, where dynamic configuration is not required, and media could be read off the source USB.

XBMC has fields to address the network configuration -- are these funcional on Linux?

[yuvalt]

Hi,

An ideal target for this USB-build would be for kiosk-type installations, where dynamic configuration is not required, and media could be read off the source USB.

XBMC has fields to address the network configuration -- are these funcional on Linux?

Yes, but only at Ubuntu since network configuration is distro specific.

[RobotTwo]

Just a quick note, that this USB-stick creator (like all code) is a work in progress. The patch has enough functionality to boot a pc into XBMC, detect most common hardware and select appropriate drivers, and play media off the image.

1. is there lirc as part of these ubuntu systems?

No, but it can easily be added (there is a list of packages which get installed by default: src/packages.install).

2. how is network configuration done? Is it expected to happen using XBMC?

Currently, it would need to be done from within XBMC. However, a future modification might be to try to go with DHCP for any detected interfaces.

3. how do you handle network disconnections? linux can't handle it without network manager.

This doesn't get handled. A future feature set would be to include the Ubuntu network-manager which can then handle network disconnects as well as wireless networks. We don't want to drag in the rest of gnome for dependencies though, so this requires a little more thought and effort.

4. do you have ntpd installed?

Nope, but see #1. It can easily be added.

5. is there a wizard to configure the system for the first time (resolution, audio settings, timezone, etc)??

Nope. Actually, we want this to be as transparent as possibly. For example, the behavior of this stick image should be (in an ideal world), that you can boot any pc, and it automatically determines the correct video drivers, X resolution, and XBMC resolution at boot time. No manual tweaks necessary. Currently, the image does some of that, but is far from perfect at detecting resolutions and drivers (although it should be better than stock Ubuntu as far as accellerated OpenGL goes). The same can be done for timezone (ie, ping servers in known timezones, find the closest one, use that timezone).

6. how do you handle usb drives mounting/unmounting?

Currently, it doesn't do a great job at hotplug, but we can leverage Ubuntu's hotplug support.

[topfs2]

XBMC can handle hotplugged removable harddrives with a configure --enable-halmount but it doesnt handle internal as this needs root, but its not much code needed for that aswell

[yuvalt]

Just a quick note, that this USB-stick creator (like all code) is a work in progress. The patch has enough functionality to boot a pc into XBMC, detect most common hardware and select appropriate drivers, and play media off the image.

I know and appreciate it

1. is there lirc as part of these ubuntu systems?

No, but it can easily be added (there is a list of packages which get installed by default: src/packages.install).


Cool.

2. how is network configuration done? Is it expected to happen using XBMC?

Currently, it would need to be done from within XBMC. However, a future modification might be to try to go with DHCP for any detected interfaces.


Ok. Some scripting will be required here..

3. how do you handle network disconnections? linux can't handle it without network manager.

This doesn't get handled. A future feature set would be to include the Ubuntu network-manager which can then handle network disconnects as well as wireless networks. We don't want to drag in the rest of gnome for dependencies though, so this requires a little more thought and effort.


Na, we shouldn't drag gnome. there are apparently lighter weight software that can be used to accomplish the same thing, but I never tried to use them.

4. do you have ntpd installed?

Nope, but see #1. It can easily be added.


Cool #2.

5. is there a wizard to configure the system for the first time (resolution, audio settings, timezone, etc)??

Nope. Actually, we want this to be as transparent as possibly. For example, the behavior of this stick image should be (in an ideal world), that you can boot any pc, and it automatically determines the correct video drivers, X resolution, and XBMC resolution at boot time. No manual tweaks necessary. Currently, the image does some of that, but is far from perfect at detecting resolutions and drivers (although it should be better than stock Ubuntu as far as accellerated OpenGL goes). The same can be done for timezone (ie, ping servers in known timezones, find the closest one, use that timezone).


Well, from my experience the automatic X resolution detection isn't working so well. EDID is screwed by many TV sets especially that many times the default returned is 1080i, which some X drivers don't handle well.

6. how do you handle usb drives mounting/unmounting?

Currently, it doesn't do a great job at hotplug, but we can leverage Ubuntu's hotplug supp

Yeah, I forgot about it

[Gamester17]

I've submitted a patch on behalf of the Zeppelin Project which adds a tool to create Ubuntu 8.04 bootable USB sticks running XBMC.

Is this designed for Ubuntu Desktop Edition or for Ubuntu Mobile?

From what I gather we would prefer to use Ubuntu Mobile as the base USB flash drive versions of XBMC LiveUSB, it will then be stripped down futher to remove everything that XBMC do not need or use.

For more information see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Mobile
and
http://www.moblin.org