Which Distro for Media Machine? – 232 days old

[floppybootstomp]

As per the title, I have a machine used purely for audio and video, nothing else at all, hooked up to my stereo and TV.

Requirements:

Audio playback from mp3, FLAC, WAV, wma etc
Audio CD playback.
Radio playback
Video files playback
Bluray playback (including mkv files and Bluray disks)
Internet access

And that's it, perhaps some burning software as well.

Machine spec:

Asus M4N78 Motherboard
AMD AM2 5050e Twin Core CPU 2.4Ghz
Asus GT 520 Silent 2GB Graphics Card
On Board LAN & Sound
2Gb OCZ DDR2 6400C5 memory
WD Raptor 74Gb HDD for OS
Hitachi SATA II 2Tb Disk for storage
Antec Fusion Remote HTPC Case Black
Hauppage Nova T-500 Twin Digital PCI TV Tuner card
LG BH10LS38 Bluray Drive
Corsair 430 Watt PSU
Logitech Cordless Desktop E110 Keyboard & Mouse
(Display & sound are media centre TV & Hi Fi)

I like Mint KDE, currently using V12 on another machine but open to suggestions.

I made this decision as I'm currently using my paid for version of Win Vista and it verily doth suck a great deal, it's so slow. It occured to me that I've often said 'I'd use Linux but I can't play games on it'. Well, this machine is not for playing games so no excuse.

Only probs I can think of is it may not see the machine I use to download files with Mint 12 KDE on Network. My network is hard wired so would this be a prob? It may actually be an advantage cos I download using Mint then swap to Windows for file transfer on network to media machine. And it's likely the Fusion case remote control software won't work in Linux but I only use it for switching machine on and off anyway.

I'm actually feeling quite excited about this, try not to put my fires out, lol

[Bad Haircut]

If you just want a media centre set up give XMBC a look over (overview, wiki, forums, etc), can be made to do all kinds of kewl shit.

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks BH, will do. Just been looking at machine and a couple of other requirements occured to me: iPod management and media file conversion. Not essential, can do on other machines, but would prefer to keep those requirements on one machine. I could search but thought I'd ask opinion here first. TIA for any input

[Bad Haircut]

The plugin range for XMBC gets bigger every day, as folk want it to do more stuff, the more plugins appear. It's got it's limitations but you kind of find those as you go along but it's always worth asking on the forums, half the stuff you don't know exists.

[floppybootstomp]

XBMC doesn't natively play back Bluray disk, unfortunately. And I've just noticed I have XBMC installed on my media machine, I have several players installed on it but the only one I have that plays back Bluray disks is Arcsoft Total Media Player 5, full version, which I, er, picked up along the way somewhere

I think one of the standard players in most Linux Distros plays Bluray disks, not sure, the one with the orange traffic cone - VLC.

I didn't like XBMC initially but just had a play with it and it's actually pretty good at playing back mkv, avi and mp4 files.

I've heard the Bodhi distro being kicked around as good lately - anubody any info on that one?

[Bad Haircut]

Yeah plenty of Plugin support for external media players, like VLC, available. Everything is 'skinable' too. I'd check back on a regular basis re BR support

In the steady march toward full unecrypted Bluray playback, elupus has also incorporated a virtual directory for Bluray files. While XBMC is still only able to display and navigate native HDMV Bluray menus (and not the common BD-J menus), users will be able to view a list of video files that display the video duration in the folder and select whichever video he or she would like to watch. http://xbmc.org/natethomas/2012/06/0...1-0-may-cycle/

Bodhi is nice eye candy if you like Enlightenment.

[Grogan]

Bluray is a horrible format... I will never have any of that. (Well, I'll download bluray rips of movies, that's about it... but that's defeated bluray and has nothing to do with it anymore, it's just a video file. MKV is a free video codec that pretty much everyone except Microsoft supports. Microsoft hates open things).

There is no legitimate playback of encrypted bluray disks in Linux. Not without extra steps... it tends to involve conversion first (you have to convert them to .mkv for playback in MPlayer, either beforehand or on the fly with a script). Players (hard and soft) are licensed, with decryption keys. Rippers use rogue keys that tend to get revoked periodically. There are plugins that do exactly that. They have a database of rogue keys and some libraries for decryption (e.g. libaacs). Unlawful everywhere under U.S. hegemony. VLC has the capabilities, but if it plays encrypted Bluray disks, it's because someone dropped in a completely illegal key database and a library that runs afoul of software patents pretty much everywhere but a few countries in the EU. They technically wouldn't be able to distribute their product under the GPL if they included those libraries as well.

It is most likely that YOU will have to put a key database in a hidden directory, and drop in libaacs.so.0. I don't think VLC is actually shipping with this, even though they are in France which makes crotch grabbing gestures at the U.S. copyright and patent laws. They don't even mention that it exists in their supported featured list.

This is the procedure:

http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/

I don't care about breaking the law myself, but it is an insult that I should have to, just to play something I bought. I'll break the law alright, I'll download already ripped content and skip the paying part.

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks Grogan, to tell the truth I'm begininng to wonder what all the fuss about Bluray is all about, mkv and avi files from decent rips look good to me, I'm hard pushed to tell the difference in quality tbh. I bought the Bluray drive more out of curiosity than anything else and it does burn some nice big data discs of course. I actually only own six titles on Bluray disk, so may just swap the DVDRW in my main machine with the Bluray drive and just use the media machine to playback files from hard disk only.

I don't give a monkeys about legality myself, especially when it comes to big boys like MS trying to make the rules - fuck 'em.

I will, however, buy software I like and think is good and I pay money for all my games.

I do wish I hadn't bought Vista though, was actually the first MS OS I ever paid for though later I did actually shell out for XP when I rebuilt a system, mostly just to get SP3. So, not a bad record eh? I got Win 7 half price on a special offer and XP and Vista as OEM titles so that's all the MS product I've ever paid for since DOS V5.0.

I've made a note of your link, thank you

[Grogan]

Vista? That is the worst thing that has ever emerged from Microsoft's rectum. I'm not even installing that anymore, it's too nauseating (and time consuming to get it up to date... way worse than a vanilla XP install even!). If I replace a Vista hard drive, I will do something "else"

[floppybootstomp]

Vista? That is the worst thing that has ever emerged from Microsoft's rectum. I'm not even installing that anymore, it's too nauseating (and time consuming to get it up to date... way worse than a vanilla XP install even!). If I replace a Vista hard drive, I will do something "else"

Uh, yep, I know that now, but I didn't when I paid money for it

Which is why I want to get shot of it, I'm sure there's a distro that will suit my needs and consign Vista to the local cess pit. Doing lottsa thinking here atm...

[Grogan]

I had Vista too (still have, in closet)... I spent $150 on it (OEM) for the rig. I hated it (even though I trimmed it down by turning off EVERYTHING that wasn't needed for games) and very soon ended up forking out AGAIN for that same rig, for Windows 7 Professional. I sold the rig for $500 several months later. I lost a lot of money on that. It's still costing me money, really, because I get calls every time the user is having trouble doing something. One time he was having trouble burning CDs and blamed the CD burner. That pissed me off, because I installed a brand new one out of my pocket before I sold it to him. (I left the old one in so he'd have two... only thing wrong with the old one is that the eject button sticks sometimes and you have to press it a few times. Trivial... you can right click and eject or use the paper clip hole any time for that matter). He just wasn't using the software correctly... trying to put too much on the disk. I was kind of pissy at the accusation (he said "I'm getting ready to kick some ass here!" which took some restraint not to react adversely to) and I had been over it and over it with him, so I changed his software to something that didn't easily allow him to go over size.

[Bad Haircut]

I'm sure there's a distro that will suit my needs and consign Vista to the local cess pit. Doing lottsa thinking here atm...

Just occurred to me Flopps, you do know you can install XBMCbuntu from XMBC, which is basically a fully fledged working Ubuntu with XMBC as default GUI?

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks BH, I'll give it a try.

Got a bit of a spurt on this evening, despite having had a few bevies, swapped optical drives over so Bluray drive now on main machine, ordinary DVDRW drive in media machine. Played a coupla Bluray disks in Bluray drive in main machine using Arcsoft Media 5, looks fine fine fine, and on a 27" screen as opposed to 37" screen I can see the difference in quality, looks good. However, tried to play genuine copy of 'Avatar' and it wouldn't have it, said it needed a 'BD Update' whatever that is. It may be to do with Arcsoft media player, I have the Firewall configured to block online communication with that one, for obvious reasons

Took out HD with Vista on and put in a 120Gb SATA HD and thought I'd install a Linux Distro. Tried Mint 13/KDE 64 Bit and it crashed during install and same with Mint 12 KDE. Is my system perhaps 32 Bit? (see specs in opening post) Confusing.

I also took Hauppage TV card out of media machine cos I doubt very much if any Linux drivers are available for it and anyhow, I've never used it, don't watch TV. Why did I buy it a coupla years ago then? I do know how to waste money eh? I will put it in bedroom machine anyway, I have installed aerial (antennae) socket there, so it'll be there if I want it.

I will come back to this when I'm less tired and sober but can't understand why 2 attempted distro installs failed for the moment.

[Grogan]

That CPU (AMD X2 5050e AM2) supports AMD64. (a.k.a. x64, or x86_64) so it's not that. You wouldn't get off the ground even booting with a 64 bit distro kernel on an install CD if it didn't.

[floppybootstomp]

The storage disk in this machine is actually 3Tb, not 2Tb as I listed above, I remember now, I installed it some months ago, needed more space, currently have 845Gb free.

So, on a whim I disconnected 3Tb storage disk and installed Mint 13KDE 64 Bit and it went without a hitch. Default res was 1920 x 1080 and I tried various other settings but still couldn't see task bar. Eventually figured to change 37" TV settings from 16:9 ratio to 'Just Scan' and it looks fine, refresh rate on auto. Deafult player for video was Kaffeine and for sound Amarok. Video file audio sometimes stuttered slightly on playback in Kaffeine, Amarok was fine for Audio but annoyed me when I closed it down it just carried on playing and went to the task bar, had to exit from there but that's a minor niggle.

As is apparent, sound and video worked fine on install and I was online straight away. I'm using a Lexmark Wireless Pro 700 printer which works fine with all Windows installs, including the old Vista install. Mint 13 sees it it, adds it, but won't print a test page or anything else. This motherboard had a thing called Express Gate where on boot it would list shortcuts to various OS functions, supposedly for quicker access if you just wanted to check e-mail without opening full OS for instance. It doesn't work now but that doesn't matter cos I never used it anyway.

Have installed XMBC, video playback is excellent - no sound stuttering either, as in Kaffeine - but settings are taking a little getting used to, I was trying to import all movie titles (about 600 of 'em) from folder into XBMC playlist but can only seem to do one at a time so haven't bothered, if I want to play one back I just browse to it in XMBC and play, no prob. I have yet to figure out how to access audio files from XBMC, I can't seem to browse to them, it looks as though I have to type in exact path, and I'm not sure how to do that yet.

In Mint 12 the Software Manager was broken, seems to work in V.13 but when I used it to install XBMC it looked as if it had froze on 16% install. So I used Synaptic Package Manager to install and it told me it was already installed but I done a re-install just to make sure.

I have disabled screen saver and all energy settings but have yet to see whether those settings work or not, on my V.12 despite making all those same settings the screen always goes blank after ten minutes or so. Annoying.

This is going to take some getting used to after being used to Windows for my media but already I've noticed this OS boots and runs a helluva lot faster than Vista. I shall persevere and exercise patience but as a safety net I still have the HDD with Vista on it Who said coward?

[Bad Haircut]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title...ck_Start_Guide

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title...export_library

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title...0the%20library

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=137311


you get the gist, Flopps. There's a ton of documentation and youtube video for it all. You'll quickly get the hang of it tho if you persevere.

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks BH, it appears I have some reading to do...

Energy settings work ok, screen now permanently on, nothing shutting down after a time limit, that's good.

I have managed to play some music in XBMC now, not quite sure what I did but my storage hard disk - cleverly entitled 'storage' - has now been added to the browse options within the player. However, I've been used to just opening one of my music folders, the main two are labelled 'mp3' and 'FLAC' right clicking on a folder and selecting 'Play in Winamp'. I'm after something as convenient as that.

I know, I know, it's all different now and I have to read and study, I'll get there, hopefully. There's a lot to like about XBMC though, I must say, nice presentation and it's found the greater majority of artwork for albums.

I'll also be searching for iPod management and media file conversion software that will work within this Distro.

Thanks again for links BH

[Bad Haircut]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Online_Manual and http://forum.xbmc.org/index.php are probably best starting points.

From what I read XBMCbuntu is Ubuntu with XBMC gui, which means if you ALT + CTRL + F1 to black screen and login as normal you can sudo apt-get install xxxxxx (whatever app). Next, type "exit" then press ALT + CTRL + F7 together to get back to the XBMC GUI. Navigate over to Programs, click "Add-ons" followed by "Get more." and follow your nose thru the rest.

I got that from this guide: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/23/h...xbmcbuntu-way/

[floppybootstomp]

Oh, now that looks interesting Thanks.

I have another spare 120Gb SATA HDD and it's really easy to swap disks in this media case, I think I might try XBMCbuntu.

Have been playing music in XMBC all morning, still finding it quite peculiar to navigate

But now I gotta go to the Post Office, looks like it's stopped raining.

[Bad Haircut]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title...ngs/Appearance

pretty sure it's all in the wiki but it's pretty intuitive when you tune into it / set it up.