This post is outdated after the Dharma release, I will copy relevant info from this post to the newer post.

[Note: There's currently a bug that has been fixed in svn (changeset) that causes Aeon to crash. I compiled and installed from svn and confirm that the bug is fixed; will create an idoits guide to installing from svn soon. Again, like most things XBMC, it wasn't hard but nobody wanted to give up concise, correct instructions.]

Notes
I’m filling in a lot of blanks from this guide on the XBMC.org forums here, or the Lifehacker guide here. Unfortunately a lot of this info is scattered around forum posts and these guides will only get you most of the way there. For instance, don’t mess with adding the nvidia drivers to the iso … I mean you could if you wanted to but why not just do them after install?

Purpose
I need to catalogue all of the changes I had to make so that, in the event I ever need to do it all over again, I don’t spend the six – seven hours it took me the first time digging through random forum posts. For my purposes, I want to install XMBC directly to the revo’s hdd but since it has no cd/dvd rom, and there’s no way I’ll go buy one just for this, it needs to install from usb. I don’t know why this is, but there seems to be a lot of posts asking how this is done, and I think people get confused because of extra random steps mentioned in the thread.

I. Install XBMC Live to Revo HDD

1. Download XBMC Live.
2. Download unetbootin. [I don't know if this part is correct] For Mac users, like me, it appears easist to run it under a Windows virtual or boot camp even though there’s a Linux version.
3. Plug in your USB drive and [I had trouble getting my USB key to boot until I did this] format it FAT32.
4. Launch unetbootin, select the XMBC Live iso and select the drive letter of your USB key and then let unetbootin do it’s thing.
5. Plug the USB key into your Revo, turn it on and [Optional] hit Del to get to the bios and change the boot priority to removable devices. [/Optional] hit F12 for the boot menu and select your USB key.
   [Note: the guide has you create a file for permanent storage. This is only necessary if you want to run XBMC Live directly from the USB key. If you're installing to HDD then it's pointless.]
6. At the XBMC Live boot menu select the Install to HDD option. You’ll then see the normal ubuntu command line installer and it’ll walk you through partitioning the drive, etc.
7. Remove the USB key, reboot per the installer and make sure XMBC loads. Once it has, immediately shut it down.

II. Install Invidia drivers

1. [I haven't confirmed if XMBC Live 9.11 final contains up to date Nvidia drivers since the install to HDD option was broken when this was written and I had to use RC1 -> apt-get update / upgrade path]Download latest Nvidia ION Linux drivers here. Make sure to check beta releases. Current certified 190.53 appears to be working with 9.11 Live.
2. Copy them over, or easier yet, use [need to verify url] wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/190.53/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-190.53-pkg1.run. Should be obvious from url that you can you just replace the version number with whichever you’re after.
3. Install … sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-190.53-pkg1.run.
4. Reboot; done.
5. Once in XBMC, you should be fine leaving the Renderer option set to Auto, but if you really feel the need switch it to VDPAU.
6. My Revo 1600 is running 1080p fine with only the stock 1gb, but I still have another 1gb on order. I’ve also noticed the tiniest bit of jitter during playback (about the same as PS3MS to PS3) and am still investigating all of the xorg.conf posts for that solution.

III. Audio over HDMI

1. [Note: this is very dependent on how and what you're hooking your Revo up to. Both guides fail to mention that the audio config they give you only works when connecting directly to screen and only outputs stereo. Wich should be obvious from 'Downmix multichannel audio to stereo - ON', but still, who wants stereo?!?]
2. Set Audio Output to Digital.
3. AC3:on
4. DTS:on
5. Both guides state that both, audio output device and passthrough output device should be set to ‘hdmi’. Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me and all I got was silence. There’s a massive thread about multichannel audio here, but I found that I didn’t need any of it except for one key part.
6. Alt-F2 to bring up a terminal, and login.
7. aplay -l and note the HDMI device; it should be card 0 device 3.
8. Set Audio Output Device to Custom and enter plughw:0,3.
9. Set Passthrough Output Device to Custom and enter plughw:0,3.
10. Downmix multichannel audio to stereo: off
11. You should now get DD5.1 and DTS5.1 [possibly 7.1 too?] out of the Revo’s HDMI. My assumption is that you’re connecting the Revo HDMI to either a receiver with HDMI in, or you’re routing sound through your TV via HDMI in and then Optical out to your receiver (how mine is configured). Since the Revo 1600 has no optical out, that route isn’t covered. I would guess that for the 3600 all you’d need to change would be the approiate card / hardware numbers, but I haven’t done any research into that.
12. And of course, if you want menu sounds create /home/xbmc/.asoundrc and put:
    pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave {
    pcm “hdmi”
    }
    }
    in it.

IV. Logitech Harmony Remote

1. Get an IR Receiver by purchasing a cheap MCE remote.
2. Verify that the MCE remote works with xbmc-live out of the box (it should).
3. In the Harmony remote software setup the revo as a Media Center PC -> Manufacturer: Microsoft -> Model: manually type in Extender. I had a hell of a time getting my Harmony 550 to work before I found that little tidbit recently. Even manually learning the IR from the other remote wasn’t working.
4. If you also have an Xbox360 that’s sitting nearby, using the power toggle of the MCE Remote/Harmony will also turn it on or off. Go into system setup on the 360 and set it to xbox360 remote only. Don’t worry, the activity for the 360 on the Harmony will still power it on and off … I’d have to guess it won’t navigate menus but I only use my 360 for gaming so the controller is on and that’s what I’m using for navigation. Why would you watch movies on the 360 now that you have XBMC? Netflix?!? Two words … use, net.
5. [Still need to adjust timing, Harmony software on Mac isn't letting me edit the default 200ms setting. Also still need to map back and home to a face button.]

V. Skins from git

1. This is another one of those really easy things that gets more complicated the more people talk about it. For Aeon, use the scripts from here and save yourself some time.
2. Install git client; sudo apt-get install git-core
3. git clone git://github.com/ “/home/xbmc/.xbmc/skin/”
   e.g. git clone git://github.com/HitcherUK/Alaska.git “/home/xbmc/.xbmc/skin/Alaska”

VI. Password protected Samba share to transfer files to the Revo

1. sudo apt-get install samba
2. sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
3. sudo smbpasswd -a [username]. Unlike in the Windows world where the shares use a local account for authentication, samba maintains it’s own user db. I’m sure somebody smarter than me knows how to get samba to look at linux local accounts, but for my purposes simply mirroring the user/pass of the local account in samba works.
4. The tail of my smb.conf file, sharing out two password protected directories.
   [XBMC Skins]
   path = /home/xbmc/.xbmc/skin

   security = user [shared_folder]
   public = no
   read only = no
   guest ok = no
   writeable = yes
   printable = no
   create mask = 0755
   force create mode = 0755
   directory mask = 0775
   force directory mode = 0775

   [XBMC Aeon Backdrops]
   path = "/home/xbmc/Aeon Backdrops"

   security = user [shared_folder]
public = no
read only = no
guest ok = no
writeable = yes
printable = no
create mask = 0755
force create mode = 0755
directory mask = 0775
force directory mode = 0775

VII. Xorg changes

1. sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.orig
2. sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
3. If XBMC boots to a command prompt, you did something wrong. Comment out your change and restart.
4. Gamma: on my TV XBMC is way too dark so I needed to adjust the gamma. On the XBMC forums, somebody posted that gamma was specified in the form: gamma r g b; calling out gamma values for each channel. Turns out with XBMC Live, it needs a single gamma value, e.g. gamma 1.2, or it pukes. [If you have the opposite problem where the gui is bright but your movies are too dark, enable VDPAU studio level color conversion (need to look up where this is located)]
5. Jitter/Judder: [I'm still messing around with these to see if any work, as it stands some of these modifications make my install puke to command prompt]
   From the revouser thread here.
   Monitor Section:
   HorizSync 31.0 – 69.0
   VertRefresh 59.0 – 86.0
   [confirmed the above works and made a large difference visually]
   Device Section:
   Option “DynamicTwinView” “False”
   Option “TripleBuffer” “True”
   [above works, but no visual change that I can detect]
   Screen Section:
   Option “TwinView” “False”
   Option “AddARGBGLXVisuals” “True”
   [untested]
   Add an Extensions Section:
   Section Extensions
   Option “Composite” “Disable”
   EndSection
   [untested, not sure that this would make a huge difference]
6. There is mention that this:
   Screen Section
   Option “UseEDIDFreqs” “False”
   worked too.
   [untested]
7. There’s also a post here detailing how to add your own modelines into xorg.

VIII. Automount USB

1. sudo apt-get install usbmount
2. sudo nano /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf add ntfs to filesystems string.

IX. Resume from USB

1. I had just assumed that this would be configured by default; I’m increasingly becoming annoyed with all the little fiddling that you have to do for things that should already be configured by default. That and finding all of the information to get stuff to work. Digging through fifty pages of forum postings isn’t my idea of fun.
2. Follow this guide from the wiki.
3. cat /proc/acpi/wakeup | grep ^USB
4. You should see something like this:
   USB0      S3      disabled pci:0000:00:02.0
   USB2      S3      disabled pci:0000:00:02.1
5. sudo su and nano /etc/rc.local and add:
   echo USB0>/proc/acpi/wakeup
   echo “rc.local has completed sucessfully.” >> /tmp/resume.log (optional)
6. [I need to track down the post I found that actually set this as a script to only echo out the enable if it wasn't already enabled.]
7. Don’t enabled USB2 otherwise the computer will wake up immediately after suspend.
8. Now that that’s over with there’s another little bit that isn’t mentioned in that wiki that needed to be enabled on my 1600. Usbcore.autosuspend=-1
9. sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
10. in the first entry (not safe mode) append “usbcore.autosuspend=-1″ (without quotes) to the end of ‘kernel’ line.
11. Reboot.
12. I see a lot of posts about resume scripts and the remote not working correctly after resume. I’m still waiting for my newegg order to show up so the previous instructions were only tested using the keyboard.

X. Upgrading RAM

1. [link to youtube video needed]
2. Needed: philips screwdriver and small standard screwdriver / jeweler’s screwdriver.
3. Where the wobbly stand snaps in, there will be a warranty sticker covering a philips screw, Cut the sticker and remove the screw.
4. Looking at the black top plate, notice the hairline seam on the outer white case. Run your finger nail down that seam to seperate it slightly. Enough that you can get the standard screwdriver in without chunking up the plastic.
5. Wiggle standard screwdriver back and forth to pry the top of the case up releasing the tabs holding it. Top of case will come off as one piece.
6. Insert memory module
7. [personal preference] plug in power, keyboard and monitor; boot into bios and make sure the ram is recognized before replacing top case.
8. In bios adjust [correct term?] video cache from 256mb to 512mb.

Advanced
XI. Compile and Install XBMC from source
This is incredibly easy, but all of the posts I found were kind of wonky; even the wiki is missing some vital info that you need. I’m assuming that you’re already running XBMC Live and want to latest … the pre-compiled PPAs are supposed to do this for you but I never can seem to get them to work.

1. sudo apt-get update (If you haven’t already done this previously when you first installed).
2. sudo apt-get build-dep xbmc
3. Here I’m assuming that you already have nvidia drivers installed from the previous steps.
   sudo apt-get install libvdpau-dev
   This is needed so that you can enable vdpau during configure.
4. sudo apt-get install subversion
5. Either create a directory that you want to download source to, or a ‘trunk’ directory will be created in the current directory.
6. svn co -r http://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/trunk
   I’m probably downloading way too much of the source but the previous posted instructions I’d found called out ‘/branches/linuxport/XBMC’ which doesn’t exist. I should probably spend some time looking to see what branch I should be downloading.
7. cd trunk
8. ./bootstrap
9. ./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-debug --disable-ccache --enable-vdpau
   prefix=/usr to specify the directory to install to; for some reason I found my Live installed to /usr/xbmc instead of the stated default of /usr/share/xbmc. Disable debug, self explanatory. Disable ccache, no idea what this does, copied it from a post? Enable vdpau; this is supposed to be enabled by default but in my first configure run I noticed that it was disabled.
10. make
11. Prepare to wait a long time if you’re doing this directly on the AR1600. Usually takes me an hour or so … don’t have exact time since I walk away and come back.
12. sudo make install

Conclusion
My final hurdle in the next few days, once it arrives from Newegg, is to hook up an ir receiver and get my Harmony remote working with XBMC. From the number of posts on the subject I’m in for a long couple of days.
Aside from the learning curve of open-source software, for $199 the Revo 1600 is an incredible HTPC bargain. Right now my focus is entirely on playing 1080p MKVs but soon I’ll move on to Music and Photos. From what I can gather, XBMC has native ALAC support, as well as UPNP (SimplifyMedia server as a backup) support. iPhoto is going to be a beast and I don’t think I’ll ever get that conquered. I’ll probably have to point XBMC at the iPhoto folder structure where it’s backed up on the server. Or I could just not mess with it. Picture support isn’t that exciting to me.
Current cost:
Acer Aspire Revo 1600 $199
Crucial 1GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) 200-pin SO-DIMM $29.98
AVS Gear Certified MCE Remote $25.41
Total $254.39
I probably could’ve gotten a Popcorn Hour for just a little more and been done with it. I do plan on checking out the Boxee beta when it goes public next month.
At first I really wanted the Revo 36xx because of the optical out, dual-core proc, extra gig of ram and the wireless N card. But, turns out, the extra options weren’t necessary. Once I get this one working flawlessly, I’ll probably get another one and stick it downstairs with a wireless extender.