boxee as standalone questions (originally received via facebook)

[tsella]

Can boxee be used as an addon to the mythbox, namely mythbuntu, or only a standalone? Though I have not been able to test it out personally (I'm a 64bit user), I have read a lot about it. Remotes can be used with mythbox, but have not seen anyone say they use remotes with their boxee. I have heard that keyboard is strongly recommended. I plan to build my mythbox at the end of the month. If boxee 64 not out before then, I will try it out on my mythbuntu.

[tsella]

hi there,

if you're looking to build a standalone boxee, that certainly can be done, without even the cumber of gnome (which is used under mythbuntu).

i have a setup based on ubuntu server that works wonderfully, and is much more light weight than a typical ubuntu desktop, both in disk and memory footprint.

remotes are definitely supported. any lirc (http://www.lirc.org) remote should work, we have special support for mac remote (i.e. running linux on a mini is a win :) ), and other linuxinput devices (e.g. trackball works very nicely).

there is a great workaround for 64bit (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=374), and i hope we get the 64bit version out there soon.

if you're also interested in running mythtv for its pvr capabilities, that will also happen in the future, where boxee is able to control pvr backends.

[Gamester17]

FYI; many XBMC (http://xbmc.org) users are successfully running XBMC for Linux on Mythbuntu (http://www.mythbuntu.org) so Boxee should run just fine on it :cool:

...but you should also know that Team-XBMC is currently working behind the scene on a Live CD and Live USB version of XBMC, (based on a stripped down Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded)), which similar to the GeeXboX (http://www.geexbox.org) concept will let you install XBMC complete with a embedded (embedded = hidden away) Linux operating-system onto a >2GB USB Mass Storage device, , (or even just run directly from the CD for demo purposes). The point of which is that the computer after installation to a USB flash memory will act just like a stand-alone set-top-box, booting directly into XBMC without the end-user knowing which operating-system it is running on (or even that it is running on an operating-system at all). This 'XBMC Live' solution will be tweaked for optimized boot-time and easy of use out-of-the-box, with as little configurations as possible needed from the users to get it fully up and running.

We at Team-XBMC hope that Boxee will re-use our 'XBMC Live' OS framework, preferably using the exact same code (and maybe even work directly in our XBMC SVN with us), so that we together can collaborate on improving and enhancing it to meet the requirements for the majority of our end-users in an 'one-fits-all' solution.

;)

[mackdd4]

Just wanted to comment that I am using mythbuntu with boxee right now using an MCEusb (MS Media Center Edition usb remote). Also works great with XBMC. I will probably keep using XBMC svn and mythfrontend until boxee is a little more mature. That said, the Hulu support is something that I have been looking for in XBMC for a while and I have had no problems so far with Boxees hulu streaming. I think that Boxee has some great features, but I havent quite decided about its username/pass setup if it is not contributing back to the XBMC tree.

[agentlame]

team-boxee certainly contributes every line of xbmc core improvements back to xbmc.

further, team-boxee is donating half of it's istage winning back to team-xbmc (to the tune of $25,000 USD).
also, team-boxee has contributed hardware in the past, as well. (appletvs to help speed the developments of the atvusb-creator)

your conscious should be at ease, using boxee. :)

not only do they 'get it', they 'do it right'. :D

[HazyBlueDot]

@tsella, I'm very interested in running standalone boxee on Ubuntu. I currently have the full Ubuntu desktop installed running Boxee on AppleTV hardware. Smaller memory footprint would be super nice for the limited resources of the AppleTV (I've used the AppleTV version too, I like Boxee on Linux better because Linux has access to the AppleTV's GPU acceleration for playback, so I can play my 720p vidoes). Are there any tricks to getting a gnome-free Ubuntu + Boxee solution working or is it as simple as installing Ubuntu server and apt-get install boxee?

[agentlame]

you can run boxee with no wm at all, using xint.

[devanl]

We at Team-XBMC hope that Boxee will re-use our 'XBMC Live' OS framework, preferably using the exact same code (and maybe even work directly in our XBMC SVN with us), so that we together can collaborate on improving and enhancing it to meet the requirements for the majority of our end-users in an 'one-fits-all' solution.
;)

Has anyone had any luck building a live CD based on XBMCLive that has Boxee incorporated? I had started the process with a USB drive but I'm not sure how/if these files are added to the ramdisk of the iso.

Devan