Anyone using an Acer Revo currently?

[tronads]

I couldnt originaly get my Revo to dual boot of the hard drive, so opted for a Class 6 SD card install of XBMC Live, and Windows 7 on the HDD.
I have since figured it out, and now have it dual booting from the HD.
I have experienced no real difference in loading speed...the only thing I do have is a countdown in grub before booting to the default OS (xbmc)...and although I have seen that you can adjust the length of this timer to make it shorter, I have no idea how to edit a file in linux, and I dont think Windows 7 can see the Linux Ext4 partition to do it in notepad.

[maltloaf]

Well mine arrived with win7 taking up the whole drive. I did as Phoenixsingh suggested and resized the win7 partition to make room for xbmc partitions. I then installed the xbmcfreak iso and grub handles the dual booting. I edited the grub menu to correct the titles and shorten the timeout.

Where I'm a bit stuck is that my internal drive is wasted mostly. I would ideally like it available to both os's AND the LAN so I can put stuff in there to be accessed from either os and I have no idea how to get to that point ! any help appreciated

[evilsatan]

Hmm, if you didn't notice any boot speed advantages ten I might just dualboot from the HDD as my SD card hasn't arrived yet.

I was wondering if anyone else with the Windows 7 64bit 4GB RAM machine has the issue with only 3GB RAM usable? Is the other 1GB dedicated to the hardware or is this something I need to alter to get better performance?

EDIT:
What partitions did you create for XBMC Malty? My revo came with a 13GB recovery partition, 100MB system partition, 150 GB Windows partition (now shrunk to 80GB) so I have a 206GB storage partition. I will shrink the storage to make XBMC partitions, I heard Linus needs 2 partitions for the dual boot or did I get something wrong?

[maltloaf]

I couldnt originaly get my Revo to dual boot of the hard drive, so opted for a Class 6 SD card install of XBMC Live, and Windows 7 on the HDD.
I have since figured it out, and now have it dual booting from the HD.
I have experienced no real difference in loading speed...the only thing I do have is a countdown in grub before booting to the default OS (xbmc)...and although I have seen that you can adjust the length of this timer to make it shorter, I have no idea how to edit a file in linux, and I dont think Windows 7 can see the Linux Ext4 partition to do it in notepad.

You can do it from the command line in xbmc I will explain how when I get home from work

[Thrush]

I was under the impression that the acer can only use 3gb of ram and not the full 4gb.....

I can't remember where I read that..... I have 2gb running win7 32bit and it deals with hd in widows no probs. Will have to have a look at running xbmc within windows as well

[maltloaf]

EDIT:
What partitions did you create for XBMC Malty? My revo came with a 13GB recovery partition, 100MB system partition, 150 GB Windows partition (now shrunk to 80GB) so I have a 206GB storage partition. I will shrink the storage to make XBMC partitions, I heard Linus needs 2 partitions for the dual boot or did I get something wrong?

I shrank by 30GB then ran the installer. Set it to use the free space and partition automatically, which creates the main and swap partitions

[evilsatan]

I shrank by 30GB then ran the installer. Set it to use the free space and partition automatically, which creates the main and swap partitions

Probably the result of me breathing in too many fibreglass fumes this morning but what installer did you run mate and from where?

By this I mean if I shrink my storage space by 30GB, do I then launch the Windows installer on windows 7 and point to use the unpartitioned space, or do I create a 30GB partition and put the live image on it, or do I install Linux (i.e. Mint) onto the 30GB partition then run the linux installer?

Cheers

EDIT:
Think I've got it, burn XBMClive ISO to CD, boot from that leaving the 30GB as unpartitioned space then install to free space.

[maltloaf]

The windows disk management did the shrinking then I shut down the pc and booted from the xbmcfreak xbmclive cd (via a USB drive). The installer on there did the rest of the work including installing grub

[evilsatan]

Just saw your post after I updated mine, cheers mate.

[maltloaf]

right, im now mounting the internal NTFS drive from the linux XBMC. Does anyone know if I can set up sharing to broadcast the drives to the internet ?

thanks,
malty

[liveseytowers]

How did you mount it Malty? Been trying to do this for ages! Guess you just boot to xbmclive safe mode and do it via terminal but what cmds did you use?

[maltloaf]

to be honest one of a couple of things might have done it. If you try them both one by one we can figure out which is was !!

Hopefully you are booting into xbmc from grub, if so edit the kernel arguments and remove the token 'nodiskmount', boot up and see if your fixed ntfs disk is there...

further to this, i've found out how i should be able to share the drives out to the internet but it doesnt seem to be working samba wont run on the xbmc install. It thinks it's running, but the process isnt in the list and I cant connect to it. bah

[evilsatan]

This is beginning to do my head in now, I have the XBMC live installed on the 20GB partition I made for it. Grub is installed and the dual boot is working well.

I now want to change my skin, and try out a few bits and pieces but I can't work out if I need to SSH/FTP. In windows the XBMC partition is invisible under my computer so I can't add a skin to the correct dir that way.

I have accessed terminal (finally) by exiting XBMC and logging in as the user I setup during the XBMC installation. Does this have full user permissions? In terminal I have edited the grub boot options so they read 'XBMC' instead of Ubuntu etc. To do this I followed a guide, I don't have a clue what any commands are in terminal.

I am using the XBMCfreak release.

I don't know how to setup my wireless connection, how to get on my network to easily see my shared files on my windows 7 PC downstairs etc. XBMC remote on my iphone will not detect the host even though zeroconf is enabled on XBMC.

All in all I am completely confused, this reminds me why I stick to windows

EDIT:
Jesus, just seen XBMCfreak has released a new version today! I have read they are not updatable as well

[burner1]

Not sure wether the xbmc ubuntu version has a gui for samba configs, but I use ubuntu karmic (cut down version for netbooks) and I used the terminal to edit the samba .conf file to set up shares with my windows PC's etc. including wireless.

Not that hard to do once you know what to type in (as usual lol)

[maltloaf]

He he if you're not Linux user at all, it can be a steep learning curve. Which question would you like answered first ? ;-)

[ThE gOg]

does the xbmcfreaks cd install openssh on the linux partition? if so you should be able to use winscp or similar to access all the xbmc files and folders.

not sure if its doable as you're dual booting but the installer script i've linked to a few posts back is a piece of piss to use, you can also update to the latest svn with ease. if you're going to be wanting to use the up to date skins then i'd say you need to be able to update the xbmc release every now and then to keep it compatible.

when a new version of the xbmcfreaks cd comes out do you have to do a complete reinstall to get the new one, or can it just update the to the latest xbmc svn and keep all your skins and settings etc?

[evilsatan]

I think it will be a very steep learning curve, I didn't understand one word burner just posted. I have small linux experience but that is using the desktop so the GUI helped me. When it comes to terminal I have no experience.

I suppose first off I need to sort out my media/network. Currently my media files are shared on my PC downstairs, eventually I will have external HDDs plugged into the Revo via USB/eSATA. So once I have setup my WLAN via terminal I assume adding the media locations from the other PC is easy to do using XBMC? So how can I setup my WLAN?

As a side-note (I have searched on XBMCfreak but no joy), to update the XBMC I think I have to overwrite the current installation (not possible to update), do I just boot to USB and install the new version over the top or will my grub bootloader be corrupted rather than replaced?

[ThE gOg]

it can be overwhelming mate, but as with anything as you learn a bit it gets easier, i've only been reading up on it since i got an asrock 330 ion.

not sure how you'd call the terminal up on your install, but on mine (which is xbmc live which from what i can gather the freak cd is based on) either on startup or on a rebbot just hit ctrl,alt and f1 and this'll get you into the terminal.

mine comes up as gog@asrock$ with a flashing cursor, this is where you can install progs, update xbmc, run install scripts and even pull "bleeding edge" up to date skins off github.

as burner says once you're at the terminal its just a case of knowing what to type in, bit of googling and its not too hard to find stuff out once you get going.

i'm still a complete novice with it myself but am managing to stumble thru it all usually

edit: openssh is easy to install once you're at the terminal, lmk if you want to install it as i'll link to the info i used.

you can then use winscp to access all your xbmc files and folders, ftp media in and out etc.

[burner1]

Try this to start a terminal session... press ALT-F2 together, then if it opens a windows for application running, type 'gnome-terminal' (without quotes) and press enter.

[Clubber Lang]

I just FTP stuff over when I need to add anything.

Evilsatan, if you want too add a skin it goes in .xbmc/skin. The skin must be in a folder with its name on.