Create your own bugdet Home Theater PC with Linux

A Home Theater PC (HTPC) or media PC is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal computer and a media center software application which feature video and music playback, and usually also has digital video recorder functionality. It normally has a 10-foot user interface and is typically connected to a television or other large-screen computer display, and is often used as a digital photo, music, video player, TV receiver and digital video recorder, and normally controlled with a remote control.

The general goal of an HTPC is usually to combine many or all components of a home theater set-up into a single machine that will be located where the home entertainment system is desired. An HTPC system is typically controlled with a remote control for controlling the main interface although you can always use just a keyboard and mouse to control the PC.

There are basically 2 types of HTPCs. One is a dedicated and usually expensive stand alone and proprietary complete Media Center PCs manufactured by companies such as Apple (Apple TV), HP, Dell and Gateway and the other is basically any regular IBM compatible PC fitted with an open source or proprietary media player software such as XBMC, MythTV, Boxee and GeexboX.

If you have an old, unused PC lying around your house, you can basically build yourself a budget, open-sourced, Linux-based HTPC of your own with minimum budget. Just install any one of the popular Linux-based media player OS such as XBMC, Mythbuntu or GeexboX on that PC, hooked it up to your TV via a VGA cable and you're ready to watch most types of video formats on your PC. If you'd like to record video from your TV, just install a video capture card on your PC and it will record them straight to the hard drive. Below are 3 of the popular Linux-based media player OS that I've tried and used at home.

XBMC
XBMC is an award-winning free and open source software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. Originally created for the Xbox, XBMC is now available for install on Linux, Mac OSX and also Windows. And if you can also load XBMC from a live CD without installing any files to your PC.
While XBMC functions very well as a standard media player application for your computer, it has been designed to be the perfect companion for your HTPC. Supporting an almost endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater.
Currently XBMC can be used to play almost all popular audio and video formats around. It was designed for network playback, so you can stream your multimedia from anywhere in the house or directly from the internet using practically any protocol available.
XBMC can play CDs and DVDs directly from the disk or image file, almost all popular archive formats from your hard drive, and even files inside ZIP and RAR archives. It will even scan all of your media and automatically create a personalized library complete with box covers, descriptions, and fanart. There are playlist and slideshow functions, a weather forecast feature and many audio visualizations. Once installed, your computer will become a fully functional multimedia jukebox.

XBMC is by far the most complete and popular open-source media center that I've found so far. However, the minimum hardware requirement for XBMC is quite high compared to the other HTPCs that I've tried. Recommended hardware to install XBMC is Pentium IV processor with 512MB of RAM.

Mythbuntu
Mythbuntu is a flavour of MythTV media player software specially created for Ubuntu Linux. It can be used to prepare a standalone system or for integration with an existing MythTV network. MythTV itself is a hugely popular media player software comparable to Microsoft's Windows Media Center, Apple's Front Row, Boxee and also XBMC.
Mythbuntu uses the XFCE4 desktop. All unnecessary standard Ubuntu applications such as OpenOffice, Evolution, and a full Gnome desktop are not installed in a default Mythbuntu install. If at any time a user wants to, they can install ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, or xubuntu-desktop and add a full desktop onto their installation. This can easily be done via the Mythbuntu Control Centre.
Like XBMC, Mythbuntu can play virtually any type of video and audio file formats, stream from a network location and connect to online based TV service such as Hulu and Netflix. The minimum requirement for Mythbuntu is similar to XBMC which is any Pentium IV or similar processor and 512MB RAM.
The installation process is a little bit complicated for the average user. There's the frontend and backend server and I still can't get my Mythbuntu installation to play my video files from a network location. Still, if you have time and patience to tinker around with XFCE and command lines then maybe Mythbuntu is the perfect solution for your HTPC.

GeexboX

GeeXboX is really small but powerful Linux-based standalone media player. It can play all kinds of video and audio formats including MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 movies, DivX, XviD, H.264 files, RealMedia and Windows Media movies, OggMedia streams, Matroska streams, audio streams like MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV (AudioCD), AC3, DTS, MusePack, FLAC and many more.
GeeXboX is a full operating system, running under Linux and based on the excellent MPlayer. No need for a hard drive, you just have to put the GeeXboX bootable CD into the CD-Drive of any Pentium-class or Apple Macintosh computer to boot it.

Geexbox can be run from a Windows, Linux or Macintosh based computer. You can also simply boot from a live CD or USB stick and the program will be copied into your RAM and it everything will run from there, no need to install anything to your hard drive.
GeexBox is so small that you can even run it from a 400MHz Pentium II processor with 64MB of RAM where the software will only take 16MB of disk space. The installation and settings is really simple and easy to configure too compared to XBMC or Mythbuntu. I'd really recommend GeexboX to everyone especially for the beginners.
Building your very own HTPC can save you a lot of money and for geeks like me it can be very satisfying indeed. My current HTPC is running GeexboX, build from a 800MHz Pentium III PC with 128MB of RAM which I got literally free from a friend. All I need to buy is a regular VGA cable to hook it up to my LCD TV and I'm all set.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intreprid Ibex review

Earlier this month, Canonical released the latest version of their Ubuntu operating system called Ubuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex'. That's the beautiful thing about Linux distros. The new version rolls out at least every 6 months instead of 4 to 5 years like Windows or Mac OS. Download or order (for free) the latest version of Ubuntu from their website here.
Version 8.10 offers a slight improvement over 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and unlike Hardy, Long Term Support (LTS) is not available for Ibex. To upgrade your old Ubuntu system to Intrepid Ibex, just download the desktop version and load the disc into the drive. A dialogue box will appear and you just click Start Package Manager to begin the upgrade. Alternatively you can do a clean install using either the desktop or alternative version CD.
Installation time on my 1.2GHZ Pentium 4 PC with 768MB RAM took approximately 45 minutes using the alternative CD. GUI-wise, Intrepid Ibex doesn't offer much difference from Hardy Heron where they still use the brown Human theme for the desktop. A lot of people objected to the wallpaper used in the beta version so I guess this new arty wallpaper is a real improvement from the previous one. Not that it matters to me much of course since I'd prefer my Mac4Lin theme better. As always, all my hardware was detected and installed automatically, graphic, sound, network. That's another thing I love about Linux. No need to search for any drivers.
One major improvement in 8.10 is the 3G support. Now you can just plug in your 3G modem or phone (if they're supported by Ubuntu) and you can connect to the Internet instantly. There's no roaming mode in this version and Ubuntu automatically set my network to DHCP. You can also choose your wireless network in the Network Connections setting.
Like Hardy Heron, mounting a different partition requires authorization which I think is totally unnecessary.
You can now mount and unmount a volume just by clicking the appropriate button on the left pane of your File Browser. And just like Hardy Heron, I still cannot move my deleted files to the trash bin, leaving me no choice but to delete them immediately. From the forums I read, they say it's a bug caused by the NTFS partition that I'm using. Nevertheless I still think people at Ubuntu should try their best to rectify this problem for security reasons. A working Trash bin is essential for any respectable operating system all right? Funny I didn't have this problem with Gutsy Gibbon though.
Playing proprietary file formats such as mp3s, wmv, quicktime and DVDs still require downloading some codecs. Among the first thing I did after installing Intrepid Ibex is to add the Medibuntu repository and download the libdvdcss2 and w32codecs codecs.
Mozilla's Firefox is still their default browser with the latest 3.03 version installed. Adobe Flash plug-in is still missing from the browser and you need to install it manually because all 3 of the plug-ins showed in the photo just didn't work. Enter this line below in your terminal to install the flash plug-in.

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

For productivity suite, Open Office.org version 2.4.1 is installed by default although you can always manually upgrade to the 3.0 beta version. I find that this version loads a lot faster than its predecessor too.
Another new feature for Intrepid Ibex is you can view multimedia contents like streaming audio/video and podcast from selected providers like the BBC and YouTube. I didn't get to watch any of them because they took forever to load on my snail speed Maxis wireless narrowband.
I don't know what happened to the encrypted private folder that I choose to set up during installation because I just can't find them anywhere. Except for the 3G connectivity, overall I think Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex is not much different from 8.04. And if you're happy with your current version, I don't see there's any reason for you to upgrade to 8.10. The NTFS-trash bug is still there and the GUI and theme is pretty much the same. All my applications worked perfectly though and my PC hasn't freeze or hang even once since I upgraded to 8.10 three days ago. Well if you count out Crossover Chromium that crashes every time I run it. Overall, I think Intrepid Ibex is a decent improvement from Hardy Heron. I do hope Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunting Jackalope would be much better.

Update

I did found a solution for the cannot move file to trash NTFS bug but it only works for Inteprid Ibex.
In your Menu bar go to Places > Computer and right click on your NTFS drive. Select Properties and then click Drive. In the Mount Options box enter UID=1000 and then close. Unmount and re-mount your NTFS drive or if that didn't work, restart your computer. It worked like a charm for me but be warned that this won't work on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. I screwed up my NTFS partition after trying that and I was forced to reinstall Ubuntu at home. Good luck.

Ubuntu Studio Edition 8.04 installation

Ubuntu Studio Edition is a multimedia creation flavor of Ubuntu. It is aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional. Ubuntu Studio Edition provides a suite of the best open-source applications available for multimedia creation.

This is a step by step guide on how to install Ubuntu Studio Edition 8.04 on an Intel i386 PC, dual boot with Windows XP. This tutorial is also applicable for Ubuntu & Kubuntu 8.04.

Minimum PC specs for Ubuntu Studio Edition installation: Intel Pentium III 800Mhz and above, 512MB RAM, DVD-Rom drive.

First download and burn the Ubuntu Studio Edition DVD image (iso file) from here. For Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron installation, get the alternate CD image.

Tip: If you have an empty hard drive, install Windows first before installing Ubuntu. During the Windows installation, reserve at least one sizable partition (at least 5GB) for your Ubuntu partition and another small partition (at least 500MB) for the swap area.
Next you need to configure your PC to boot from the DVD drive.
Enter the BIOS Setup on your PC and set the DVD drive as the 1st boot device.
Your PC will now boot from the DVD drive. Choose a language.
Now you may select Install Ubuntu Studio or you may want to Check the CD for defects first. Defective CDs will affect your installation process.
Next choose a suitable installation language.
Then choose the country you are currently residing. This will affect the system's time zone.
The installer will ask whether you want to detect the keyboard layout.
Normally I don't want Ubuntu to detect the keyboard for me because this process will take an unnecessarily long time. Besides, most of the keyboards in my country uses the USA layout.
Since I already knew my keyboard uses the USA layout, I just choose the appropriate country.
Wait for a moment while the installer scans the cd...
... and initialize the installation process.
The installer will now attempt to automatically configure your network setting. Usually I would skip this process by selecting Cancel.
This is because if you're PC is connected to the Internet, the installer will attempt to download the latest update from various Ubuntu repositories which could take hours to finish.
Even if you're not connected to the Internet, the installer will attempt to download updates from the Ubuntu servers anyway when your network is configured. Therefore I recommend you unplug the network cable and choose Do not configure the network at this time. You can easily reconfigure your network setting later on.
Enter a hostname for your Ubuntu system. This is similar to putting a name for your PC in Windows.
The installer will now start the partitioning process.
The partioner is a bit tricky for novice users but with the right guide, partioning your hard diks(s) should be a breeze. If you plan to use Ubuntu alone on your PC you might want to use the Guided method. Else if you already got Windows installed on your PC, use the Manual method.
As for me, I have 3 hard disks installed on my PC with 8 seperate partitions. Like I said earlier, you should reserve a partition during Windows installation or you can install Ubuntu on a second hard disk altogether. In this example, I choose the 2nd partition on my 3rd hard disk (15.4G in size) as my Ubuntu partition. The 3rd partition will be used as the swap area. With the 15.4G partition selected, press enter. Be careful not to select your Windows directory partition.
This partition is currently formatted as FAT32 and you have to change it to a Linux file system before you can install Ubuntu on it. Select Use as: and press enter.
Ubuntu supports several Linux file systems but the most common types are Ext3 and Ext2. I would normally choose Ext3 as my Linux file system. Select a file system and press enter.
Next the installer will ask you to set the mount point for this system. The mount point is where the directory where the systems mounts all your hard disk partitions. Choose the root file system and press enter.
Still on the Ubuntu partition, remember to set the Bootable flag as on.
Finally you're finished with setting up the Ubuntu partition. Now you will have to create the swap partition for your Linux system.
Here I use the 3rd partition on my 3rd hard disk (1GB in size) as the swap area. Swap is basically the same as Virtual Memory in Windows but instead of paging files to the hard disk during operation, Linux systems like Ubuntu will use a dedicated partition (swap area) as Virtual Memory. It is possible not to use the swap area in Linux especially if your RAM capacity is huge (1G and above) but it is highly recommended that you create one anyway. This is because when somehow your system ran out of memory and you don't have a swap area, your Linux system might just crash. With the 1GB partiton selected, press enter.
Choose use this partition as swap area. As a rule of thumb, your swap area should be at least twice the size of your physical memory (RAM size) but not more than 1G. Anything larger than that will slow down your system instead.
Now your finished setting up the swap area. No need to change the bootable flag (leave it as off).
To finalize setting up all your Linux partitons (Ext3 and swap area) choose Finish partitioning and write changes to disk.
At the confirmation page, select Yes to write the changes to disks.
The installer will now format your Linux partitions (root and swap area) to their respective file systems. The important point here is you must format one partition to Ext3 format and another partition as a swap area. Remember to set the mount point to root (/) and set the bootable flag to On.
Ubuntu will now install the base system on your hard disk. This will take some time.
After that enter your real name. This information will be use as default name in your e-mail or office applications.
Now enter a username for your account.
And enter the password twice.
The installer will then install all the default software for your Ubuntu system. You can always add or remove any software later on using the Synaptic Package Manager.
For Ubuntu Studio Edition, you can choose from a predefined collections of software from graphical editing suite to audio-video creation suite. Press the Tab key to move between items and press Space to select a particular suite. In the example above, I only select the basic Ubuntu Studio desktop suite because I have no need for the other suites. This menu is the only difference between Ubuntu Studio Edition and the other regular Ubuntu edition installation.
The installer will then resume all the remaining software installation.
Next the installer will look for other operating systems (i.e Windows) before installing the GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader).
The GRUB boot loader will detect any other operating system in your hard drive and list them in the boot loader screen when you boot up your PC. This way you can choose whether to boot into Ubuntu or Windows during start up.
The GRUB boot loader will be installed to the master boot record.
Wait for a moment while Ubuntu finishes the installation process.
Installation is now complete (yay!). Remove the DVD-Rom from the drive and select Continue to restart.
This is the GRUB boot loader screen that I mentioned before. Choose to boot into Ubuntu or Windows.
The Ubuntu Studio Edition start up screen.
Ubuntu Studio Edition login screen.
Ubuntu Studio Edition desktop screenshot. Just one panel for the 8.04 version. Unlike regular Ubuntu editions, Ubuntu Studio Edition uses a black and blue theme.