[ANN] OpenELEC.tv - very small and fast booting Embedded Linux Distribution with XBMC

Swifty Wrote:All we need now is a way to power on from cold via remote

there are IR Receivers for USB with power on funktion if the PC is switched off. This needs an USB port aktivated power if pc is switched off (there are many boards with this - some cane enable this feature in bios or per jumper). you can test this with an USB optical mouse (NOT cordless). if there are an light if pc is switched off you have this function. there are also receiver for RS232

IR Receiver looks like this:
http://www.atric.de/IR-Einschalter/index.php
http://www.simerec.com/PCS-2.html
http://www.serasidis.gr/circuits/InReCoMe/InReCoMe.htm
http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?http://...eiver.html
http://xir.us/xireasy.aspx

openelec.tv Wrote:why do you buy an ssd if you have an NAS? look here:
http://www.innodisk.com/production.jsp?flashid=92
http://www.innodisk.com/production.jsp?flashid=41
http://www.innodisk.com/production.jsp?flashid=29
http://www.innodisk.com/production.jsp?flashid=34

but this is not all. i have build an minimal distro with only Software need to run xbmc so i have an image from 45MB (in the moment). i have optimized loading of services and drivers. for example: Xorg starts at beginning as any of the very first services. Xorg is als optimizied to start quick. in parallel of xorg starts hardwaredetection and all needed for xbmc to run, then all that is not need to run xbmc, then xbmc parallel to this (and if xorgs is running). all services that not depends on any other service starts parallel. i can this also make a little bit faster if i move all drivers statically to kernel. this can i do if i have an limited hardwaresupport. i also plan to integrate coreboot so i have an boottime from max. around 7 sec. from poweron to xbmc. but this only possible with a few mainboards.

sole reason I'm going with an SSD (87$ 16GB SSD) is just to improve XBMC's loading time. I have no need to improve movie/tv playing speed, as my NAS already can stream 650Mbps across my gigabit network, so I'm just trying to get XBMC to boot as fast as humanely possible. I love how fast your system starts up, if it becomes a user-friendly *read: very linux-noob friendly* and can support lirc, I'd definately switch, as it looks like it's booting in about 10 seconds. My ultimate goal is to have an "almost instant on" box.

Can you upload the image somewhere? Would be really nice to play around with it a bit

When this is getting ready. I would love support for appleTV. This is precisely what the aTV needs.

estyx Wrote:Can you upload the image somewhere? Would be really nice to play around with it a bit

the image at the moment only support intel hardware (incl. intel graphic). when you need support for other hardware we (i or you) must change the configuration. but then we must recompile the distro. what you need? the image or do you want compile the distribution (then you can make changes, and i can include this)

for the sources you can go to https://code.launchpad.net/~sraue/openelec/devel
there is also an bugtracker for bugs, an tracker for feature requests and so on... you can use this platform and i would be happy if anyone can help me a little bit to fix my bugs or include more hardware (i am have only intel systems for testing) or make documentation for the buildprocess etc...

to get the sources install bazar and get it with
NOTE: i use uClibc instead glibc, so it is not possible to include binary graphic driver (nVidia/ ATI) and so it is not possible to get vdpau working. i am thinking of include eglibc for this, but this is not priority 1

openelec.tv Wrote:NOTE: i use uClibc instead glibc, so it is not possible to include binary graphic driver (nVidia/ ATI) and so it is not possible to get vdpau working. i am thinking of include eglibc for this, but this is not priority 1

I'll download the source and play around a bit with getting eglibc and nvidia binary driver to work

estyx Wrote:I'll download the source and play around a bit with getting eglibc and nvidia binary driver to work

now i have updated the sources to my last local rev. 1465. now you can begin ;-)

Jaken Wrote:When this is getting ready. I would love support for appleTV. This is precisely what the aTV needs.

one question: build for appletv - is this an build on MacOS or can this also be build on linux? (or better can appletv run linux). what hardware has appletv (chipset graphic cpu etc...)?

openelec.tv Wrote:one question: build for appletv - is this an build on MacOS or can this also be build on linux? (or better can appletv run linux). what hardware has appletv (chipset graphic cpu etc...)?

Yes atv can run x86 linux.
hardware: http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Parts

openelec.tv Wrote:one question: build for appletv - is this an build on MacOS or can this also be build on linux? (or better can appletv run linux). what hardware has appletv (chipset graphic cpu etc...)?

see http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/

a few tips, disk format needs to be gpt, use the modified parted (never gparted). You must have a proper modified "recovery" partition setup or it will not boot. AppleTV uses pure efi and efi firmware will only load apple's boot.efi so no refit or other efi replacements.