Tag Archive for 'Xbox360'

1 week with Ubuntu and counting

Published
by
Chris
on October 24, 2008
in Computers and Software
. 2 Comments

As per my last post, I’ve made the move to Linux. Previous attempts to move away from Windows to Linux have usually resulted in having to revert back cause I needed some program to do something, but since I last tried, Linux has come along way.

Anyway, I decided to give Linux another go as my WindowsXP install was getting rather slow, and was in need of a format and reinstall. My decided to go with Ubuntu as my chosen distribution as I’ve had previous use of it and found it to be rather easy to use. Rather then trying out the latest stable version, I decided to jump in head first and try out the latest beta 8.10 which from the Live CD seemed to have a lot better support for my hardware then the latest stable 8.04.

The main problem that was holding me back was to be able to stream media to my Xbox 360. Previously there were many ways to achieve this, but usually required some long confusing process that I never really wanted to try as I’m only a novice to Linux. Following this tutorial, I managed to get Ubuntu talking to my Xbox 360 just like in WindowsXP.

Wine is a great program for running some Windows program. uTorrent would have to be my favourite bittorrent program, but so far, everything I’ve seen for Linux comes no where near the feature of uTorrent. Using Wine, it is now possible for me to continue using uTorrent, and it works great!! :D Even the web interface works, so I can continue to check up on my downloads via my iPhone.

The only things that I haven’t tried much of is GIMP. I don’t really like it, but as Photoshop doesn’t run on Linux, I guess I’m stuck with it. I just have to work out how to use it.

Other then that, I can do everything that I previously could do in Windows, and it’s faster!! The only exception is that I cannot sync my iPhone3G as Apple haven’t made it possible. Hopefully this will change, but for now, I just use my Vista notebook with iTunes. So for now, I have no intentions of switching back to Windows any time soon for this PC. Besides, I still have my Vista notebook, should I need something.

What are your thoughts on Linux? Have you tried it? Have you made the switch?

Moving over to Linux

Published
by
Chris
on October 18, 2008
in Computers and Software
. 2 Comments

For the last 4 days now, I have been running Ubuntu 8.10 Beta as my primary (and only) OS. WindowsXP has started to really slow down my machine, so much so, that it is more of a chore to use it, rather then a quick task to do something simple.

One major hurdle that was slowing down my move over, which could also through a spanner in the works and stop the whole move over (but is sorted out), was to stream media to my Xbox 360. I have seen numerous tutorials on how to achieve this, but also a lot of problems, so I was a little hesitant to make the move.

Anyway, I had a spare 120GB hard drive laying around, so I formatted it and installed Ubuntu on to it and set out on my quest to get Linux to do what I do in Windows. I’m now happy to say that this task is complete, mind you there was a few problems involved along the way.

The first problem that I had was that I wasn’t able to play any mp3’s, but as it turns out, this is very common with Linux, and you must install the relevant mp3 codecs for this to work. Sometimes simple, sometimes hard. In my case, it wasn’t fun. I had it working, then it stopped, then I done something, and it’s working again.

The other problem was with my displays. I run a dual screen setup, and this wasn’t an easy task. I managed to install the nVidia drivers, but they didn’t show the relevant screen resolutions for my displays. Up until now, I still have no idea how I’ve got it working (maybe a few reboots), but I’ve got dual 1280×1024 screens running, with compiz for some sexy eye candy and cube effects. :D

The last problem, that I’ve only just solved now, was that I couldn’t configure Samba (so Linux can talk to Windows). Turns out there is a bug in the current version of the config program, and would result in it crashing everytime I tried to change settings. I found a patch to my problem and had to rebuild the whole Samba config program (which was a cool lesson to learn), and now it’s all fine and dandy. My Windows PC’s can happily print to my printer which shared via Samba.

What I thought was going to be a huge process, but turned out to be very quick, what to enable Linux to stream media to my Xbox 360. I tried Twonky, but didn’t like the fact that it was a 30 trial, and had to pay about US$40 for it. I ended using this tutorial, which uses a modified version of ‘ushare’ to work with the Xbox 360. So far this is working great, but I haven’t tried it out extensivly of my library as yet.

I only have one task left, and that is to get my music from Linux over to my iPhone 3G. I’m thinking of using my Vista notebook and setting up the iTunes library to get it’s music from the Linux PC. Sounds simple in theroy, but who knows what problems I may encounter. Hopefully all goes well.

So, all up, I’ve got Linux running just how I want it to. It’s speedy, compared to WindowsXP, shares my printer to other Windows PC’s, and downloads torrents for me (though not automatically like utorrent for Windows does). The main thing that I’m happy about is that this PC is now really quick to use. Boot up times arn’t much different, but normal use once loaded is much quicker and snappier and is mainly what I was after. Oh, and I have installed WindowsXP in a virtual machine just incase I need Windows for something, but so far, I haven’t. Just more for toying around with at the moment.

Have you made the switch to Linux? Did you stay or go back to Windows and why? How was your experience with Linux?

Convert XP Pro to MCE

Published
by
Chris
on April 2, 2007
in Software
. 5 Comments

Since the 2007 Fall Update, I no longer have a need to run MCE on my PC. The main reason I done this was to get Transcode 360 to convert video files so they would play on my big TV.

Yesterday I helped a friend of mine, Daz, set up Windows Media Center Edition 2005 to work with his Xbox360. After a bit of stuffing around thanks to Microsoft doing such a outstanding job as they always do, we managed to get it all working after a few hours.

There were 2 main issues that we came across. The first was that when installing MCE, it would ask for the WindowsXP Service Pack 2 CD, but what it really wanted was Disc 1 from the install disc set. We finally worked that one out only to find that Update Rollup 2 wouldn’t install cause it wanted MCE 2005 which we had. A quick google search found a registry hack to fix that. After that it was pretty much all fine an dandy, except for a few network tweaks.

I must say that I’m pretty impressed with the Media Center feature on the Xbox360. So much that I’ve decided to have a go myself, so today, I went on a hunt to find a *cough* copy *cough* to experiment with.

Well, I didn’t think it was possible to convert WindowsXP Pro to Media Center Edition 2005. Not an upgrade, but more like installing a program. Basically what I found was a disc image which basically does a few hacks to WindowsXP Pro so that it thinks that it’s MCE, and then you install the MCE software and the updates, and if your lucky, you should have MCE on your PC.

I gave this a go and installed it on an old hard drive I had laying around that still had an install of WinXP. I went through all the steps and done everything exactly as the instructions say (it’s pretty strict), and after about an hour I had MCE on my PC. Pretty simply. I then proceeded to install Update Rollup 2 (required for the Xbox360) and there I started to run into a few issues. Pretty much the same error as Daz was getting, though the solution wasn’t the same. I had a browse through the UPDATE.INF file with the rollup and made sure that all the required registry settings were the same. I found a few for the .NET framwork that weren’t the same, so I fixed them up, and away we went, Update Rollup 2 was installing. I was pretty happy then.

I added the Xbox360 extender software and now my 360 has MCE working on it.

Since I done this on an old HDD, now I have to go and do it on my main hard drive. Though I will backup all my data just in case something does happen to go wrong. I read about a few people that have lost everything due to a bad burn of a disc and things like that.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I am still using my legit Windows product key. This was one of the main factors of this task.

If any one is interested in this, let me know either by leaving a comment here (make sure you leave your email address), or via my contact page.

Please do not ask me for info about this. The site that had the links is no longer online. Here is a possible source that may do the same, but I haven’t tried this so I cannot confirm. If this source has worked for you, would you please mind leaving a comment below.