OpenElec XBMC

Nagin

So I've been using xbmc for a while on my HTPC and on laptop I have sickbeard and couch potato setup. Connected to my NAS

If there's any editing to be done (there generally isnt because of sick beards and Sabnzbd's post processing script) i do it from the laptop.

Its got to the stage that my HTPC is a dedicated HTPC (no browsing, no nothing) so I thinking of switching over to OpenElec as I dont want any Windows bloat on my cpu.

What are peoples opinions/reviews on it?.

Its sounds pretty cool and the startup times are very attractive. I have a 90gb SSD anyway so startup times are around 15 secs for me, booting straight into full screen xbmc.
But im picky and want the 5-7 secs boot time that openelec offers and means I dont get any of that nasty Windows splash screen.

The only thing im weary about is that I have absolutely no experience in using anything linux. Ive read on the OpenElec forums about peoples problems and something the solutions sound pretty daunting.

I know this is a pretty open ended question but I just want to get some more info as Ive put countless hours into my setup and dont want to delete and start fresh without info on it.

silvine

I used Openelec for the last year and I'm about to go back to the Windows version of XBMC.

Openelec's best feature is that it can turns your machine into an appliance which you turn on and off and which a child can use. It uses very little resources and is small and quick. The bundled Sabsuite is great and works perfectly once you've set it up. As a device for simply downloading and watching video it's great.

Unfortunately, I found most of the add-ons either don't work or crash Openelec at some point. The music player is also particularly buggy and it routinely crashed while playing my songs. I also found it difficult to mount shared drives on the Eden build of Openelec. The support guys on the forum are helpful but there's only a few of them and many of the solutions were technical and beyond my level of expertise (and I don't consider myself a novice). It can also be tricky to get audio working properly over HDMI.

In other words, for an appliance I found myself spending a lot of time reading Linux guides and lengthy forum posts. That said, you can always install and run Openelec off a memory stick. That way you don't have to wipe your Windows install. It definitely has potential and I'll probably return to it at some point when it's more stable.

Voodu Child

I have been using it for a while on my Revo with no major issues. Some minor ones which I troubleshooted easily enough. Troubleshooting is definitely more difficult than in Windows.

It depends on your useage scenarios, I use audio over spdif so I think I pretty much am blissfully ignorant of the HDMI issues people have. Same for networking, I use SMB which is piece of piss to setup. And I hardly use plugins so again no issues for me. Maybe if I was using it differently I would have more issues.

Addons should be mostly platform independent though. And XBMC Eden has not gone final yet so if you were using it, that means you were using an unstable nightly OpenElec build. The clue to the expected stability is in the 'unstable' bit :pac: The only people who should be using that are devs and techy people who are willing to file bugreports. I wouldn't judge it based on nightlies anyhow.

Carter P Fly

Id second not topuching your windows build and running openelec off a mamory stick until you have it stable and teh way you want it. I've found eden to be to buggy also to be used full time.

docentore

Download 1.0.2 version - last stable one and try it yourself. Its easy enough to create bootable flash media. Dharma 1.0.2 is excellent, stable and working without any issues.

I'm using 'unstable' eden built, it is buggy, but I'm fine with this.

silvine

Anyone experiencing a problem whereby openelec crashes while playing long music files?

desaparecidos

Just disable / un-install any unnecessary Windows services or background processes. You can replace the Windows loading splash screens with an XBMC graphic.

A cleaned and refined Windows idling will take no more CPU time than a Linux distro.

The main reason to stick with Windows is graphics drivers. Whether you have Nvidia, ATI, or Intel you will get far better performance from the Windows drivers. This will benefit the XBMC GUI, and allow you take full advantage of hardware acceleration for video playback.

vibe666

also, unless it's changed in the more recent builds, you can't repartition and it's a destructive install on whatever drive you install it on, so make sure you don' want to keep anything on that drive before you install it.

its worth checking as you may find that there is already a build with hardware specific drivers for your device if you have an acer revo or something like that, which will help performance greatly. i get much better performance on OpenELEC than i do in windows on my Acer Revo, it flies along.