XBMCbuntu???

Installed XBMCbuntu Media Center this evening. It ran OK off the .iso, slow of course but after rebooting to the HD all I got was a flashing cursor. Anyone familiar with this distro of Ubuntu and XBMC have any suggestions on what went wrong or what I can do to sort the problem out?

I don't know anything about running XBMC on Ubuntu, but it does run fine on my windows 7 machine.

This installation has the two bundled together. I would be quite happy with the Win7 Media Center but unfortunately the computer I want to use does not have the resources to run Win7. Don't have the couple hundred $$$ it would take to upgrade the hardware so thought I would try XBMC.

Does your hardware meet the minimum recommended requirements?

 

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu

 

In particular, is your video card up to snuff? Sounds video related to me.

Does your hardware meet the minimum recommended requirements?

 

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu

 

In particular, is your video card up to snuff? Sounds video related to me.

I think the hardware is reasonable, a bit short on RAM but it should run XBMC. It did run off the .iso which was mounted on an old 2gb flash drive. Last night I installed a minimal version of Ubuntu without XBMC. On reboot it did the same as the other install, nothing but a blinking cursor. I did have XP installed and running so I know the computer works. Linux doesn't seem to like something though.

Sounds like the bootloader (grub) did not properly install....and the computer is hung. Are you seeing ANY indications of the OS loading, or trying to load? Does the boot process proceed normally and then hang?

 

My first assumption would be that the ISO is corrupted or failing for some reason to properly install the bootloader. Also, be sure that the bios settings are set to boot from the proper devices, in the proper order. Its possible there is a conflict during boot, or the hard drive is beginning to fail, if its an older drive. The install might be failing due to a failing drive or bad sectors on the drive.

 

You might have more success loading ubuntu from a DVD and external drive.

 

XBMC is somewhat resource heavy, but it should boot on a pc with the minimal specs.

 

The best, most reliable way to revive an old pc that had windows, is to remove the windows drive, install a brand new blank hard drive, (less than $50 on ebay) and then install linux on that new drive, from a linux DVD.

 

 

Let us know.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2013 by tx2sturgis

From what I have been able to find out a broken grub seems to be the most likely problem as there is a known issue with Ubuntu and the flashing cursor syndrome. At this moment I am redoing the XBMCbuntu.iso install on the flashdrive so I can give it another try. The boot order in the BIOS is correct with CDROM and USB coming before the HDD. There is only one IDE HD in the system so no confusion with that.

 

Getting a new HD is problematic since the MB has only an IDE controller and new IDE HD's are expensive, if they can be found. I put in a SATA controller and HD but while the BIOS sees it the boot process does not. In my other computer setting the boot to SCSI worked to boot off the SATA drive but not this one.

 

Working...Working...Working..........

From what I have been able to find out a broken grub seems to be the most likely problem as there is a known issue with Ubuntu and the flashing cursor syndrome.

 

 

the MB has only an IDE controller and new IDE HD's are expensive, if they can be found.

 

 

I never had that issue, but it just sounded to me like the grub was not...'grubbing'...

 

Have you tried linux Mint?

 

And...as I mentioned earlier, drives on ebay are priced fairly...here are two...I found 20,000 listings for IDE drives between $10 and $100...is a $20 to $40 drive 'expensive'?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Maxtor-6L160P0-160GB-8MB-Cache-7200RPM-ATA-133-PATA-IDE-3-5-Desktop-Hard-Drive-/151015677919?pt=US_Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item23293c5fdf

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Digital-WD2500BB-250GB-7200RPM-3-5-IDE-PATA-ATA-100-Desktop-Hard-Drive-/151020392734?pt=US_Internal_Hard_Disk_Drives&hash=item232984511e

Edited April 10, 2013 by tx2sturgis

So far I have only tried the XBMCbuntu bundle because it is XBMC that I'm interested in rather than Linux itself.

 

While $20-$30 for a 160 GB HD is not very expensive in itself compared to the cost per GB of a SATA drive it is expensive. Add to that an extra $30 or so for shipping across the border plus possible duty it is relatively quite expensive.

 

So my re-install effort this evening had the same negative result. Perhaps there is something wrong with the .iso that I d/l. Perhaps one from a different mirror will work better.

 

Failing that, I could install a straight Linux distribution then add XBMC on top of it. There are options that have not yet been explored.

A little more info might be helpful here. I agree with Tx2sturgis and your comments about the grub bootloader NOT finding the proper partition [common problem].

 

How did you do the initial install -- was it a 'live' iso? 'boot' iso? 'install' iso? from a CD/DVD or USB stick [your statement of 'from an iso' is somewhat ambiguous, and the details DO matter]

 

What kind of machine and hardware are you putting this on? I know that someone has already asked if it meets the minimum specs, BUT my question has more to it than that. If your machine ONLY supports IDE, then it is old enough that you might need to do some trickery to get the install to function properly IF you are doing it off of a USB drive opposed to the CDROM. One of the main issues is when the installer sets up the boot sector, it only knows what the BIOS tells it and in some cases (some BIOS setups) when booting off of USB drive, the machine treats the USB drive as a hard drive and moves the physical hard drive 'down' the list. Then when you reboot without the USB drive, the machine no longer sees the setup that was there and hence, you get the flashing cursor or any other slew of errors.

Also does the machine have a cd/DVD drive that you could do the install from or are you restricted to USB?

 

The fact that you are getting a flashing cursor INSTEAD of a GRUB bootloader screen or some other error message, is actually quite significant. This is highly suggestive of your machine not even making it to the GRUB part --- which SHOULD be located within the first couple hundred kbs of the boot drive.

 

[i had an old server do this to me and it turned out that every time I had a USB stick or cd installed on boot, the machine would re-order the drive assignments and GRUB would have a stroke...]

 

You can look into this a little further by making a 'live' disk to boot off of, then run a disk utility to further investigate how the hard drive is partitioned and what is being called where.

 

While what Tx2sturgis said is true (replacing the hard drive) about being an easy way to go, if you do not care about the contents of your hard drive, there is no reason you cannot just format it and start over -- unless there is something actually wrong with your drive.

 

Not knowing how much computer experience you have (windows, mac or linux) I am not really sure how much direction to include here. I will try to stay tuned enough to help you out, if you post again on this issue.

 

Perhaps there is something wrong with the .iso that I d/l. Perhaps one from a different mirror will work better.

 

 

Did you perform a checksum (MD5sum) on the ISO file?

 

And, what OS environment did you use for the download, and for the ISO flash to the USB drive?

 

There are so many variables its difficult to pin this down.

 

A good way to get this done is to order a new hard drive (DARNIT!) then also order a new Linux disk or thumbdrive from ebay:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XBMC-MEDIA-CENTER-V12-1-12-11-XBMCBUNTU-INTEL-MAC-AMD-NVIDIA-LIVE-INSTAL-/251256059418?pt=US_Wholesale_Software&hash=item3a8007361a

 

Yes, you can certainly use the 'old' hard drive, but the reason I always suggest a new drive is that I have seen older windows pc's that were failing, the owner blames the windows os, then sets up a dual boot or erases windows, then installs linux, which also fails...not because linux is a failure, but because the hard drive itself was failing.

 

Linux can and does do some integrity checking on the hard drive, but it cant always predict a failing hard drive, or marginal sectors on the drive.

 

If you install a smaller boot drive, say a 160gb or 250gb, then use a large 500 gb or 1tb second slave or external drive for your media, the cost will still be reasonable.

 

 

Of course, you could just order a little HTPC and be done with it:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Authentic-G-Box-Midnight-4GB-1080p-XBMC-Streaming-Android-Linux-Mini-PC-/400456483783?pt=US_Internet_Media_Streamers&hash=item5d3d1103c7

Edited April 10, 2013 by tx2sturgis

How did you do the initial install -- was it a 'live' iso? 'boot' iso? 'install' iso? from a CD/DVD or USB stick [your statement of 'from an iso' is somewhat ambiguous, and the details DO matter]

The one I installed is xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso which is the latest stable release. I used Rufus 1.3.2 to create a bootable .iso on the flash drive. Prior to doing that I installed the 11.0 version .iso from a CD. Both ended up after the install with the flashing cursor syndrome. During the install process the HD is chosen by me and then formatted by the installer. The primary partition drive is a 160 GB IDE with controller on the MB and there is a 1TB SATA as secondary slave drive with a PCI controller. The SATA drive will not boot. Tried it with both WinXP and with XBMCbuntu. Successfully installed WinXP on the 160 GB drive, also tried installing with only the 160 GB drive connected but no difference. MB is an Asus A7V400 MX with an AMD CPU but can't remember which one it is at the moment.

 

The install completes successfully to the point where it say to remove the USB drive and reboot which is when the flashing cursor thing happens. There is nothing on the HD except XBMCbuntu. If I re-install, the previous OS and version is recognized so it is definitely going on the correct drive.

 

I have a couple of MCP's in Windows and administered a linux WebServer for a year. Mostly concerned with the web side of things though. Probably forgotten most of what I knew but could likely follow instructions.

Did you perform a checksum (MD5sum) on the ISO file?

No I didn't do a checksum, didn't think of it. Did D/L versions 11.0 and 12.0 of XBMCbuntu though just in case one was bad.

 

 

And, what OS environment did you use for the download, and for the ISO flash to the USB drive?

Downloaded the files on my Win7 machine. Ran Rufus to create the bootable .iso on the flash drive.

 

There are so many variables its difficult to pin this down.

 

A good way to get this done is to order a new hard drive (DARNIT!) then also order a new Linux disk or thumbdrive from ebay:

Could but don't really want to do that. If I can't get this linux Hoo-Haw stuff working I can upgrade the hardware and run Win7 MediaCenter on it. Yes I could go the HTPC route with Western Digital or Apple TV or similar but they are both too limited while some of the other options are, I think, mostly subscription based. Anyway, I wanted to give XBMC a shot first.

Could but don't really want to do that..

 

I misunderstood.

 

I was trying to help you actually arrive at a solution, with minimal trouble and expense.

 

But it sounds like you are trying to blaze new trails and learn new things doing something challenging, and I do understand that...I've done it myself.

 

Good luck on this project.

 

 

 

Okay, first off my apologies for not reading your earlier posts a little more carefully the first time through -- when I get tired, my reading comprehension suffers sometimes...

 

[...] Last night I installed a minimal version of Ubuntu without XBMC. On reboot it did the same as the other install, nothing but a blinking cursor. I did have XP installed and running so I know the computer works. Linux doesn't seem to like something though.

 

This conflicts with your next statement...

 

So far I have only tried the XBMCbuntu bundle because it is XBMC that I'm interested in rather than Linux itself.

...

 

Failing that, I could install a straight Linux distribution then add XBMC on top of it. There are options that have not yet been explored.

 

I am confused -- in the earlier post you said you installed ubuntu with no success? XBMC is just Ubuntu with the media packages loaded...

 

So my re-install effort this evening had the same negative result. Perhaps there is something wrong with the .iso that I d/l. Perhaps one from a different mirror will work better.

 

If you were able to boot to the live OS from the same flash drive and .iso you used for the install [you booted to the OS and on the desktop clicked something like 'install XMBC on the hard disk' -- or something like that] then there is nothing wrong with the iso. I can explain this further if you would like, but for now I am going to try to keep this as short as possible.

 

The one I installed is xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso which is the latest stable release. I used Rufus 1.3.2 to create a bootable .iso on the flash drive. Prior to doing that I installed the 11.0 version .iso from a CD. Both ended up after the install with the flashing cursor syndrome. During the install process the HD is chosen by me and then formatted by the installer. The primary partition drive is a 160 GB IDE with controller on the MB and there is a 1TB SATA as secondary slave drive with a PCI controller. The SATA drive will not boot. Tried it with both WinXP and with XBMCbuntu. Successfully installed WinXP on the 160 GB drive, also tried installing with only the 160 GB drive connected but no difference. MB is an Asus A7V400 MX with an AMD CPU but can't remember which one it is at the moment.

 

The install completes successfully to the point where it say to remove the USB drive and reboot which is when the flashing cursor thing happens. There is nothing on the HD except XBMCbuntu. If I re-install, the previous OS and version is recognized so it is definitely going on the correct drive.

 

I have a couple of MCP's in Windows and administered a linux WebServer for a year. Mostly concerned with the web side of things though. Probably forgotten most of what I knew but could likely follow instructions.

 

As freezy suggested initially, I believe this to be a video card related issue. If you are using the on-board video (I believe it is an ATI chipset) you need to actually manually install drivers and such for it to work. Again, I need a little more information from you before I can give more specific instructions but here are some questions:

 

1) Have you tried accessing a virtual console to verify that the system is not actually booting instead of maybe just not loading the GUI/Xsession?

 

I am willing to bet that you are just not loading the GUI and need to install the appropriate video drivers to load it, and that should take care of it.

 

If you can get to the virtual console (ctrl alt F2 -- or any of the F_keys with control and alt pressed; sometimes different distributions put the GUI on F1, F2, F6, F7 or F8 and the virtual consoles on the others) you know that your OS is on there and functioning alright. One thing to try would be to work with the gfx_modes and other kernel graphics options to select the appropriate video driver for the Xsession/GUI.

 

2) You have said a few times that you used a 'bootable' image -- this is ambiguous. An installation image and a live image are both bootable but very different. A 'live' image is one that allows you to use the OS completely from whatever media it is on, as if it were actually installed on the machine. An installation image is also 'bootable' but takes you through the installation process and ends with the 'remove your installation media and reboot'.

Which type did you use?

I know you said that you used "xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD" I am not quite sure what this is and cannot find much in the way of information on something with this label.

One thing that I do know you can do is do an install of either LinuxMint or Ubuntu and then just download and install the xbmc package ( http://xbmc.org/download/ ) and then you are done.

Where are you finding this 'prepackaged' image that you are using?

 

----

 

For what it is worth, my recommendation would be this:

Download and install either Linux Mint (with MATE) ( http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php ) or Ubuntu ( http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop ) and THEN download and install the XBMC package that you would like to use for the appropriate chipset ().

 

 

----

I suppose you you could try one of these 'complete' packages (if you can find one compatible with your AMD chipset), such as one of these:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu

 

Although it sounds like that might be what you are trying to use.

Edited April 13, 2013 by LilBeaver
fixed text around some of my notation

As freezy suggested initially, I believe this to be a video card related issue. If you are using the on-board video (I believe it is an ATI chipset) you need to actually manually install drivers and such for it to work. Again, I need a little more information from you before I can give more specific instructions but here are some questions:

 

I am willing to bet that you are just not loading the GUI and need to install the appropriate video drivers to load it, and that should take care of it.

 

 

If there was a problem with his video card, how would it be able to boot into Linux from a USB or CD?

Yeah, I was getting a bit confoosed as well.

 

If it were me, I would install Linux and get it up and running first ... then install XBMC.

 

Perhaps the XBMC can't work with the hardware whereas Linux by itself can ???

 

I don't know... never tried XBMC and haven't done a Linux install for a year ... maybe two.

If there was a problem with his video card, how would it be able to boot into Linux from a USB or CD?

 

Rick,

 

When you run from a live CD or live USB, it does not use the drivers for your onboard video chip. It uses a "generic" driver that works with most VGA systems. When you then install to HD, Linux will read your actual hardware and then attempt to load a driver for it. If it can't match your hardware, you often will get the flashing cursor. Or, I've seen it load to what most people would call a "DOS command line" screen. Linux is running but cannot load the GUI due to driver confusion.

I seem to have this issue nearly every time I try to install an up to date version of Linux on older hardware....especially some older Dell boxes I have.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Joe

I seem to have this issue nearly every time I try to install an up to date version of Linux on older hardware....especially some older Dell boxes I have.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Joe

 

Is this something that is happening lately?

 

I ask this because, as I mentioned, I haven't done a Linux install for a while but I have done many installs on several different systems dating back to oh, maybe 1998 or 9 and never once had a video driver problem, or for that matter, any problem with a Linux install.

On second thought, I can see now what you're saying ... "up to date version on older equipment".

 

However, how old? My last install was on a 5 yr old system and it went smoothly. Linux has always, to my knowledge, been compatible with older systems and in fact, is touted to work with fairly minimum hardware specs. Have they gone and changed things?

On second thought, I can see now what you're saying ... "up to date version on older equipment".

 

However, how old? My last install was on a 5 yr old system and it went smoothly. Linux has always, to my knowledge, been compatible with older systems and in fact, is touted to work with fairly minimum hardware specs. Have they gone and changed things?

 

5 years old??? Heck that's almost a new box!!!

It really depends on the distro....I seem to have had this issue more frequently on redhat based distros than on Debian. Haven't actually done an install for probably 6-8 months now....just don't seem to have the time to play like I used to.

 

Joe

5 years old??? Heck that's almost a new box!!!

It really depends on the distro....I seem to have had this issue more frequently on redhat based distros than on Debian. Haven't actually done an install for probably 6-8 months now....just don't seem to have the time to play like I used to.

 

Joe

 

Actually, 5 year old systems are not uncommon. Most of our "agent" PC's here at work are going into their 7th year and still running strong. My home system is now 6 years old and no problems since new and it wasn't an overly powerhouse box either. I've had it on WinXP dual booting to Linux on a second HDD for a while, then I blew away Linux and WinXP and installed Win 7 Pro and been on that for the past couple years.

 

FWIW, I used Open SuSe Linux. Also run that on one of our servers here at work. Don't really care much for Ubuntu and it's derivatives ... seems to be more geared to the "Windows" home users.

I misunderstood.

 

I was trying to help you actually arrive at a solution, with minimal trouble and expense.

 

But it sounds like you are trying to blaze new trails and learn new things doing something challenging, and I do understand that...I've done it myself.

 

Good luck on this project.

 

 

 

Now Brian don't go getting in a huff.

Although it is not out of the question, I don't think there is anything wrong with the HD. So my preference is to explore other options before ... ... if you know what I mean. Between my stupid Venture and my forever home renovation I have close to $0.00 available for entertainment. It's rather difficult to come to terms with the current state I'm in but there you have it.

 

I'm not looking for a challenge and if I have to start spending money I'll most likely upgrade the hardware and install Win7 MediaCenter which was perfectly adequate in the past when running XP MediaCenter. XBMCbuntu just seemed like it would be a good thing to try at this time.

 

I do appreciate you input and I thank you kindly for your effort.

This post is getting rather long with all the quotes. I'll try to answer all your question though.

 

Answer for #1:

No. So far I have not tried to access a virtual console. I'm not exactly sure how to go about doing that. The flashing cursor does not allow keyboard input. When booted to the flashing cursor I can not see the MediaCenter computer on my network from my Win7 machine so I can't SSH in from Windows.

 

Answer for #2:

XBMCbuntu is XBMC and Ubuntu combined and is a bit different from each package when individually installed. The XBMCbuntu.iso is a live package and an installer combined. There is the choice to either run it off the CD or flash drive or to install it to a HD. I believe XBMC is supposed to act as the desktop in this case.

 

This is where I got the XBMC package.

http://xbmc.org/download/

Click on the XBMC AMD link which will D/L xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso.

 

First I spent an hour or so exploring the live package but did not do any testing to see how well it worked with media such as movies or music because it was quite slow running off the CD. Then I installed XBMCbuntu from the CDROM and got the flashing cursor thing. After that I tried running a newer version of XBMCbuntu from a flash drive with the same results as the previous attempt. After that I tried installing a minimal version of Ubuntu without XBMC and still got the flashing cursor on first boot. This could very well point to a video issue as the cause. As you suggested, perhaps I should next try installing a complete Linux package and see if that will load to the desktop.

After that I tried installing a minimal version of Ubuntu without XBMC and still got the flashing cursor on first boot. This could very well point to a video issue as the cause. As you suggested, perhaps I should next try installing a complete Linux package and see if that will load to the desktop.

 

What is a "minimal version" of Ubuntu and how does that compare to a "complete Linux package" ???

 

I haven't explored what Ubuntu has to offer lately but a year ago, there were 2 versions ... a "server" version and a "desktop" version (can't recall if that is the correct terminology) but basically, two versions and If you installed the server version, that's all you get... a flashing cursor if I remember correctly. I think on a server version you do everything from a command line (aka "flashing cursor") ... however, I was wrong once before .