This post may be of interest to anyone who wants to install a great media center with HDTV, EPG, timeshift and recording from source code. It appears surprisingly easy to me based on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.
Last weekend I didn't get very far with the c't-VDR 7 article in the current Home Entertainment issue. Then I found a howto by schnere (http://schnere.bveml.net/node/6), which is quite short and comprehensive already. It turned out that the installation is even simpler on my older hardware:
- Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H mainboard with onboard 780G graphics
- Athlon 64 4850e (2x2.5 GHz)
- Technotrend S2-3200
Basically the installation simplifies because my graphics does not support VDPAU; so I skipped the installation of related drivers. Also I skipped the installation of s2-liplianin kernel drivers to start with.
I hope you find this reduced version of schnere's howto useful because it shows how simple live can be.
Prerequesits
- get Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, e.g. from a DVD in a computer journal
- install Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and activate an Internet connection
- download&install software updates as proposed by Ubuntu
- download&install the restricted component with proprietary software (e.g. flash, graphic driver)
- activate the propriatary graphics driver offered by Ubuntu, in order to get XBMC running reasonably well
- add your user as created during the installation of Ubuntu to the group "src", in order to get write access to /usr/src
- download and install the tool "checkinstall", which is used for the installation of XBMC as regular Debian package
All this is well supported by Ubuntu with graphical tools and bundled packages. I think that this is the main reason why I did not fail this time ...
A command console needs to be opened for the following download/compile/install of VDR and XBMC.
VDR Installation
As proposed by schnere, the current version can be obtained from e-tobi; version 1.7.11 at the time of this writing.
Append the following line to the file /etc/apt/sources.lst
Download and install dependencies:
Download and compile VDR:
$ cd /usr/src
$ apt-get source vdr
$ cd /usr/src/vdr-1.7.11
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc -b
Download and install the vdr-dev package, in order to allow the compilation of plugins.
Download and compile the streamdev plugin, which provides the interface between VDR and XBMC:
$ cd /usr/src/vdr-1.7.11/PLUGINS/src/
$ sudo apt-get build-dep vdr-plugin-streamdev
$ apt-get source vdr-plugin-streamdev
$ cd /usr/src/vdr-1.7.11/PLUGINS/src/vdr-plugin-streamdev-0.5.0~pre20090706+cvs20091108.2341/
$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc -b
$ cd /usr/src/vdr-1.7.11/PLUGINS/src/
$ sudo dpkg -i vdr-plugin-streamdev-server_0.5.0~pre20090706+cvs20091108.2341-2_amd64.deb
Restart VDR to get the plugin loaded:
Test VDR and the streamdev plugin with the web browser by looking up
Zitat
You should see the current channel list of VDR. More hints about the configuration and testing of VDR are given by schnere.
XBMC Installation
Download and install dependencies:
$ sudo apt-get install subversion make g++ gcc gawk pmount libtool nasm automake cmake gperf unzip bison libsdl-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-gfx1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libfribidi-dev liblzo2-dev libfreetype6-dev libsqlite3-dev libogg-dev python-sqlite libglew-dev libcurl3 libcurl4-openssl-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev libmad0-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libsmbclient-dev libmysqlclient-dev libpcre3-dev libdbus-1-dev libhal-dev libhal-storage-dev libjasper-dev libfontconfig-dev libbz2-dev libboost-dev libfaac-dev libenca-dev libxt-dev libxtst-dev libxmu-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libpulse-dev mesa-utils libcdio-dev libsamplerate-dev libmms-dev libmpeg3-dev libfaad-dev libflac-dev libiso9660-dev libass-dev libssl-dev
Download and install XBMC:
$ cd /usr/src
$ svn co http://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/branches/pvr-testing2/
$ cd /usr/src/pvr-testing2/
$ ./bootstrap
$ ./configure
$ make -j2
$ sudo checkinstall --fstrans=no --install=yes --pkgname=xbmc --pkgversion "svn-REVISION-pvr-testing2"
Start XBMC and have fun:
Note #1: you need to configure the TV under XBMC settings. Add VDR as so called pvr client (isn't VDR acting as server?!).
Note #2: if you want to play a DVD, insert it and press the play button (triangle) below the main menu.
Some final remarks
I was really surprised to see the HDTV channel EinsFestival HD. Looking great ... just fast movements could be more fluently ... yes, VDPAU is missing here. After the use of the w_scan tool I could also tune other HD channels (Anixe, Arte, Das Erste, ZDF, etc.)
XBMC is running astonishingly well. I don't use it for everyday yet, because I did not install a remote control and because it seems to hang from time to time (i.e. TV is running; the menus don't react anymore). But this seems to be caused by strange sequences of input events given by myself: the more I'm using XBMC, the more I seem to avoid such inputs and the less problems I encounter. I'm not awary of any media center that runs without problems. So many things are running very well and looking great in XBMC!
After all I'd like to thank you folks for developing such great software and for making it usable. Even better if open source software is useable from source code!