Raspberry Pi and Kodi (XBMC) using OSMC w/ bluetooh keyboard.

I rarely consume media anymore, but someone bought me a TV for my house in NJ, and the brodcast options there are terrible.

I bought a Raspbery Pi at Microcenter months before hand, just because: how many stores can you walk into an buy a Raspbery Pi at?  And was planning on using it for home automation, but felt bad when my guests couldn't watch what they wanted.

So here's a quick overview of what I found to be the method of least resistance to getting the Pi to run Kodi.

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I check out the Raspbery Pi site for recommendations and found this page:
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Install_Kodi_on_Raspberry_Pi


and while I already had Raspberian on an SD card, I knew what a pain it was to configure, and decided to just start from scratch with distributions focused on Kodi:

Easy / Kodi centric distributions

• OpenELEC - Installing • FAQ • Help forum • USB drive install

• OSMC - Installing • FAQ • Help • Forum

• XBian - Installing • FAQ • Starters guide • Forum

I choose to not use OpenELEC since it seemed to be focused around some comercial hardware and such was likely to have less support for Raspbery Pi focused help.

The differences between OSMC and XBian are less clear, but I chose OSMC hoping that it was more than a minimal like XBian, however this turned out to not be the case.

After downloading the OSMC iso and using 'Startup Disk Creator' to burn it to microSD via a USB SD reader, I place the microSD into my Pi and booted it up.

OSMCs interface, while minimal, was hard to use due to the close coloring between the highlighting and original text coloring.  This is easily changed by going to 'Settings' and 'Appearance' and changing the 'Theme' to 'Confluence'.

However, if you need to play with network settings or add a bluetooh keyboard (or mouse), it's easier to do this before changing the theme.

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Setting up bluetooth:

From the OSMC menu - go to networking, enable bluetooth, then search for devices.


(this entire blog was written from memory, will try to add specifics later)

Contoling your Ubuntu Saucy Salamander based set tob box with Kinnect

So I finally got some time to play around with my Kinect controler again, and mostly remebered to play with it because I found a $5 TV stand for it at Five Below. 

I sometimes hate looking for the remote, and often wish I could take call and video chat using via XBMC, not to mention have a living room Bunny cam (I have 2 rabbits) while I'm away.

After much searching, and a ton of hacking to get the damn thing installed, here's the quick way to install TISCH, a program that can use your Kinect to control your mouse like in Minority Report (WARNING: unfortunatly the program currrently seg falts for me) :

if you are runing Maverick or earlier, you can just install the PPA as instrcuted on the TISH website.

If youa running a more recent (aka CURRENT) version of ubuntu - DO NOT ADD THE PPA - it will not work.

Instead edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file (as root - use sudo) and include the lines:

# TISCH (ppa wasn't working)
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/floe/libtisch/ubuntu raring main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/floe/libtisch/ubuntu raring main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/floe/libtisch/ubuntu maverick main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/floe/libtisch/ubuntu maverick main 



Then in a terminal type (copy / paste)

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install libtisch2 libtisch2-dev libtisch2-csharp libtisch2-java libtisch2-python

First Post!

Just a quick post to explain this blog and it's title.


When I first ventured into the realm of media centers / set top boxes, I tried MythTV but it was difficult to set up, and updates always broke my configurations.  Then I came across the Boxxee app.  At the time it was wonderful, so wonderful in fact that I decided I needed it connected to my TV at all times, even if MythTV recording wasn't perfect.  I started with compact desktops that made lots of noise and consumed lots of power, but my parents needed something better so I recommended they get the Boxee box  -- WHAT A MISTAKE!

I purchased a Zotac Mag for my self (a much better, possibly even perfect, choice).

After the  Boxee box came out the company quickly dropped linux support and began breaking packages.  It became a nightmare to maintain for my parents, and I considered flashing it with XBMC several times but it was always more of a process than just fixing their individual issue.  I have since move to XBMC my self and thus, most of my post will be about that.

Since then my parents have also bought a Roku so I may also log problems and hacks for that here as well.

I tried one of those android based MK802 sticks about 3 months ago, and was hoping to replicate my Zotac setup on them, but found it difficult to install Linux (which meant XBMC plugins I was use to didn't work) and in android it had a bad tendacny to overheat, so I shipped it back.  So I'm not likely to cover much android here until decide to upgrade from my Nexus 4.