Of course, ideally, you will want to install XBMC on a machine intended for multi-media use. It will work on lower-end video cards, but the interface will be somewhat slower. For a complete listing of supported hardware check out the XBMC hardware page. Now, let’s get on with the installation.

Ubuntu

I will give you a warning here: The most recently supported Ubuntu is 8.10. That does not, however, mean it will not install on anything later. I have XBMC installed and working fine on Ubuntu 9.04. With that in mind here are the installation steps for Ubuntu.

Open up your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following to the end:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-hardy/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-hardy/ubuntu hardy main

Save that file and then issue the command:

sudo apt-get update

Once the update is complete issue the following command:

sudo apt-get install xbmc

If you want to install extra skins, issue this command:

sudo apt-get install xbmc-skin-*

Figure 1

You will find the XBMC menu entry in the Sound And Video sub-menu of the Applications menu. When XBMC opens you will see a very user-friendly interface (see Figure 1).

Now it’s time for a less than user-friendly installation. Because there have been no rpm files created for Fedora, the installation requires a number of steps which will lead you to compiling XBMC. These steps will work for Fedora 8, 9, and 10 as well as CentOS 5.2. Here we go. NOTE: You will need to be the root user for this installation.

If you don’t already have Subversion install, do so now with the command:

yum install subversion

Once Subversion is installed, check out XBMC from subversion with the command:

svn co https://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/trunk

Now install the rpmfusion repository with one of the following commands:

Fedora:

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

and

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rmpfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

CentOS 5 (32 bit):
rpm -Uvh http://apt.sw.be/redhat/e15/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.e15.rf.i386.rpm

CentOS 5 (64 bit):

rpm -Uvh http://apt.sw.be/redhat/e15/en/x86_64/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.e15.rf.x86_64.rpm

Now the fun begins. This installation command is all one line:
yum install SDL* glew glew-devel libmad-devel tre tre-devel libogg libogg-devel libvorbis libvorbis-devel boost boost-devel bzip2-devel bzip2-libs fribidi* lzo lzo-devel mysql-libs mysql-devel jasper jasper-devel faac faac-devel enca enca-devel hal hal-devel hal-libs cmake gperf nasm libXmu-devel fontconfig-devel freetype-devel libXinerama-devel pcre-devel gcc-c++ sqlite-devel curl-devel mysql-devel libcdio-devel libmms-devel faad2-devel flac-devel libsmbclient-devel libXtst-devel

The next step creates a symbolic link for the libmysqlclient.so file. The command is one of these two (depending upon your architecture):

For i386:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0 /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so

For x64:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0 /usr/lib64/libmysqlclient.so

Now cd into the XBMC directory (should be in the directory you are currently working in) and issue the following commands:

./bootstrap

and

./configure

and

make

If you see an error related to jpegint.h, then you might have to issue the following command:

cp XBMC/xbmx/lib/cximage-6.0/jpeg/jpegint.h /usr/include

If you have to issue the above command, then issue the make command again.

Finally issue the command:

make install

And XBMC will install.

On Fedora distributions you might have an issue with SELinux. If so you will need to issue the following commands:
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/avutil-50-i486-linux.so'
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/avcodec-52-i486-linux.so'
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/avformat-52-i486-linux.so'
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t '/usr/local/share/xbmc/system/players/dvdplayer/swscale-0.6.1-i486-linux.so'

That’s it for the Fedora/CentOS installation. You should find XBMC in your Video menu. If you can’t seem to find a menu entry you can always enter xbmc in either a terminal window or the run dialog.

Final thoughts

XBMC is an outstanding media center software. It will play your CDs and DVDs flawlessly. If you have the hardware for this software, it is a much better solution than most other Linux video solutions.

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• Xbox Media Center Cross Platform Alpha (2)
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XBMC has been expanded since then and it can now be installed on various platforms including Windows, Linux or Macintosh computers. It is intended to be used for media PCs (like the Xbox but with additional features) that stream the media to the television but it can be installed on any computer meeting the requirements obviously.

The interface has been designed with usability and wow effect in mind. Links to video, music, images, settings and plugins are available from the main menu. The first three entries lead to similar sections of the media center. The user has to first pick at least one data folder that contains files that can be read by the player. This takes a few seconds at most and it is possible to navigate with the keyboard, mouse or gamepad in the menus.

The media center will pick up metadata automatically but it can also search the Internet for additional information like movie posters, plot summaries or actors.

Plugins enhance the system further. They can add all kinds of new functions to the system like games, communication, news and service integration (Youtube, Apple Trailers, Podcasts).

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• Xbox Media Center Cross Platform Alpha (2)
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That Xbox Media Center is apparently going cross plattform and a early alpha release is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. The funny thing is that you can download all three releases but not the Xbox release from the website because of legal reasons. I still think that Microsoft should hire those guys and make the XBMC the default media application of the Xbox.

It is clearly aimed at media PCs that are used in the living room but it can also be started from any computer that runs a supported operating system. Users who know XBMC from their Xbox will feel familiar with the interface because it looks pretty much alike, only that the gamepad navigation was replaced with mouse navigation.

XBMC is fully skinable, supports plugins that can be downloaded from XBMCScripts like tv guides, games, communication plugins and media plugins. It does come with two scripts, a Tetris game and Apple Trailers which provides access to the vast Apple movie trailers archive which means you can access nearly 1750 movie trailers from within the interface.

The media player plays pretty much everything that you throw at it and supports audio formats and pictures as well. It’s a great application, probably the best media center software ever released.

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Well a little research revealed a Registry setting that would enable the option to enable the DVD library in Windows Media Center 2005. That DVD Library can store the DVDs that are stored on the hard drive in a Video_TS folder.

Here are the steps that are needed to enable the DVD Library feature. Exit the Media Center application and start the Windows Registry Editor by using the shortcut Windows R, regedit, enter.

Now navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Media Center \Settings \DvdSettings and edit the value ShowGallery. Change the value from Play to Gallery.

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