1.0.3 on Ubuntu

[Silverlock]

Sat down tonight and built the latest (1.0.3) from source. Here's a few quick impressions.

Aside from the same two hiccups I saw in 1.0.2 (needing to remove an extra level of ../ in xbmc/screensavers/rsxs-0.9/xbmc/Makefile and remove "BoxeeHal RecoveryConsolde" from the all : line in the overall Makefile), I didn't have any troubles building this version. I didn't set any options in the ./configure stage (which may well be the cause of my VDPAU problems later on).

The UI seems quite functional, and it's very nice to finally have an option to omit "The" from the file sorts. I can't say that I'm hating the new UI; it's different, but it works. However, I don't think I'd have put implementing it ahead of fixing some of the long standing bugs/problems/feature requests that didn't make it into 1.0. But now that it's here and I've had a chance to play with it, it's not a huge deal.

It appears that perhaps something in the database structure has changed between 0.9 and 1.0.x. 1.0.x wouldn't use my old database and wants to rescan everything. Not terribly surprising, I guess. Scanning speed doesn't seem much different than with 0.9.

DD/DTS through HDMI is functional with a minor hack to guisettings.xml (the option to set the audio pass-through device is disabled for some reason).

VDPAU is giving me problems in this version just as it did with 1.0.2. When I turn on VDPAU, I can get audio with MKVs but no video. AVIs cause the whole thing to crash. Hmm. Have to turn on some debugging and have a look at what's going on there.

Flash I haven't looked in this version at but I expect it's still needing the same esoteric set of dependencies that I struggled partway through in 1.0.2.

My bluetooth remote works, mostly. I miss the home and info buttons. Ahh; just discovered that the space bar takes you to the pop-up menu. That's good to know.

Update: Cover art and thumbnails are definitely cached and survive exiting the program as well as reboots. No problems with having to re-fetch the cover art from the net each time the software version is run. I wonder if the cache directories are in RAM on the Box?

Honestly, if I can get VDPAU working, I'll probably stick with this version rather than go back to 0.9.22.

[SnagaDuath]

I really wish they would publish an updated deb. If not 1.0.x, then at least 0.9.23... How long has the linux version been stuck on 0.9.22 now? It just doesn't seem to be a priority at all anymore for the devs to do work on anything that doesn't involve the boxee box. I'm seriously considering finding an alternative to boxee...

[Silverlock]

0.9.23 wouldn't get you anything new in Linux, I don't think. I don't imagine that premium content is ever coming to Linux. Being outside of the US that doesn't really bother me much.

Now, if they'd just release the sources to the flash player so that that could be built... not that I'm expecting that to ever happen.

[PikaSonic]

Would you mind posting a how-to on compiling 1.0.x? I've tried to compile it but I'm a little confused as to what to do to get it to work. You know, just some specifics on what needs to be changed and stuff like that. Thanks.

[noisymime]

OK, this is pretty rough and will probably need updating for bits I've missed, but its what has worked for me (It assumes a moderately recent ubuntu system):

1)

wget http://dl.boxee.tv/boxee-ce4100-17443-sources.tar.xz

2)

tar xJvf boxee-ce4100-17443-sources.tar.xz

3)

sudo apt-get install python-support cmake autotools-dev autoconf automake unzip libboost-dev zip libtool libgl1-mesa-dev libgl-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libglu-dev libglew-dev libmad0-dev libjpeg-dev libsamplerate-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig-dev libbz2-dev libfribidi-dev libsqlite3-dev libmysqlclient-dev libasound-dev libpng-dev libpcre3-dev, liblzo2-dev libcdio-dev libsdl-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libenca-dev libjasper-dev libxt-dev libxtst-dev libxmu-dev libxinerama-dev libcurl-dev libdbus-1-dev libhal-storage-dev libhal-dev libpulse-dev libavahi-common-dev libavahi-client-dev libxrandr-dev, libavcodec-dev, libavformat-dev, libavutil-dev libpostproc-dev libswscale-dev libmpeg2-4-dev, libass-dev libmpcdec-dev libflac-dev libwavpack-dev python-dev gawk libcwiid1-dev libbluetooth-dev zlib1g-dev libsmbclient-dev libfaad-dev libiso9660-dev libssl-dev lsb-release libvdpau-dev libmicrohttpd-dev libmodplug-dev librtmp-dev libcrystalhd-dev curl libgl1-mesa-dev libvdpau-dev

4)

cd boxee-ce4100-17443

5)

./bootstrap

6)

./configure --disable-ss-rsxs --disable-boxee-hal

(this should hopefully fix some of the problems we were having during compiling)
7)

make

(Wait)
8

./Boxee

There's almost certainly some more dependencies that I've missed, so let me know and I can get them added.
This might have problems on a VDPAU systemas mentioned by Silverlock, but I don't have one to test on unfortunately.

[Silverlock]

I'll add a couple of things I remember I had to do.

1. I believe it was the Makefile in xbmc/screensavers/rsxs-0.9/xbmc where I had to remove one level of "../" from the definition of OUTDIR.

2. In the main Makefile, I made the following change:

FROM: all : Makefile externals Boxee BoxeeHal RecoveryConsole
TO: all : Makefile externals Boxee

I expect both of these changes might be unnecessary with the configure options that noisymime specified. I may try them on build with the 1.0.4 source.

[gi7]

Thanks Silverlock and noisymime for this great thread!

Now I'm going to start make (in a machine with Pentium 4! LOL), and I've added to the configure line this:

--prefix="/usr" --enable-external-libraries  CPPFLAGS="-D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS"

so now boxee will use external libraries instead of internal, I think will speed-up compiling and make a boxee more suitable for newer systems (in the README.ce4100 were advised to install python2.4 from an older ubuntu release!).
When calling make install, the binaries will be installed in /usr (instead of /usr/local).

------------------------
  XBMC Configuration:
------------------------
  Debugging:	Yes
  Profiling:	No
  Optimization:	Yes
  OpenGL:	Yes
  VDPAU:	Yes
  Joystick:	Yes
  XRandR:	No
  GOOM:		No
  Bluray:	No
  PCRE Support:	Yes
  MID Support:	No
  ccache:	No
  PulseAudio:	No
  FAAC:		No
  Avahi:	Yes
  External Libraries:	Yes
  prefix:	/usr
------------------------

I'm running a Debian sid system. If the build will run fine, I will try to make a Debian package

Eugenio

P.S: I had to install libdts-dev.

[PikaSonic]

Thanks for the info guys! I'm currently working on building Boxee 1.0.4 using the instructions you guys gave here. I had to install 2 extra dependencies to get past ./configure though:

sudo apt-get install libgdbm-dev liba52-0.7.4-dev

Make sure those two packages are added along with all the others and it should work fine.

Thanks again.

[gi7]

Just an update:

After editing some files (but only on code blocks related on external libraries) I ended up with a working Boxee 1.0.4
But I can't play any video or launch the boxee browser and the text many times can't be read (instead of go in a new line, the text is drew on the same line).

So now I'm rebuilding without --enable-external-libraries (but with --enable-external-python)

EDIT: Also removed CPPFLAGS="-D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS" which was needed to let --enable-external-libraries work.

[noisymime]

So, for what its worth, I managed to get Flash working on 1.0.4 over the weekend. Its NOT straightforward though.

In the end I gave up trying to get the libFlashLib-i686-cm-linux.so version working. Its compiled against an embedded set of libraries (Meaning you need to either replace your local files or do a manual LD path set) and for a (slightly) different architecture (Canmore), so its just going to be a pain.

Instead, I took the libFlashLib-i486-linux.so version from 0.9.22 and changed the 1.0.4 Boxee source to work with it. Very briefly there's changes to:

• xbmc/cores/flashplayer - Need to copy the whole thing from 0.9.23
• xbmc/cores/VideoRenderers
• xbmc/cores/ffmpeg - Needed to make some of the changes to VideoRenderers work

The changes are too many to list, but it is possible. The disadvantage of doing all this is that you end up with the old Flash Player (Bugs and all) as well as some older ffmpeg versions so there's probably a few bugs that get reintroduced. I know for a fact that I had to comment out some subtitle handling that wasn't in 0.9.22.

Thanks to gi7 and PikaSonic for listing the extra libs you needed.