2010-01-19, 06:25
After spending approximately 3 weeks of my life scouring the forums for information to solve various hiccups I ran into with my XBMC Ubuntu install, I thought I'd put together a post for others to hopefully save time in the future.
The guide will link to other posts that helped me in several spots. My goal is not to rewrite the other guides (nor could I if I wanted to), but instead to try and consolidate the information required for a successful, judder free, and utterly wonderful 1080p playback experience on the very affordable Acer Revo 1600 nettop.
More than anything, I'll highlight the huge gotchas that cost me tons of troubleshooting time after following the other guides that are already out there.
Without further ado... here it is.
System Info:
Acer Aspire Revo 1600 (stock, i.e. only the standard 1GB RAM)
Linux Ubuntu Jaunty Jackelope 9.04
XBMC 9.11 Stable
Audio Out: HDMI
Display: Denon 3808 receiver (HDMI video passthrough) to Epson 1080UB projector (1080p capable)
NVidia Driver: 185.18.14
Note: I wouldn't recommend trying to go beyond the 185 driver versions as they all break HDMI audio (apparently a fix is in the works, but for now, they don't work).
Note that other posters (below) have had luck with the later versions of 190 and 195 NVIDIA drivers. I only tried several early 190 versions that broke HDMI every time. I haven't tried the newer ones myself, but it sounds like it is a lot easier to get correctly mapped multi-channel audio using those new versions. As with all things, YMMV. Pick the parts of this guide that work for you.
Audio modes possible: Dolby TrueHD, Dolby (SD) 5.1 surround, DTS (core), 6 or 8 channel LPCM (i.e. up to 7.1)
Video supported: Buttery smooth 1080p, even on very high bitrate material like the infamous "killa sample" movie that is commonly used here as a test.
OS Choice: I chose to start with a full Ubuntu install as opposed to minimal (basically out of laziness) because I already had a 9.04 CD and didn't need to download it again. Also, I was familiar with the Gnome desktop (and not much else) in Linux and decided I'd prefer that to XBMC Live.
Link to Torrent for Image created Using these instructions (thanks Thermite). You can access a wonderfully-detailed set of instructions here, from Shamo42. Another similar guide was written by DecK (Here are the screenshots for DecK's instructions).
Remember that this requires you to boot using the Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD before applying the image. (the version is important! i.e. Don't use a 9.10 Live CD). Secondly, the username for the image is xbmc, and the password is xbmc! Finally, if you are installing straight over Windows, you will have to repair Grub after the image is applied to your Acer. (the image will be applied fine, but you will get a boot error after restarting because you need to tell Grub (the boot loader) on which partition to find your new Ubuntu install) Those instructions are here.
Pitfall 1: How to install a new OS from a thumb drive
For the OS install, since the Acer does not have an optical drive, I recommend a program called unetbootin to "burn" the Ubuntu image to a USB drive and allow for the Ubuntu install from USB.
Once you have that the OS up and running, you can follow any one of the great guides out there for installing XBMC install on Linux. Google is your friend. Check any one of them out. This part should be -relatively- easy. Just remember that most of the guides you find are for XBMC-Live so you have to take slightly different steps to do the install in Ubuntu, but it should be fairly obvious where different steps are required.
Pitfall 2: Increase iGPU frame buffer in Revo BIOS
If you are working with the standard 1GB of RAM in the Revo, you need to change the BIOS setting for iGPU to 256GB (from 128). Follow the link in the guide above to do so.
Pitfall 3: Problems relating to accessing content on a Windows network share
First, I recommend you ensure that the user profile you are using to connect to your Windows server is an administrator on the Windows machine. Second, be sure that the profile uses a password for login. While Windows will try to tell you that it will allow unauthenticated logins, it ultimately creates all kinds of problems down the road and it's easier to assign your primary account a password, or create a second user with a password for the sole purposes of remote logins. (i.e. on mine since I didn't care to password protect the account I regularly use, I created a new admin called "remote" and gave it an easy to remember password)
Second, on mounting the remote shares, I'd never done this before, so I first had to figure out how to edit fstab, solve problems with the Revo hanging on shutdown, problems with my network shares suddenly dropping offline (all kinds of annoying problems!)
First, here is a good how-to guide on setting up the shares in the first place.
Make sure you follow the steps under the heading "System Hangs on Shutdown" Otherwise the Revo will hang for a couple of minutes every time you reboot.
Pitfall 4: Problems relating to accessing content on a Windows 7 file server
This one drove me nuts! Windows 7 requires changes to the registry to keep the computer with the content on it from dropping the network shares. If you are having this problem, you must set the lanmanserver/parameters/size key to 3 (for a fileserver). Check the link for details, but don't skip this step or you will eventually have annoying dropouts of your entire media library.
Pitfall 5: Audio / video sync issues with MKV files
Another one that cost me days... Note that in the 9.11 Camelot release, there is a bug that causes MKV DVD rips to lose A/V sync. Fixing this is beyond the scope of this guide, but just rest assured that there is a problem within XBMC and it not you! You can either download an SVN release that includes the fix or you can wait for the next release of XBMC.
Pitfall 6: Remote control install
Again, there are several good guides for this. This one explains how it works fairly well. Second, this is a great guide if you have a Harmony remote. This thread is also very good.
Pitfall 7: Multi-channel audio
Follow this guide. It works flawlessly with the Revo. Remember, this only works consistently with the 185.xx versions of the Nvidia drivers. Take your time following this guide and follow the steps very carefully. It does work just as written but it is fairly easy to make a mistake given the complexity of it.
Pitfall 8: Video judder!
Oh the agony! I've read so many posts about this problem. The Revo is running along at low CPU and then randomly the video jerks for a few seconds before returning to normal. The logs show nothing. Frustration sets in and you start to convince yourself that the Revo is too modest a hardware platform to playback HD correctly, you consider upgrading the RAM, you consider chucking it out the window, etc. Well, take heart, I assure you that it is fully capable.
This one was by far the hardest one to solve and everyone's situation is slightly different. Here are the changes that helped me:
This concludes the first post. The solutions that helped me with video judder will be added in the second post.
The guide will link to other posts that helped me in several spots. My goal is not to rewrite the other guides (nor could I if I wanted to), but instead to try and consolidate the information required for a successful, judder free, and utterly wonderful 1080p playback experience on the very affordable Acer Revo 1600 nettop.
More than anything, I'll highlight the huge gotchas that cost me tons of troubleshooting time after following the other guides that are already out there.
Without further ado... here it is.
System Info:
Acer Aspire Revo 1600 (stock, i.e. only the standard 1GB RAM)
Linux Ubuntu Jaunty Jackelope 9.04
XBMC 9.11 Stable
Audio Out: HDMI
Display: Denon 3808 receiver (HDMI video passthrough) to Epson 1080UB projector (1080p capable)
NVidia Driver: 185.18.14
Note: I wouldn't recommend trying to go beyond the 185 driver versions as they all break HDMI audio (apparently a fix is in the works, but for now, they don't work).
Note that other posters (below) have had luck with the later versions of 190 and 195 NVIDIA drivers. I only tried several early 190 versions that broke HDMI every time. I haven't tried the newer ones myself, but it sounds like it is a lot easier to get correctly mapped multi-channel audio using those new versions. As with all things, YMMV. Pick the parts of this guide that work for you.
Audio modes possible: Dolby TrueHD, Dolby (SD) 5.1 surround, DTS (core), 6 or 8 channel LPCM (i.e. up to 7.1)
Video supported: Buttery smooth 1080p, even on very high bitrate material like the infamous "killa sample" movie that is commonly used here as a test.
OS Choice: I chose to start with a full Ubuntu install as opposed to minimal (basically out of laziness) because I already had a 9.04 CD and didn't need to download it again. Also, I was familiar with the Gnome desktop (and not much else) in Linux and decided I'd prefer that to XBMC Live.
Link to Torrent for Image created Using these instructions (thanks Thermite). You can access a wonderfully-detailed set of instructions here, from Shamo42. Another similar guide was written by DecK (Here are the screenshots for DecK's instructions).
Remember that this requires you to boot using the Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD before applying the image. (the version is important! i.e. Don't use a 9.10 Live CD). Secondly, the username for the image is xbmc, and the password is xbmc! Finally, if you are installing straight over Windows, you will have to repair Grub after the image is applied to your Acer. (the image will be applied fine, but you will get a boot error after restarting because you need to tell Grub (the boot loader) on which partition to find your new Ubuntu install) Those instructions are here.
Pitfall 1: How to install a new OS from a thumb drive
For the OS install, since the Acer does not have an optical drive, I recommend a program called unetbootin to "burn" the Ubuntu image to a USB drive and allow for the Ubuntu install from USB.
Once you have that the OS up and running, you can follow any one of the great guides out there for installing XBMC install on Linux. Google is your friend. Check any one of them out. This part should be -relatively- easy. Just remember that most of the guides you find are for XBMC-Live so you have to take slightly different steps to do the install in Ubuntu, but it should be fairly obvious where different steps are required.
Pitfall 2: Increase iGPU frame buffer in Revo BIOS
If you are working with the standard 1GB of RAM in the Revo, you need to change the BIOS setting for iGPU to 256GB (from 128). Follow the link in the guide above to do so.
Pitfall 3: Problems relating to accessing content on a Windows network share
First, I recommend you ensure that the user profile you are using to connect to your Windows server is an administrator on the Windows machine. Second, be sure that the profile uses a password for login. While Windows will try to tell you that it will allow unauthenticated logins, it ultimately creates all kinds of problems down the road and it's easier to assign your primary account a password, or create a second user with a password for the sole purposes of remote logins. (i.e. on mine since I didn't care to password protect the account I regularly use, I created a new admin called "remote" and gave it an easy to remember password)
Second, on mounting the remote shares, I'd never done this before, so I first had to figure out how to edit fstab, solve problems with the Revo hanging on shutdown, problems with my network shares suddenly dropping offline (all kinds of annoying problems!)
First, here is a good how-to guide on setting up the shares in the first place.
Make sure you follow the steps under the heading "System Hangs on Shutdown" Otherwise the Revo will hang for a couple of minutes every time you reboot.
Pitfall 4: Problems relating to accessing content on a Windows 7 file server
This one drove me nuts! Windows 7 requires changes to the registry to keep the computer with the content on it from dropping the network shares. If you are having this problem, you must set the lanmanserver/parameters/size key to 3 (for a fileserver). Check the link for details, but don't skip this step or you will eventually have annoying dropouts of your entire media library.
Pitfall 5: Audio / video sync issues with MKV files
Another one that cost me days... Note that in the 9.11 Camelot release, there is a bug that causes MKV DVD rips to lose A/V sync. Fixing this is beyond the scope of this guide, but just rest assured that there is a problem within XBMC and it not you! You can either download an SVN release that includes the fix or you can wait for the next release of XBMC.
Pitfall 6: Remote control install
Again, there are several good guides for this. This one explains how it works fairly well. Second, this is a great guide if you have a Harmony remote. This thread is also very good.
Pitfall 7: Multi-channel audio
Follow this guide. It works flawlessly with the Revo. Remember, this only works consistently with the 185.xx versions of the Nvidia drivers. Take your time following this guide and follow the steps very carefully. It does work just as written but it is fairly easy to make a mistake given the complexity of it.
Pitfall 8: Video judder!
Oh the agony! I've read so many posts about this problem. The Revo is running along at low CPU and then randomly the video jerks for a few seconds before returning to normal. The logs show nothing. Frustration sets in and you start to convince yourself that the Revo is too modest a hardware platform to playback HD correctly, you consider upgrading the RAM, you consider chucking it out the window, etc. Well, take heart, I assure you that it is fully capable.
This one was by far the hardest one to solve and everyone's situation is slightly different. Here are the changes that helped me:
This concludes the first post. The solutions that helped me with video judder will be added in the second post.