Archive:Linux FAQ

XBMC for specific FAQs about XBMC running under Linux, Lunux computer hardware, and Linux operating-system squestions.

About XBMC for Linux

What is XBMC for Linux?

XBMC (formerly named "XBox Media Center", not to be confused with Microsoft's Windows Media Center Extender for the Xbox) is an award-winning free and open source media player, originally designed to run on the Xbox game-console. The GPL/LGPL licensed source code basically consist of a GUI framework that has been written from scratch by Team-XBMC, this GUI acts as a front-end control interface for several audio/video players designed for specific purposes (and those are loaded when needed as DLLs), the GUI is also the user interface to all of XBMC multimedia handling functions such as databases and sorting, etc.. The XBMC Project, (who's members maintain XBMC source code), is a non-profit open source hobby project that is developed by volunteers in their spare-time without any monetary gain. The team of developers working on XBMC have always encouraged anyone to contrinute to the projecj, this would be helpoing out with this wiki and write HOW-TO guides, help others in the forum, skin XBMC, submit source code patches for new features or functions, improve on existing ones, or fix bugs.

Why port XBMC to Linux?

The main reasons for porting XBMC to Linux are non-technical, (so it is not that the Xbox hardware is too slow orgetting too old for the XBMC GUI or its existing features/functions), no the real reasons for the Team-XBMC developers is that we want XBMC to get a larger end-user and developer-base, because the more people who use XBMC and help maintain the code (and skins) the longer the project will grow and stay alive. The main reason from an end-user point of view is that the Xbox can not playback native high-definition video (at 720p and 1080i/1080p), especially not if the video is encoded with a H.264 or VC-1 codec. Nevertheless, note that the XBMC project will still keep the old Xbox as the primary reference platform for standard-definition resolution video for some time (possibly a few more years), which means that the same GUI (and skins) that runs smooth under Linux on a relatively new computer must also run just as smooth on the old Xbox hardware (or a old computer that closely matches the Xbox hardware, at 733Mhz Intel Pentium III CPU and only 64MB shared memory with supported 3D accelerator).

Linux Operating-System Questions

Which are the supported Linux distrobutions?

• Supported Linux Operating-System installed on a supported computer, currently supported OS are:
  • Ubuntu Desktop Edition 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) 32-bit for x86
  • Ubuntu Desktop Edition 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) 32-bit for x86
  • Ubuntu Server Edition 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) 32-bit for x86
  • Ubuntu Server Edition 7.04 (Gutsy Gibbon) 32-bit for x86
  • Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Edition 7.10 (UME) 32-bit for x86
• It is possible to compile and run 32-bit XBMC under 64-bit (AMD64/EMT64) Ubuntu if you run it in a 32bit chroot.

Hardware Questions

What is current recommended hardware requirements for XBMC

For end-users the recommended minimum requirement is a x86-based computer, with a 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that at least supports Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0 (that features 24bpp or 32bpp for 3D hardware-acceleration support, which XBMC GUI need to run smoothly at an acceptable frame-rate). Graphic adapters that support DirectX version 9.0c or later usually meet all of those mentioned requirements, (Team-XBMC recommends NVIDIA GeForce 6150 or later as NVIDIA are currently the manufacturer that offers good device-drivers for Linux (and NVIDIA GeForce 6150 or later supports OpenGL 2.0).

Why is OpenGL 2.0 a requirement for XBMC?

OpenGL 2.0 is not really the current minimum requirement to run XBMC for Linux, as in reality XBMC will today run with only OpenGL 1.4 + GLSL support (everything else has fall-backs to be runned in software on the CPU, slower than GPU hardware though), however to be sure to stay future-proof Team-XBMC have decided that the OpenGL 2.0 is the recommended minimum requirement.

Currently OpenGL 2.0 hardware is only needed for:

• Any deinterlacing that is not linear blending (which FFmpeg does in software)
• Video video post-processing filtering (bicubic upscaling, etc.)
• Non-power of two textures for the GUI (using NPOT saves a lot of texture memory)
• Hardware accelerated YUV 2 RGB conversion (actually GLSL is needed for this, and a few GPU hardware implementations as low as OpenGL 1.4 does provide GLSL as an extension. OpenGL 2.0 guarantees availability of GLSL).

In the future OpenGL 2.0 might also be needed for:

• More video post-processing filters to improve visual quality perception.
• Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding (using the GPU hardware to assist with video decoding)