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Now, don't misunderstand... I like Ubuntu. I have it on a number of laptops which are used mainly for web browsing and it works fine. It promotes itself as Linux for the non-linux user, and I s'pose that's true if all you want to do is run the default programs. However, I spent yesterday evening with the Ubuntu Terminal and I think I am emotionally scarred!

(note: I did consider installing XBMC live on my PC as this seems to garner the most positive performance reviews. However, this would mean losing my HDD to XBMC entirely, so a non-starter).

So what happened? I liked Win 7 and want to retain the partition for kids games and just in case Ubuntu XBMC fails for some reason. 

So I decided to dual boot my Revo with Win 7 and Ubuntu 10.04.

I followed the instructions from Kevbert here. Excellent instructions and all worked as described :o)

So now I had a dual booting PC, however I then needed to 'sort' ubuntu. I used the instructions from here. I created a user called xbmc as suggested, however this process did not quite go to plan....

1. The instructions assume Jaunty (9.10) not Lucid (10.04). I didnt therefore use the sources suggested in steps 2 - 5. Instead, I installed Ubuntu Tweak and added the PPA for XBMC from within the 'add sources' section in UTweak. I then opened Synaptic, searched for XBMC and added the standalone version (you'll see why later), events, skins and scripts. Tested XBMC and all appeared to boot as expected.

2. Sound....ahh, sound... now this is where I 'wasted' hours. I had no sound in Ubuntu at all. I installed ALSA, added myself to the audio group and then ran Alsamixer and changed the volume. What these intructions dont say is that you need to be able to access an entry named "IEC958 1", as detailed here. However, I didnt have these options; I had three SPDIF options instead!


so, down the rabbit hole I went. Reinstalled ALSA, tried every sound setting, rebooted countless times (at least the ubuntu boot is quicker than Win7!)....nothing.
In my desperation, I then turned back to google and 'got creative' with my search criteria.


I finally stumbled on the answer by following this thread. This suggested I could force the IEC958 unmute through the terminal using...

/usr/bin/amixer -q -c 0 sset 'Master',0 unmute && /usr/bin/amixer -q -c 0 sset 'Master',0 100 
/usr/bin/amixer -q -c 0 sset 'IEC958 Default PCM',0 unmute
/usr/bin/amixer -q -c 0 sset 'IEC958',0 unmute && /usr/bin/amixer -q -c 0 sset 'IEC958',1 unmute
sudo alsactl store

Sorted!!

3. I then carried on following the original guide from here and installed the nvidia drivers. I wanted XBMC to login automatically on boot to ubuntu, but the process in this guide did not work for me. What worked from me is some info from here, namely..

Autostart XBMC (optional)
By following these instructions, your system will boot directly into XBMC rather than your desktop from now on. It is advised that you delay this step until XBMC is setup as you'd like it.

• From the desktop click System -> Administration -> Login Window
• From the "Security" tab choose "Enable Automatic Login" and select your username.
• Click "OK" to exit.
• Logout of your system.
• From the Login screen choose "Select Session"
• Choose "XBMC" and click "Change Session"
• You're finished. Next time you login you should be greeted with XBMC.

I also added the XBMC SVN repo installer using these instructions.

Following this, I returned to the main guide and installed the power management utilities, configured nvidia and set my XBMC settings as described.

I did one more step to get the menu sounds in XBMC, which i got from here. I actually did these steps in Ubuntu though.

• created a new text file > sudo gedit
• pasted in the following...

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave {
pcm "hdmi"
}
}

• saved the file as .asoundrc into the ~/XBMC/Home folder

Rebooted and all working! :o)