tweaking ubuntu htpc for usage

Following some quick and dirty testing (long live Live USB distributions), it seems that the best HTPC-suited full size distribution remains the all popular Ubuntu.

I’ve been looking for:

– overall reliability (all Linux-based distros, heh)
– relatively new packages (unfortunately, Debian Sid is not modern enough)
– a full size distro (no OpenELEC, no custom XBMCs meant to run on a Raspberry Pi)
– well polished (and Linux Mint failed here).

Ubuntu is “miss popularity” right now, so that means it has a big user base and a large community – a nice thing to have when looking for information. So despite Mark Shuttleworth’s recent efforts to monetize Ubuntu (see Richard Stallman’s recent rant as an example), I chose Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Why not Ubuntu 12.10 ? because it has some regression failures in Bluetooth (bluetooth daemon cores on the 64-bit version) and I want to use a Bluetooth keyboard.

So, without further ado:

Add the most recent Intel driver

… assuming the stock xserver-xorg-video-intel package is already installed. If not, install it first.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:glasen/intel-driver
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Another useful repository is Oibaf:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Or if you feel gung-ho, go for the complete package list with xorg-edgers:

add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Use XBMC from GIT

… and not standard Ubuntu repository.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:team-xbmc/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

Mount temporary files into RAM

… to avoid unnecessary access on your main SSD drive. You *are* using a SSD drive, right ? Put these 3 lines in /etc/fstab:

tmpfs    /tmp    tmpfs    nodev,nosuid,noexec,relatime,mode=1777,size=15%    0    0
tmpfs    /var/tmp    tmpfs    defaults,size=5%    0    0
tmpfs    /var/log    tmpfs    defaults,size=5%    0    0

Check Intel’s driver is using acceleration

… which should be enabled by default if you’re using the above Intel driver. Check with “grep SNA /var/log/Xorg.0.log”, it should say something similar to:

[    67.620] (II) intel(0): SNA initialized with IvyBridge backend

If it’s not, create /etc/X11/xorg.conf and insert the below lines:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
EndSection

Use PuppyPowered’s XBMC script

… to launch XBMC in full screen on your TV after tweaking it for your configuration. The script can be found here.

In case you’re not satisfied with any of the “aftermarket” PPA repositories, you can remove them with:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:your/ppa-name