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In my combined NAS and Media Center solution, I have currently XBMC installed on a Ubuntu desktop 12.04. While generally functional, XBMC sometimes crashes and I can't but help that Ubuntu Desktop is overkill in this situation. Basically, the only graphical interface I need is XBMC, the rest (AFP, Time Machine setup, management in general etc) I administer through ssh or sometimes webmin. So my question is, as the title suggest:

What would be the optimal Ubuntu version for a NAS with XBMC? (My interpretation of 'optimal': I want the video rendering to be as good as possible, and I want the system to be as stable as possible.)

Hardware: Intel Atom D525 CPU & NVIDIA ION 512MB DDR3 GPU.

Nick The Swede
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  • You are taking the wrong approach: focus on fixing the problem. "Optimal Ubuntu version" ALL Ubuntu versions are identical in their core (kernel, drivers); there might be slight differences but those are not going to fix your problem. "XBMC sometimes crashes"... But if you had picked lUbuntu you will probably see the same crashes: XMBC itself will not be a different piece of software on any other Ubuntu. We have log files you can check (see /var/log). Is it possible to start XMBC from command line and check if it throws an exception? – Rinzwind Sep 11 '14 at 09:34
  • "My interpretation of 'optimal': I want the video rendering to be as good as possible, and I want the system to be as stable as possible." Ubuntu gets the most attention (it is the 1st release of all flavours) and will have fixes the quickest. – Rinzwind Sep 11 '14 at 09:36
  • So what you are saying is basically that in terms of stability, there is no difference between the flavours, or even that standard ubuntu will be most stable since it gets the most attention? I get that XBMC will probably crash just as often with any version, but should not e.g. server versions of Ubuntu be more stable than desktop versions, since there is much more goings on in the latter. But perhaps that does not matter when XBMC is running all the time on the one and only physical display (the TV)? – Nick The Swede Sep 11 '14 at 10:07
  • @NickTheSwede server versions are more stable yes but that is more due to the lack of (desktop) software than anything else (there is less to crash on ;) ). Nowadays the equation is: desktop = server + ubuntu-desktop. The server used to have specific perfomance tweaks. – Rinzwind Sep 11 '14 at 12:25
  • @Takkat: I added hardware specs; version of XBMC I figured the latest one, but that is up for debate. About XBMC standalone -- are there any pros vs cons of using that instead? For me, bootup time is not crucial in relation to stability; the system is on 24/7. – Nick The Swede Sep 11 '14 at 14:30
  • @Rinzwind: Sorry for my lack of understanding of the inner workings of ubuntu here, but I have to ask: does this mean that as long as XBMC is running, the propensity of the desktop to crash does not matter since it is 'not active' (whatever that may relevantly mean), or may a cause of a crash be both the desktop AND XBMC? If the former is true, it seems as if server version or not does not matter (it should be running xbmc 24/7). If the latter, then given that there is a way of implementing XBMC directly on Ubuntu server (is this what xbmc-standalone does?), that sounds pareto optimal to me. – Nick The Swede Sep 11 '14 at 14:43
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    @NickTheSwede oh I don't mind ;) feel free to drop into chat for more info. (is this what xbmc-standalone does?): yes! Mind you: this does not mean standalone will not install partial desktop components that together are not the desktop ;) – Rinzwind Sep 11 '14 at 15:18

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Measured by what we can do with it xbmc has surprisingly low demands on hardware. The minimum requirements to run xbmc are:

  • x86 processor from Pentium 4 or newer, 256 Mb RAM, Radeon HD4300, Intel GMA 950, GeFarce 6 or better.

All other OS additions, and the desktop will add to that. Therefore a full blown Unity desktop as it comes with Ubuntu 14.04 appears not only overkill but it may also considerably reduce performance on a low-end system. Still, even Ubuntu can be configured to run with the quite lean gnome-session-flashback desktop.

In case we do not need any graphical desktop on our media center we may consider to install xbmc on Ubuntu Server but then we may have to manually add some applications we may need.

Therefore a more user-friendly approach may be to choose a flavour with a desktop as lean as possible, and with few additional applications only (e.g. Lubuntu or Xubuntu). This also gives us the advantage to maintain our system from a graphical desktop.

We can configure xbmc to run an xbmc-standalone session to boot our PC directly to xbmc without loading the desktop environment. This alone may give us a best performance irrespect of which Ubuntu flavour we had used as a base.

We should also mention XBMCbuntu an inofficial derivative of Ubuntu maintained by the xbmc team and tailored to run xmbc. This derivative hovewer is not supported here on Ask Ubntu.

Takkat
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  • Thanks a lot -- the more user-friendly an approach I may choose, the better, since I am new to Ubuntu. Just a clarification: choosing Lubunutu or Xubuntu would still let me implement the necessary drivers for my GPU etc without having to go directly to NVIDIA or anything? I have a bad experience with having to do that, I am afraid. – Nick The Swede Sep 11 '14 at 15:37
  • @NickTheSwede: we all learned a lot from bad experiences... the appropriate way of installing drivers is through "Additional Drivers" tab offered from "Software & Updates" in all Ubuntu flavours. Only in case you desperately need a newer driver you may choose the ppa way. Downloading and installing manually asks for trouble... ;) – Takkat Sep 11 '14 at 15:45
  • While I will eventually re-install as you suggest, an interim solution for me might be to boot into gnome-session-flashback, as you indicate. Since I do not want to add several questions in one go I have asked this question here; if you are up to answering that, too, no-one would be more happy than me. – Nick The Swede Sep 11 '14 at 17:33
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    @NickTheSwede: go for the answer you have there, it's a choice on log in whether you run fallback or Unity. For 12.04 see http://askubuntu.com/a/108916 – Takkat Sep 11 '14 at 18:45