Looking for HTPC Distro and programs to work with Raspbmc.

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combine1237

combine1237

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Jul 19, 2012
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Hello, I have an issue regarding my htpc build I am planning to do. I want to set up a htpc running a linux distro that can play movies on its own and have raspbmc or openelec on 3 raspberry pi's access hd video files on it over lan. I would also like to play dish anywhere on the htpc and stream it to the raspbmc over lan. I do not know which distro of linux to start with, and what htpc software that could be used to accomplish this. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Solution
skittle
Really you can use any distrobution you want. Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Arch, Fedora... Just install XBMC. Ask your self what distrobution are you comfortable with?
However why not just use OpenELEC on your HTPC? Unless you need a full desktop OE does most everything you could want from an HTPC.

Dish anywhere uses Adobe Flash.

I will say that OpenELEC does not come out of the box with a web browser.
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8224157/OpenELEC-Ultra/opera/final/index.html
Opera is available as an unoffical addon on x86 and x86_64, but not for rpi.
There is no adobe flash player for ARM devices like rpi. In fact flash has been discontinued and no longer maintained for linux (except in google chrome).

If this is a deal...
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stillblue

stillblue

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Nov 30, 2012
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Mythbuntu might be a good place to start. Mint and Ubuntu allow you to add XBMC as well as it's server. You could play with those, after all they're free, but if Skittle comes along with a recommendation take it.
 
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stillblue

stillblue

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Nov 30, 2012
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I don't really know, I live in the middle of Africa where there's no city power so TV is not my thing. skittle is more up on that sort of thing and Ijack seems on top of everything pi, they'll be around at some point so follow their advice. But since the price is right why not try it and get some reference points?
 
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skittle

skittle

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Dec 27, 2006
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I use openelec at home on my AMDFusion box as both a HTPC and NAS. No mess, no fuss 100mb embedded distro with full hardware acceleration and latest xbmc. Boots insanely fast and is wife/ roommate friendly.

Openelec is a really nice out of box experience, everything is pre configured and you have a working htpc with minimal input from user. It has samba for NAS access. Just point your other OS installs to your samba shares over LAN.

Openelec will also give you the most performance from an Rpi.

I do not know if it is possible to capture/stream dish anywhere content. I would assume that it is not an easy task if it is possible.
 
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combine1237

combine1237

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Jul 19, 2012
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Actually, satelitle companies make it so that no tuners can capture or deincrypt their signal form the cable, they have to be dencrypted by the boxes.

To get arround this I plan to use Dish Anywhere, basically sling integrated into our hopper, to stream a signal over our lan (100mbit) to the htpc, the htpc will then be able to watch dishanywhere over a web browser interface.

After this is accomplished, I plan to somehow have access to the files remotely, and because of skittle's suggestion stream them from a htpc to a series of 3 openelec raspberry pis Model B 256mb using samba.

The only two questions I have left are how to get dish anywhere on the openelec pis through streaming from the htpc, and what version of linux to use.


HTPC in question: pcpartpicker: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2AD3I

 
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skittle

skittle

Splendid
Dec 27, 2006
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Really you can use any distrobution you want. Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Arch, Fedora... Just install XBMC. Ask your self what distrobution are you comfortable with?
However why not just use OpenELEC on your HTPC? Unless you need a full desktop OE does most everything you could want from an HTPC.

Dish anywhere uses Adobe Flash.

I will say that OpenELEC does not come out of the box with a web browser.
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8224157/OpenELEC-Ultra/opera/final/index.html
Opera is available as an unoffical addon on x86 and x86_64, but not for rpi.
There is no adobe flash player for ARM devices like rpi. In fact flash has been discontinued and no longer maintained for linux (except in google chrome).

If this is a deal breaker, then you will need a distrobution like rasbian for your rpi. You can use Midori browser and "gnash" flash player. You will also have to set up XBMC seperately.
You may have a poor experience playing flash video on rpi without hardware acceleration. The CPU is very weak!
Code: 
sudo apt-get install gnash
sudo apt-get install browser-plugin-gnash
sudo apt-get install xbmc
 
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Solution
combine1237

combine1237

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Jul 19, 2012
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Thanks for the response, and sorry about the late reply. I just got openelec to work on my pi, and it is fairly smooth. I would like complete os functionality in my htpc in case I ever needed to quickly retool it to do something else. (I just want a htpc to play gmod, skyrim, and minecraft in my spare time :)) For now I probably am going to be satisfied with samba file streaming. I will probably try ubuntu first, as I already have a disk laying around with 12.04 on it. Thanks for all your help skittle. As for Dish anywhere being flash would there be a way of tricking it into thinking it is the android application accessing it so as to get around the need for a flash player?
 
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combine1237

combine1237

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Jul 19, 2012
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Very sorry about the late responses, life has got quite busy in the past few days. I did take a look at linux mint, and it seems to be more my type of interface than plain ubuntu. I just need to decide on a version and specific distribution now. Also @stillblue I was talking about the possibility of faking out Dish Anywhere for the pi's to avoid the flash issue. I already plan to use it on the htpc through a web browser. As for the windows file sharing when I tested out lotr extended edition streaming (just got the discs last night) bluray mp4 file 3.73g. I could not get it to stream from my file that was shared under videos, it would simply crash. I had to stream from recent movies. Does Samba have this same problem?
 
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