HOW-TO talk:Install Ubuntu and XBMC on Asus EeeBox PC EB1501

EB1501 German / Asian Edition
System: Linux HTPC 2.6.31-17-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 16:20:31 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux Remote (see battery slots): RC1974502/00

No MCE USB IR Receiver
There seem to be some specifics with this version of the eeeBox. There was no any MCE USB IR Receiver packaged, instead there was a notice that states:

"The EeeBox PC has a built-in IR receiver designed for the remote control. When you install the EeeBox PC to the back of the monitor and thus block the IR receiver, the remote control may be less sensitive. The USB IR receiver is not included in the product package."

Notes to get build-in IR receiver to work with the remote control
1) rebuild the ITE modules sudo apt-get install lirc lirc-modules-source module-assistant sudo dpkg-reconfigure lirc-modules-source

2) edit the following lines in /etc/lirc/hardware.conf

REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_dev lirc_it87" REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0" REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF="mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb" REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS="--output=/dev/lircd"

LOAD_MODULES="true" START_LIRCD="true"

3) create /etc/modprobe.d/lirc.conf and add the three lines alias char-major-61 lirc_dev options lirc_it87 irq=05 io=0x2f8 install lirc_it87 echo activate > /sys/devices/pnp0/00:09/resources ; modprobe --ignore-install lirc_it87 $CMDLINE_OPTS

4) you may need to copy the LIRC over to the XBMC directory cp /usr/share/xbmc/system/Lircmap.xml ~/.xbmc/userdata

Enabling the Play DVD Button on the Remote Control
1) The original Lircmap.xml and remote.xml does not cater for the DVD button. To rectify that, add an additional entry in ~/.xbmc/userdata/Lircmap.xml under the section  DVD

2) In the remote.xml file (for my case, this is located at /home/xbmc/.xbmc/userdata/keymaps), add the following outside the group       PlayDVD 3) A CD or DVD can now be played with using the DVD button (located just above number 3) 4) Other keys can be remapped according to individual preferences

Startup error
On startup i got the following error message: nforce2_smbus [...] conflichts with ACPI [...] I got it fixed by sudo vi /etc/default/grub and editing the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX according to this bugreport GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_enforce_resources=lax" and update the grub again with sudo update-grub

Wifi / Wireless setup with WPA2
I had a hassle enabling WPA2 access, connections breaking up every 10-60s for multple minutes, so i kept a note on the steps how to get it working anyway.

The given wireless adapter on the EB1501 is Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) according to lspci -v | grep Network

Disabling the blacklisted atheros module as mentioned here sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf

Commenting the following line out ath_pci blacklist

Install all tools: sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant linux-backports-modules-karmic linux-backports-modules-wireless-karmic-generic

the following steps are based on the guide found here. Then we generate our psk-key we need later by executing wpa_passphrase  

In the result we need to copy value found under the "psk" key. Next we edit sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces

and add the following lines to the bottom auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-driver wext wpa-ssid  wpa-ap-scan 1 wpa-proto RSN wpa-pairwise CCMP wpa-group CCMP wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK wpa-psk 

we could also disable the following line to disable automatic startup of the ethernet interface auto eth0

then restart the whole networking stuff with /etc/init.d/networking restart

then everything went fine, a dhcp ip was given and so on. Maybe there is an easier way but im not that into linux :)

Wireless Setup Alternative
My EeeBox with Atheros 9285 PCI adaptor had issues sustaining both non-secured and secure wireless connections. It would randomly disconnect and would always freeze when transfering large files or sustained throughput at anything over 500Kbps. Installing the backports (described above) did not work for me and others have had varying success with them; could be due to issues with N access points.

However, I did get everything working perfectly by using the latest Linux Wireless drivers available here - http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download

Note - that you must first install the Ubuntubuild environment and tools if not already present: xbmc:$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

''Note - I first tried the backports and then installed these drivers, but that didn't work. I only found success after rebuilding Ubuntu (using the minimal server package in the main article) and then installing only these wireless drivers, your milage may vary...''

Follow the steps for downloading and extracting the latest driver package. Then use the following commands (repeated in detail on the web page, but this is all you need):

1) Select just the Atheros driver components to build: xbmc:$ ./scripts/driver-select ath9k

2) Build the driver xbmc:$ make

3) Install the driver xbmc:$ sudo make install

4) Reboot to enable the driver xbmc:$ sudo reboot

FYI, the wireless drivers in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx beta worked for me out of the box, but I couldn't get XBMC working due to nVidia driver issues, so best wait until 10.04 is released and this guide updated.