OpenELEC 3.2 Packs In XBMC 12

[Laser]

I actually read those, and from those points I figured you call those Addons (perhaps in accordance to XBMC), but since your Updating page said there is no package manager, I assumed your addons are what I'd call unmanaged packages (like AUR packages, to give an Arch analogy).

My system is running an nvidia graphics card so no XvbA needed, it was the cheapest choice in the store and passive, plus I knew it'd work so I bought it even though I'd love to switch all my machines to AMD cards. Their open driver is getting better all the time. Just enabled the mesa git repo here.

Especially the second one answers some question the Arch guy posted :-)

There are two types of Linux users: Arch users and those who haven't tried Arch yet.

[fritsch]

OE 3.2 has a new service addon, which makes pairing bluetooth clicke di click.

Concerning the addons:
We are packaging real programs in there, e.g. tcpdump, boblight and much more

http://openelec.tv/forum/official-openelec-addons and http://openelec.tv/forum/unofficial-openelec-addons

Especially the second one answers some question the Arch guy posted :-)

[beaverusiv]

I hope they're making progress with bluetooth, I tried it ~a year ago and I couldn't for the life of me get my PS3 controller working on it. Switched to Arch and once everything was setup it all runs smoothly. Arch did take longer to get to a usable state, but it is a lot easier to make modifications if needed and I have an actual desktop to fall back on for maintenance and other tasks.

[Serge]

Sorry for my bad wording. I was referring to Arch.

The HTPC is also my NAS and my usenet downloader (with sabnzbd, sickbeard and the XBMC sickbeard plugin), can you do that with OpenELEC? It seems to be tailored more towards HTPC-only setups and for weaker devices. No critique, but not what I was aiming for as the system was to perform more than just watching movies.

Read the forums and the wiki a little and from what I understand, packages are called Addons in OpenELEC, but there is no package management, am I wrong here? As I mentioned, I don't think it would cover my setup (2xRAID0 with 2TB and 4TB combined capacity, each HDD partitioned using GPT, both RAIDs managed by LVM2, access via vsftpd).

Not that I'd try it out now that my setup is working, but I was thinking about trying out XBMC on weaker hardware I would have to purchase yet, and OpenELEC is a suitible candidate there.

You are correct in that OpenELEC is strongly focused on HTPC-only setups and has no package management. I am not that familiar with XBMC add-ons (my own usage is rather modest: I mostly watch video off my local file server and occassionally off a friend's Plex Media Server, thus I use only a handful of add-ons), so I can't confirm or deny what of your desired functionality can be provided via XMBC add-ons, but I would probably not look to OpenELEC for that kind of functionality. It really is not a general-purpose OS. Perhaps I am wrong, and someone that has tried stretching OpenELEC to do more can correct me.

[fritsch]

Jep, no RAID support in there.

Btw. if you are only interested in the XVBA code. I can suggest you several archlinux aur source, gentoo repos and the wsnipex ppa for ubuntu.

[Laser]

Read the forums and the wiki a little and from what I understand, packages are called Addons in OpenELEC, but there is no package management, am I wrong here? As I mentioned, I don't think it would cover my setup (2xRAID0 with 2TB and 4TB combined capacity, each HDD partitioned using GPT, both RAIDs managed by LVM2, access via vsftpd).

Not that I'd try it out now that my setup is working, but I was thinking about trying out XBMC on weaker hardware I would have to purchase yet, and OpenELEC is a suitible candidate there.

[fritsch]

Yeah all there. It has an extensive addon system, that uses xbmc addon mechnism, but install a whole lot other packages from offical and unoffical repositories.

[Laser]

Sorry for my bad wording. I was referring to Arch.

The HTPC is also my NAS and my usenet downloader (with sabnzbd, sickbeard and the XBMC sickbeard plugin), can you do that with OpenELEC? It seems to be tailored more towards HTPC-only setups and for weaker devices. No critique, but not what I was aiming for as the system was to perform more than just watching movies.

[runrun]

Not an easy-to-install disro, I have a media center pc running xbmc 12.0 with Arch. I find it really suited because drivers are up-to-date and once the system is set up, they're a breeze to install and maintain, at least nvidia, dunno about AMD, just bought the cheapest card I could find in the store, 1080p working. AUR entry for XBMC user repositories so you get all the XBMC goodness you could ask for.

I clicked the download link on my desktop machine and literally 5 minutes later I'm sitting in front of a media centre running openelec 3.2 - It's (as the previous poster also felt) (by far) the easiest and fastest OS install I've ever done. It has all the configuration done for me - hardware video acceleration, HD sound, IR remote, imon LCD, wireless, bluetooth, external USB volume knob, USB DVB-T2 tuner with PVR etc all worked 100% out of the box - not too bad for linux (or anything else)

[Serge]

Not an easy-to-install disro, I have a media center pc running xbmc 12.0 with Arch. I find it really suited because drivers are up-to-date and once the system is set up, they're a breeze to install and maintain, at least nvidia, dunno about AMD, just bought the cheapest card I could find in the store, 1080p working. AUR entry for XBMC user repositories so you get all the XBMC goodness you could ask for.

Strange. Personally, I found OpenELEC 3.0 to be the easiest OS install I ever did. I'm looking forward to 3.2 (will be re-installing to take advantage of the availability of the new 64-bit generic build).

Edit: On second thought, I suppose I should clarify that I equate ease of install with length of install. From download to first boot, OpenELEC 3.0 was the fastest OS install I ever did, which is why I call it the easiest install I ever did. I don't remember if the installation process itself was simple or not, but I remember it had only a few steps, everything was quick, and everything went the way it was supposed to. For comparison, other installs that are supposed to be "easy" but result in me having to troubleshoot or research and employ work arounds increase the time it takes to install, which is why I consider them to be hard installs (Fedora 18 is an example of what I call a difficult install that's still fresh in my mind). I suppose other people would use other standards to measure ease of install.