{"id":4220,"date":"2012-12-18T22:40:34","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T20:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vaxxi.net\/log\/?p=4220"},"modified":"2012-12-18T22:40:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T20:40:34","slug":"tweaking-ubuntu-for-htpc-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vaxxi.net\/log\/tweaking-ubuntu-for-htpc-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"tweaking ubuntu htpc for usage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been looking for:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; overall reliability (all Linux-based distros, heh)<br \/>\n&#8211; relatively new packages (unfortunately, Debian Sid is not modern enough)<br \/>\n&#8211; a full size distro (no OpenELEC, no custom XBMCs meant to run on a Raspberry Pi)<br \/>\n&#8211; well polished (and Linux Mint failed here).<\/p>\n<p>Ubuntu is &#8220;miss popularity&#8221; right now, so that means it has a big user base and a large community &#8211; a nice thing to have when looking for information. So despite Mark Shuttleworth&#8217;s recent efforts to monetize Ubuntu (see Richard Stallman&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/betanews.com\/2012\/12\/10\/richard-stallman-ubuntu-contains-spyware-shouldnt-be-installed-or-recommended\/\">recent rant<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>So, without further ado:<\/p>\n<h3>Add the most recent Intel driver<\/h3>\n<p> &#8230; assuming the stock xserver-xorg-video-intel package is already installed. If not, install it first.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\nsudo apt-add-repository ppa:glasen\/intel-driver\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get upgrade\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>Another useful repository is Oibaf:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\nsudo apt-add-repository ppa:oibaf\/graphics-drivers\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get upgrade\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>Or if you feel gung-ho, go for the complete package list with xorg-edgers:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\nadd-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers\/ppa\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get upgrade\r\n<\/pre>\n<h3>Use XBMC from GIT<\/h3>\n<p> &#8230; and not standard Ubuntu repository.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\nsudo apt-add-repository ppa:team-xbmc\/unstable\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get install xbmc\r\n<\/pre>\n<h3>Mount temporary files into RAM<\/h3>\n<p> &#8230; to avoid unnecessary access on your main SSD drive. You *are* using a SSD drive, right ? Put these 3 lines in \/etc\/fstab:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\ntmpfs    \/tmp    tmpfs    nodev,nosuid,noexec,relatime,mode=1777,size=15%    0    0\r\ntmpfs    \/var\/tmp    tmpfs    defaults,size=5%    0    0\r\ntmpfs    \/var\/log    tmpfs    defaults,size=5%    0    0\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<h3>Check Intel&#8217;s driver is using acceleration<\/h3>\n<p> &#8230; which should be enabled by default if you&#8217;re using the above Intel driver. Check with &#8220;grep SNA \/var\/log\/Xorg.0.log&#8221;, it should say something similar to:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\n&#x5B;    67.620] (II) intel(0): SNA initialized with IvyBridge backend\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>If it&#8217;s not, create \/etc\/X11\/xorg.conf and insert the below lines:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\nSection &quot;Device&quot;\r\nIdentifier &quot;Card0&quot;\r\nDriver &quot;intel&quot;\r\nOption &quot;AccelMethod&quot; &quot;sna&quot;\r\nEndSection\r\n<\/pre>\n<h3>Use PuppyPowered&#8217;s XBMC script<\/h3>\n<p> &#8230; to launch XBMC in full screen on your TV after tweaking it for your configuration. The script can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/puppypowered.com\/135\/xbmc-launch-script-for-ubuntu-11-04\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In case you&#8217;re not satisfied with any of the &#8220;aftermarket&#8221; PPA repositories, you can remove them with:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: plain; title: ; notranslate\" title=\"\">\r\nsudo apt-get install ppa-purge\r\nsudo ppa-purge ppa:your\/ppa-name\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[181,172,170],"class_list":["post-4220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-gadgets","tag-htpc","tag-linux"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is 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