HTPC #3 - Software

Now that I have the computer assembled, it's time for software. I've been playing with different versions of Ubuntu and Fedora as I wait for Ubuntu 10.04 to be released. It dropped a couple of days ago, so it's time to go!

Downloading the OS way easy. My employer, a major Midwestern research university, keeps a local archive of several open source packages, so the download was fast and trouble free. As usual, the install was quick and without issue.

Next, I installed the restricted extras package to get the various codecs I need for media playback. After a reload of the repositories in Synaptic, the package was in the list, and I started in the install. Since I was competing with a lot of other leading edge Linux geeks, these downloads took a lot longer to download. When the process estimated 4 hours until completion, I went to bed.

The next morning, the install was complete, and I ran the program that sets up DVD playback capabilities. The restricted extras install process is documented in many places, including https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats.

Next, it's time for Boxee. A new beta has just been release that works with 10.04, although not officially. I had trouble with earlier versions on the 10.04 RC not being able to connect, even while running on 9.10 worked OK. Sure enough, after the install, I couldn't login. The error message said "Internet connection not available".

I should mention that I had been seeing some strange behavior with DNS lookups when web browsing. They seemed to take a long time to complete. Could this be the problem with Boxee?

To test my theory, I switched my DNS settings in the computer from the default Comcast settings via my router, to the Google DNS servers. Voila! It worked! Both DNS lookups in general, and the Boxee login in particular are now functional.

Next, I'm going to setup the repository for music, video, and photo files. Stay tuned!