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 frith
God
Registered: 10/27/09
Posts: 7,512
Loc: Philadelphia, PA 
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 HOWTO: HTPC done right   1
#13555448 - 11/28/10 11:49 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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a few people have been asking me lately about how i set up my HTPC. i use very modest hardware and still get very high quality output from it. i figured i may as well share the knowledge.
a few weeks ago i posted my howto for rtorrent here. i thought this would compliment it well.
the most important thing about setting up an HTPC is that this is NOT a computer. this is an appliance. if you keep that thought in your head and try to build the machine around that concept you get a much much nicer finished product.
i use XBMC as my primary frontend for the HTPC. the following setup works very well for me but not be right for you.
Pros:
- works well on cheap hardware
- HD video playback
- OS has a small footprint
- plays any audio/video file under the sun (DRM crippled files excluded)
- near limitless configuration options
- linux based
Cons:
- no bluray support
- no netflix streaming
- no tv recording (possible using something like MythTV, i do not have cable so i have no need for a recording function)
- manual installation and configuration (not a turn-key solution)
if the majority of your content comes from the internet than the above cons arent really a big deal. and you could always get a bluray player with netflix streaming if you really wanted it.
Hardware:
ideally you want something very quiet and low powered. loud machines are ungodly annoying when trying to watch a quiet, serious film.
by far, the best option for this is an Intel Atom based machine with Nvidia Ion graphics.
also, if you are going to be streaming HD video from another machine, you should definitely get something with gigabit ethernet. you can get away with 720p over 10/100 but 1080p gets a little choppy. if you cant run cable then wireless N is recommended in all instances.
a few companies build premade machines with this configuration. most notably Zotac and the Acer Aspire Revo.
the Acer Aspire Revo is very nice, however, it comes with Windows 7 preinstalled and a keyboard and mouse. since this is an appliance, there is no need for a keyboard and mouse. and since we will be using linux for this machine, there is no need for Windows. no need to pay for what we arent going to be using.
my recommendation is to grab a Zotac ZBOX or MAG-HD (if they are still in production when you read this). i personally have a MAG-HD. my reasons for getting this one is because it has the Atom/Ion/GigE combo, there is no OS installed and it does not come with a keyboard or mouse. since it doesnt come with all that stuff, it is cheaper than the Revo. i can also mount it to the back of the TV:
 
the ZBOX is basically the same thing but does not come with any RAM or HDD.
2gb of ram is plenty for this setup... we are keeping it very slim. as far as hard drive space, ideally, you get the smallest hard drive you can find (because they are cheap) and spend as much as you can afford for external storage. either an external hard drive with support for eSATA or build your own NAS and stream the content over the network*.
*building a NAS is outside the scope of this howto but just FYI, Samba (aka Windows file sharing) is very simple and easy to set up. however, it is not fast enough to be able to stream HD video. youll want to use NFS.
you can build the HTPC yourself if you want. ive found it to be more expensive to do it this way though. 
one other thing youll want to grab is a remote. you can use any windows media center remote. they will work out of the box on linux.
there are software applications you can use on your smartphone to control XBMC over wifi. they work very well but drain your battery pretty quickly. its also nice to have a dedicated remote just in case someone wants to watch something and youre not home.
Software:
Distro:
when choosing the right linux distro for this setup you have to keep things very small, clean, and efficient. the ideal choices are the Debian net install, Arch Linux, and Gentoo (if you are a sadist  ). Ubuntu server would probably work but there is a lot of extra stuff installed with that that you will have no need for.. you could do better.
the Debian net install asks you at some point during the installation if you would like to choose a mirror. DONT DO IT. this will automatically install all the packages needed for a normal desktop including Gnome (which we will not be using). by not choosing a mirror, you get a very minimal, CLI only install. thats exactly what you want. as far as i can recall, that is the only thing you have to watch out for when installing Debian.
Arch and Gentoo are CLI only by default.
use unetbootin to setup a bootable USB drive then install your OS of choice however you see fit. i generally give / 10gb just for some growing room, a gb or two for swap, and the rest for /home. its up to you though..
Packages:
ok so once you have the OS installed you need to grab the packages. these are all you need:
alsa, hal, dbus, lirc, ssh, xorg, acpid, unrar, unzip, p7zip, codecs (however your distro packages them), a text editor of your choosing (emacs, vim, nano, etc), the closed-source nvidia drivers (required for HD playback), and xbmc.
thats it. no window manager.
depending on your setup, you may want to install some option extras:
nfs, gnu screen, rtorrent, sabnzbd (for usenet downloads), any wifi drivers (if necessary), apache, etc.
setup for all of the above is pretty straight forward. the only required packages that really needs some configurations are alsa (audio output), ssh (remote CLI access in case you need to change something), and lirc (remote control support).
you can find information on how to set up all of the above in the Arch Linux wiki: http://wiki.archlinux.org
Configuration:
ok so. you got it all installed. now for the proper way to run XBMC without a window manager...
edit your /etc/inittab file.
set it to boot to runlevel 5 (X11).
if there are any lines at the bottom for starting gdm or whatever add a # to the beginning of the line to comment it out.
add this line to the bottom of the file:
Code:
x:5:respawn:/bin/su <your username> -l -c "/bin/bash --login -c /usr/bin/startx >/dev/null 2>&1"
save and close.
that will automatically log in your user account at boot without prompting for a password.
now we need to tell the machine to automatically start XBMC when you login.
edit the /home/<your username>/.xinitrc file.
add this line:
Code:
exec /usr/bin/ck-launch-session /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/xbmc --standalone -fs
that will automatically launch XBMC at boot.. no window manager required.
Conclusion:
there is information on my rtorrent howto if you want to start rtorrent automatically at boot also. if you prefer usenet, you can easily adapt it to start sabnzbd at boot also.
you can do all of this with Boxee too if you prefer. i think XBMC is a little lighter and has nicer theming options but its totally a personal preference.
and im pretty sure you can run Hulu desktop without a window manager also. ive not tried that though.
that should be about it for the basics. if you have any questions, feel free to post here or send me a pm. ill totally help out if i can.
let me know how your setup goes.
good luck.
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Edited by frith (11/29/10 12:01 AM)
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Chespirito
Stranger
 
Registered: 02/13/09
Posts: 3,259
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Re: HOWTO: HTPC done right [Re: frith]
#13556705 - 11/29/10 10:21 AM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Thanks, I may try this
I store all my files on an opensolaris server because I like ZFS a lot. I stream from this setup, but since opensolaris isn't really being supported anymore Ive been considering switching back to linux. I just wish Btrfs was anywhere close to what ZFS is
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tak
geo's henchman
Registered: 11/20/00
Posts: 3,776
Loc: nowhereland
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Re: HOWTO: HTPC done right [Re: Chespirito]
#13558212 - 11/29/10 04:37 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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awesome post +5
we need more like this.
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The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.
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 Annom
※※※※※※
Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 6,367
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 10 months, 25 days
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Re: HOWTO: HTPC done right [Re: frith]
#13558289 - 11/29/10 04:56 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Great post!
> Samba (aka Windows file sharing) is very simple and easy to set up. however, it is not fast enough to be able to stream HD video. youll want to use NFS.
Really? I can copy files from Windows 7 to Ubuntu with 8 MB/s. That's 28 GB/hour.
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frith
God
Registered: 10/27/09
Posts: 7,512
Loc: Philadelphia, PA
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Re: HOWTO: HTPC done right [Re: Annom]
#13559157 - 11/29/10 07:24 PM (13 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Annom said:
> Samba (aka Windows file sharing) is very simple and easy to set up. however, it is not fast enough to be able to stream HD video. youll want to use NFS.
Really? I can copy files from Windows 7 to Ubuntu with 8 MB/s. That's 28 GB/hour.
from my experience it got pretty choppy running over Samba. copying files is one thing.. if it drops a packet or two then it just resends it. no big deal.
streaming is done in real-time.. if you start dropping packets the video gets all jittery. waiting for the server to resend dropped packets for real-time applications (much like phone calls) is unbearable.
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