The Timmothy’s Peppermint tea K-Cup is a great alternative to a coffee beverage since you have enjoy it any time of day with no caffeine worries!

Overall impressions:

Flavour: Peppermint tea is peppermint tea to me, but this is certainly a good way to make it. Its sweet and minty and oit comes out hot and perfect every time. I give it a 8/10 rating for flavour

Strength: Using the 6oz setting will make nice cup of tea but at 8oz it starts to get noticeably weaker. I give it 7/10 for strength.

Texture: I’m not a tea drinker so I am not sure I am qualified to judge the texture, but overall its a nice drink. I give it a 7.5/10 for texture.

Final Verdict:

If you don’t want a coffee, this is a great alternative that the Keurig makes very easily. But at about $0.60 a cup, tea bags may still be  a better choice!  Overall rating is 7/10

Dark Magic was the first extra bold K-Cup that I tried after being bitterly disappointed with the the initial Keurig offerings. In fact, Dark Magic is the K-Cup that actually convinced me I could be happy with a single cup coffee maker. As I’ve stated repeatedly, I like a very dark, very bold coffee and Dark Magic fits that bill! It’s a very rich blend that is perfect in the 6oz size and still quite drinkable in the 8oz cup size.

Overall impressions:

Flavour: Rich and earthly while also a bit nutty, this is a pleasantly dark roast that mixes well with only a little sweetener and cream. Dark magic is not the strongest K-Cup out there, and to be honest I like a few others better now (Double Black Diamond is my Go-To blend), but it’s a great place to start if you are looking for something extra bold and pleasantly bitter. I give it a 8/10 rating for flavour

Strength: Using the 6oz setting will make very strong cup of coffee and even at 8oz this can still be considered to be full flavour and not watery. Dark Magic is definitely one of the stronger K-Cups I’ve encountered, though it’s not the strongest. I give it 8/10 for strength.

Texture: Using the 6oz setting will yield a very smooth, rich and dense texture. The colour is very dark with a good aroma. The 8oz setting will be noticeably weaker as it pours from the machine near the end of the cycle and as a result the colour will be a little more translucent and the texture will likewise be a touch more watery. Dark Magic has a good texture, but it may become overpowered by cream and sugar leaving a sour after taste. I give it a 7.5/10 for texture.

Final Verdict:

Dark Magic is a good K-Cup, but after a few cases I found that I preferred other blends. The real issue for me with Dark magic is that it cannot stand up to my preferred cream and sweetener allotments. I know that to some it is sacrilege to contaminate a good cup of coffee with so many additives, but I want my coffee to be strong, and sweet and creamy… And Dark magic can do that, but not as well as some others. Bottom line, if you want a stronger cup of coffee than what is normally found in a Keurig, give it a try! Overall rating is 7.5/10

Update – This is my wife’s daily morning cup now and she prefers it to the Double Black Diamond.

I like the Eclipse Bland as an afternoon pick-me-up. I’ve mentioned before that I like a very dark, very bold coffee and to be honest, the Eclipse blend is, in my opinion the strongest single K-Cup you can buy! It’s an almost overpoweringly rich blend that is very very strong in the 6oz size and still quite potent in the 8oz cup size. Its a coffee to be savoured in the afternoon rather then simply drained in the morning rush!

Overall impressions:

Flavour: VERY rich and pleasantly bitter though many people may find it tastes burnt, this is a the darkest roast I’ve come across for the Keurig. I like to add a lot of sweetener and cream to this blend so that it comes out more like a late since its superb colour and bold flavour are not overpowered by either cream or sugar. I give it a 9/10 rating for flavour

Strength: Using the 6oz setting will make very strong cup of coffee and even at 8oz this is very much at full flavour and not at all watery. In my mind, the Van Houtte Eclipese Blend is the strongest K-Cup I’ve encountered. I give it 10/10 for strength.

Texture: Using the 6oz setting will yield a smooth, rich and very dense texture. The colour is almost totally black and and the aroma is that of a good espresso blend. With an 8oz setting the coffee will be a bit weaker as it pours from the machine near the end of the cycle and as a result the colour will be a little more translucent and the texture will likewise be a touch more watery. I give it a 8/10 for texture.

Final Verdict:

The Eclipse blend is another personal favourite and my go-to afternoon cup of coffee. Its so dark and rich that I find it overpowering in the morning yet perfect in the afternoon when I need a little push to make it though. However, since it is SO very strong I am taking off one point in the overall score to denote its “special occasion” drink-ability as opposed to a “daily morning cup.”  Overall rating is 8.5/10

When I use the Keurig machine this is my “go to” K-Cup. I like a very dark, very bold coffee and over all the Double Black Diamond delivers. Its a very rich blend that is perfect in the 6oz size and even holds true to the 8oz cup size.

Overall impressions:

Flavour: Rich and earthly while not too bitter, this is a very dark roast that mixes well with only a little sweetener and can take a fair bit of cream while still maintaing good color. I give it a 9/10 rating for flavour

Strength: Using the 6oz setting will make very strong cup of coffee and even at 8oz this can still be considered to be full flavour and not watery. Double black Diamond is definitely one of the strongest K-Cups I’ve encountered. I give it 8/10 for strength.

Texture: Using the 6oz setting will yield a very smooth, rich and dense texture. The colour is almost totally black and amber ”creama” foam will linger for a while offering the impression of a good espresso blend. With an 8oz setting the coffee will be noticeably weaker as it pours from the machine near the end of the cycle and as a result the colour will be a little more translucent and the texture will likewise be a touch more watery. I give it a 8/10 for texture.

Final Verdict:

Over all this is a personal favourite. In fact, after trying about 20 different k-Cups, this is one of the few I keep coming back to day after day. Overall rating is 8.5/10

The main benefit of a MySQL setup are that there is only ever one place where you will need to update TV Show and movie information, so no matter what devices does the scraping, each device reaps the benefits! But, the reason I like it is because I can watch something upstairs and stop in the middle and then resume from any other XBMC player in the house. And, if I ever need to re-install one of my devices, there is no need to re-scrape all of my media. I just put a few config files in the userdata folder and everything is just the way it was before.

Enough with the why…How do you do it??

Part I – Installing phpMyAdmin on a Synoogy NAS

Since I like to keep things easy we will install phpMyAdmin on the Synology and then enable MySQL for Web Station. phpMyAdmin is graphical interface to MySQL and makes things very easy to manage later. This used to be a complicated task, but ever since DSM 3.2 (the Synology OS) phpMyAdmin is available as an out-of-the-box plugin package, so it could not be more simple!

Here is a video on how to get phpMyAdmin installed on your Synology NAS

Or… if you’re old school… Here is a text explanation…

Step one is to enable MySQL and the Web Station interface on the Synology.

Just open the control panel choose “Web Services.”

In the Web Services window, check “Enable Web Station” and “Enable MySQL.”

Next, we will install the phpMyAdmin package for Synology.

Once Web Station and MySQL are turned on, open the “Admin” panel with the arrow button in the top left corner of the page.

From within the Admin panel, choose the “Package Center” and click on the “packages tab.

Scroll to the bottom and find the phpMyAdmin package and click “install.”

Once is is fished installing, click on the “Installed” tab and click “Run” to start phpMyAdmin.

Now, go back to the admin panel and there should be a new phpMyAdmin icon. Click it to open a new browser window and enjoy phpMyAdmin goodness!

Note – It did not work if you cannot see this icon!

Congratulations! You now have a centralized MySQL database!

Part II – MySQL Configuration

This process used to much more difficult involving the creation of users and databases with command lines and all sorts of stuff… Now, it s two step process and only requires a single user! Check out the video for a complete walk though or keep reading for all the details.

So, first step, login to phpMyAdmin.

In the default window for MyPHP Admin, locate the “Priveleges” tab, and click it.

This will give you a list of the current database users and the option to add new users to the database. Click “Add a new user” at the bottom:

Give the user a username of “xbmc” and the same password, or one of your choice. I just use xbmc to keep it easy. Do not add anything for host. In the middle section, make sure “Grant all privileges on wildcard etc…” is checked. In the last section, select “Check All and then click GO!

You should see a confirmation saying that all went well…

Finally – And this is important, some older guides say that you need to also create databases, but this is now wrong! XBMC will create the databases for you, all you need to do is create the user and then let XBMC do the rest. If a database exists with the same name that XBMC expects to find, XBMC will try and use it, and if it is empty, XBMC will fail to connect and throw a ton of errors about “unable to upgrade database…”

That’s it! MySQL is setup.

Part III – Client Configuration and Path Substitution

Now that MySQL is setup, we need to do a couple of things on the AppleTV, Linix box or Windows box to make Thumbnals work right. By default all of the XBMC thumbnails are stored locally in the file system of the player but we want all of our XBMC boxes to share one centralized thumbnails folder. If this is not done, only the player that does a library scan can ever display the thumbnails. So, if you were to scrape on one TV, and then go to another one, all of the fan art and thumbnails would be missing and the GUI would look terrible.  There are a couple of ways to do this and some of them depend on the version of your software, but right now all currently released versions of XBMC (Eden and Eden Betas) that work on the ATV1 and ATV2 support path substitution. If you need to use a symbolic link for an older build of XBMC I can explain it.. But its tedious… So I am gong to ignore it for now.

The easy way (works with) :

• An Apple TV 1 using Crystalbuntu with the July 2011 update or better (not using Dharma)
• An Apple TV 2 using 10.0-7 or above (11.0 or Eden Betas are best)
• Just about anything using an 11.0/Eden build

You can do this the easy way by adding a section to the advancesettigns.xml file for XBMC. The Advanced settings will probably not yet exist on your ATV2 or a windows/Linux install but Crystalbuntu (ATV1 via Sam’s image) will include the file already. The advancedsettigns.xml file is used by XBMC to enable features that are otherwise hidden, such as the MySQL shared database. There is no big secret to the file, it is plain text and if it exists in the userdata folder of the XBMC install, it will be read and used.

For the sake of simplicity I will list out generic instructions for Windows, Crystalbuntu and an ATV2… The text and settings are all the same but  there are minor differences in where the file is located and what may or may not be in the file already.

For Windows

(This is covered in depth in the video above)

The file is not created by default and must be located in the roaming profile. typically:

c:\users\[USERNAME]\appdata\roaming\XBMC\userdata

Go to that folder and create a text file named “advancedsettings.xml. Use notpad to edit the file and eneter the following text:

<advancedsettings>
     <videodatabase>
       <type>mysql</type>
       <host>192.168.1.XXX</host>
       <port>3306</port>
       <user>xbmc</user>
       <pass>xbmc</pass>
       <name>xbmc_video</name>
    </videodatabase>
    <musicdatabase>
       <type>mysql</type>
       <host>192.168.1.XXX</host>
       <port>3306</port>
       <user>xbmc</user>
       <pass>xbmc</pass>
       <name>xbmc_music</name>
    </musicdatabase>
    <pathsubstitution>
     <substitute>
      <from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/</from>
      <to>smb://192.168.1.XXX/media/Thumbnails/</to>
     </substitute>
    </pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>

NOTE: In your setup replace all of the IP addresses with the address of the NAS/Shared folder and also check the path for the thumbnails. I am showing an SMB share here though it can also be done with NFS as well. In my case this assumes I have a root shared folder called “media” and a folder inside named “Thumbnails” and that it has public read/write permissions. The thumbnail folder must be writeable and case matters!

For an ATV1 with Crystalbubntu or some Linux installs:

You will need to add a few lines to the existing file (or create a new one in Linux). For Crysatlbuntu, you must have already booted the ATV and actually gotten all the way to XBMC so that Sam’s scripts will have updated the file system and included the most recent advancedsettigns.xml update. Basically, boot all the way once, reboot a couple times and then follow the instructions below. If you have used your AppleTV for a while, just re-boot once to be safe.

Use Putty to SSH into the ATV2 with a userID of ATV and a password of ATV.
Type:

sudo nano /root/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml

password is atv again

Once nano opens you should see an XML file with this (and possibly more) in it:

<advancedsettings>
 <useddsfanart>true</useddsfanart>
 </advancedsettings>

Its possible that the file may be brand new and empty… In either case you will need to add a new section between  a pair of <advancedsettings> and </advancedsettings> tags. If there is noting in the file, you will need to put <advancedsettigns> above and </advancedsettigns> below what is added next.
Add the following:

NOTE: The file must start with </advancedsettigns>

<videodatabase>
       <type>mysql</type>
       <host>192.168.1.XXX</host>
       <port>3306</port>
       <user>xbmc</user>
       <pass>xbmc</pass>
       <name>xbmc_video</name>
    </videodatabase>
    <musicdatabase>
       <type>mysql</type>
       <host>192.168.1.XXX</host>
       <port>3306</port>
       <user>xbmc</user>
       <pass>xbmc</pass>
       <name>xbmc_music</name>
    </musicdatabase>
    <pathsubstitution>
     <substitute>
      <from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/</from>
      <to>smb://192.168.1.XXX/media/Thumbnails/</to>
     </substitute>
    </pathsubstitution>

NOTE: The file must end with </advancedsettigns>

NOTE: In your setup replace all of the IP addresses with the address of the NAS and also check the path for the thumbnails. I am showing an SMB share here though it can also be done with NFS as well. In my case this assumes I have a root shared folder called “media” and a folder inside named “Thumbnails” and that it has public read/write permissions. The thumbnail folder must be writeable and case matters!

FOR AN ATV2:

The file is not created by default and must be located in:

/private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/userdata

So the command to create/edit the file is:

 cd /private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/XBMC/userdata/
sudo nano advancedsettings.xml

Add the following text:

<advancedsettings>
     <videodatabase>
       <type>mysql</type>
       <host>192.168.1.XXX</host>
       <port>3306</port>
       <user>xbmc</user>
       <pass>xbmc</pass>
       <name>xbmc_video</name>
    </videodatabase>
    <musicdatabase>
       <type>mysql</type>
       <host>192.168.1.XXX</host>
       <port>3306</port>
       <user>xbmc</user>
       <pass>xbmc</pass>
       <name>xbmc_music</name>
    </musicdatabase>
    <pathsubstitution>
     <substitute>
      <from>special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/</from>
      <to>smb://192.168.1.XXX/media/Thumbnails/</to>
     </substitute>
    </pathsubstitution>
</advancedsettings>

Exit Nano and reboot the ATV2.

Part IV – Sources Setup

Finally, you will likely want to set-up the XBMC Sources on your primary player or some other XBMC device that is easy to work with and then copy the sources.xml file from that device and paste it to all of your other devices. The sources.xml file points XBMC to all of your shared folders and if you use a shared database then you need to have exactly the same shares (with identical paths) on each XBMC box as well. This is also the case for thumbnils since they are organized based on the full path name. That is to say that even though “smb://192.168.1.101/media/movie.avi” and “smb://NAS/media/movie.avi” may point to the same file, they have a different absolute path and therefor will not share the same database entry or thumbnail. This is also the case if one path is SMB and another is NFS. All players that share a database must use the same path to each file. And if you start with SMB and then upgrade to NFS, you will need to re-scan your library since all of the paths will change. There is a way around this, but its tedious.

I use all SMB shares since I know those will work on all of my players but I have tested NFS and its good too. And keep in mind one more time, the protocol for each share must be the same on each box sharing a database, so you cannot do NFS one one box and SMB on another.

That’s it, enjoy!

At this point you should have already modified the AppleTV hardware by removing the Hard Drive and fan as well as replacing the WiFi adapter with a Brodcom CryastalHD card. You should also have completed the steps to build a CrystalHD for AppleTV boot thumb-drive and modified the system files within to allow booting with no internal hard drive.

If all the above steps are complete, go ahead and attach your Apple TV to your TV with either the component cables or the HDMI connection, connect the LAN port to your network and insert the AppleTV bootable thumb-drive. Once it’s all connected, turn on your TV and plug in the power cord to the AppleTV. The AppleTV does not have proper ACPI support, so there is no power button or real suspend mode; if it’s plugged in, it’s turned on.

The First boot

Booting an AppleTV is not an instantaneous process, in fact it will normally take about two to five minutes to fully boot into XBMC. However the first boot will take significantly longer! The first time you power on the Apple TV you should expect the following:

• 30 seconds of blank screen, nothing at all
• 20 – 30 seconds of the ATV-Bootloader logo (An AppleTV with a Penguin)
• 10+ minutes of text as Ubuntu starts up for the first and updates files from the internet. At this time the AppleTV will download and install XBMC as well as any updates available from STMLabs.com. Currently this will include the May and June updates.
• A few minutes of a totally blank screen and then a reboot.
• 30 seconds of blank screen, nothing at all
• 20 – 30 seconds of the ATV-Bootloader logo (An AppleTV with a Penguin)
• 5+ minutes of text as Ubuntu continues to update. This update will include an change to the XBMC file structure and takes only a few minutes.
• 1 – 2 minutes as X11 and XBMC start for the first time.

After about 15 minutes, the Apple TV should suddenly fill the screen with the XBMC user interface.

It’s all very interesting to watch, but you should not need to do anything during this process. It’s a good idea to watch for the first five or ten minutes just to be sure that there are no error messages, (like a bad IP address or the inability to resolve DNS addresses) but once the screen starts showing that Ubuntu is downloading and installing updates you can safely assume everything is setup correctly. Feel free to leave it alone and come back in fifteen minutes.

Running XBMC 

If all went according to plan, the AppleTV will boot, the screen will flash and then you will be greeted with the XBMC home window. In the future, a typical power up will take about two minutes since there will be no need to update anything from the internet.

A typical power on from re-boot or cold start will look like this:

• 30 seconds of blank screen, nothing at all
• 20 – 30 seconds of the ATV-Bootloader logo (An AppleTV with a Penguin)
• 30 seconds as of scrolling text as Ubuntu starts up (Longer if an update is available)
• 15 seconds of blank screen (some flickering is normal as X11 starts)
• After a total of 2 minutes, XBMC should be running

The next part of this guide is going to focus on taking apart the Apple TV and removing the hard drive and the fan while also replacing the WiFi adapter with a new CrystalHD mini-PCI card. The hard drive and fan represent the only moving parts in the Apple TV and removing them will make the ATV completely silent.

Video How-To (Installing the CrystalHD card)
In addition to the written guide below, this video will cover all the same material.

Video How-To (Removing the hard drive and Fan)

 

Full instructions:

Step 1 – Remove the rubber base

Remove the rubber footing attached to the bottom of the ATV. This is not a fun task… The rubber will likely tear and force your to rip it off in strips. This is OK, you never need t use it again, but even so its messy. In addition to the rubber, there will still be a sticky residue from the glue used to attach the bottom cover all over the metal case. I used an old credit card to strip away the residue and it took me about an hour while watching TV. You do not need to remove it all, but since it inhibits the air flow and we are going to remove the fan, I highly recommend taking the time to do it right.

Note: Since the case no longer has any traction on the bottom, it s a good idea to attach some rubber feet to the bottom of the case one its all cleaned up. This will keep it form moving around and will also lift it up a bit to allow better air flow.

Step 2 – Remove four screws

Locate the four screws on the corners of the ATV and remove them. There are additional screws in a rectangular pattern near the front of the ATV and these hold in the Hard drive. We will be removing them later as well.

Step 3 – Remove the bottom of the case and disconnect the hard drive

Be careful to not damage the IDE cable plugged into the hard drive as you lift the now unscrewed plate from the bottom of the case. The hard drive is attached to the plate, so as you lift it, locate the IDE connector attached the main board of the Apple TV and carefully remove it from the main board by pulling the blue tab up. Once the Cable is safely removed, unscrew the hard drive from the ATV bottom cover and set it aside. We will not be using the drive again in this guide, but you may want to keep it if you choose to revert back to a normal Apple TV.

Step 4 – Remove the WiFi adapter

Next to the big black fan is a small WiFi adapter plugged into a mini-PCI slot. We need to use that Mini-PCI slot for the CrystalHD card, so now its time to remove the WiFi adapter. Carefully remove the WiFi antennae wires from the card (the black and blue wires with copper connectors) by lifting them straight up. This can be tricky the first time so feel free to use some pliers, but just be careful not to damage the leads if you ever want to revert back to a stock Apple TV.

To remove the WiFi card itself, remove the screw holding it in place at the top and pinch the plastic mount on the other side while lifting the card front the top. It will lift up and rock toward the back of the ATV and then just pop out.

Step 6 – Install the Crystal HD (BCM70015) card

Install the CrystalHD into the mini-PCI socket now vacated by the WiFi adapter. Slide the pins into the socket (it’s keyed so it can only go one way) and push the card down so that the mounting holes line up with the screw hole used for the WiFi card. Once the Crystal HD is set well, keep holding it while you replace the mounting screw.

Note: The WiFi antennae are just hanging loose at this point, and while this is OK, you may want to use some electrical tape to tuck them away somewhere.

Step 7 – Remove the Fan (optional)

After a bit of reading I am convinced that the fan does absolutely nothing. So… I just pulled it off and never looked back. To remove the fan, just pull it off. It is held in place by some rubber standoffs and they will probably tear off and break as you pull the fan. If you are not comfortable removing the fan, you can simply disconnect it and leave it in place.

Step 8 – Put it all back together

Set aside the Hard drive, IDE cable, WiFi adapter and the fan and keep them somewhere safe… You never know when you might want them again… Then slide the bottom cover back into the case (be careful to get the power socket lined up correctly) and replace the four case screws.

That’s it, your Apple TV is now silent!

Now – Plug in the modified Thumb-drive from part 2 and power it up! Part 4 covers what to expect on your first boot.

Update (April 2012) All videos are now done with Linux Mint so that they match the guide. Also – Fixed a few VERY embarrassing typos in the commands… SORRY!

The process to install Linux on an Apple TV is actually quite simple, but things get a bit more complicated when you also want to remove the hard drive from the Apple TV. This guide will include everything you need to do to get up and running with no hard drive. This guide will also include a number of optional configuration changes that may be very useful to those who need them such as adding a static IP address, DNS address and later some advanced XBMC settings.

Also, since I personally need to use component video, this guide will include the steps necessary to use either HDMI or Component video.

Software you will need:

• Linux Mint Live DVD iso
• http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
• Universal USB installer (Cuz we are lazy…)
• http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
• Putty or any other SSH client (Will be used later)
• http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
• Sam Nazarko’s Crystal HD for Apple TV Thumb-drive install tool
• http://www.stmlabs.com/projects/crystalhd-for-appletv/

Step 1 – Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Sam Nazarko has, on his own built and maintained the tool that makes this all possible. Go to stmlabs.com and send him a donation! Seriously… Do it now =)

What Sam’s tool does is really quite amazing. You can read a lot more about it on his blog, but the short version is this… First, you download a small tool that will automatically format and partition your thumb drive (formerly a daunting task for the Linux n00b.) Then the tool will image the USB drive with a custom Linux installation already pre-configured with XBMC and all the drivers needed to run the AppleTV with a CrystalHD card. But that’s only half the story since Sam also maintains a server that allows the AppleTV to “phone home” (but only if you want it too!) at each boot and check for any updates to either the the Linux image, OS configuration, XBMC or even the CrystalHD driver. Updates have been steady so far and each one has brought improved performance and features.

Donation made? Good… Next, Go to XBMC.org and make a donation to the team there as well. These guys work very hard to make what amounts to the very best available media player and they ask nothing in return. XBMC is maintained as well as or better then most retail media players, but XBMC is totally free. The team maintains a superb support forum and the developers themselves are very active in both troubleshooting and building new improvements and features. They deserve a lot of credit and a little cash too!

So, in re-cap:

1. Donate to Sam
2. Donate to Team XBMC
3. Move on =)

Step 2 – Install Sam’s CrystalHD for AppleTV Tool

Video How To (Getting and using Sam’s tool:)

Got to Sam’s site (http://www.stmlabs.com/projects/crystalhd-for-appletv/) and get the tool from the bottom of the page. Unzip the file and run the executable program “partitioner.exe.”

The tool will give you two options, USB Drive or Hard Drive. For this install we want to use the default USB option. The hard drive option will cause the USB drive to install the image onto the internal drive of the AppleTV… Since we are going to remove the hard drive, we will use the USB option and have the tool build us a self contained bootable thumb-drive.

In the center of the application select your USB drive from the list. If you do not see it, it must not be installed or formatted properly. Windows will need to see the drive before Sam’s tool can use it. Find your thumb-drive, check the box, make sure you are connected to the Internet and click GO.

The tool will now format the USB drive, download a 550MB image from Sam’s site and write the image to the drive. This will take some time… While you wait… Go rip apart the Apple TV as described in Part 3!

When its all done, you should see this:

Step 3 – Use Linux Mint Live CD/USB to Edit Files on the Thumb-Drive

At this point you already have a fully functional and bootable AppleTV USB Key and you can just plug it in and boot the AppleTV so long as you have not yet removed the hard drive. However the point of this guide is to remove the internal drive drive so we will need to edit a couple files in the thumb-drive since the device name will have changed.

Why do we need to edit files in Linux??? 

When a hard drive is installed in the AppleTV it is given the device name /dev/sda (with partitions defined as /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc…) and an attached USB drive is named /dev/sdb. But, with no hard drive installed, the USB drive takes the /dev/sda name. This is a lot like in windows with the main drive being named “C:” and subsequent drives getting assigned “D:”, “E:” or “F:”, Etc… With Linux on the Apple TV, the letter after the “/sd” represents the order hat the drives are discovered by the OS based on where they are physically attached. Since Sam’s tool is designed to boot from the USB drive and not interfere with what is on  the hard disk, a number of configuration files explicitly call the full path “/dev/sdb#” (the # represents the partition number) and as a result we will need to change those files and point them to “/dev/sda#” instead.

The AppleTV hardware requires that there be a number of separate partitions on its boot device and it must be partitioned in the GPT format. Unfortunately only certain tools (read: not Windows) can read that format and make the data available to us without first booting into the Apple TV.

To access the files locked inside the thumb-drive we will use the Linux Mint Live image from (yet another…)  USB thumb-drive. I use the universal tool above to create the bootable thumb drive since I am lazy and this small app does all the work! Linux Mint is very similar to Ubuntu and you are free to use whatever Linux distro suites you best so long as it has GParted available. The GParted live CD (or USB) will work too, but Mint will allow you to edit the files more easily using either nano or Gedit. Also, since Mint is a more robust distro you can use the pre-loaded web browser to cut and past the commands directly from this guide (assuming Mint can find your network hardware.) Both live images will allow us to boot a computer into a Linux environment that can then mount each of the partitions on the USB drive so we can edit the necessary files. In addition, since we will have access to the root file system, we can set an IP address and modify the xorg.conf to enable component video.

Note – Using a bootable Live USB thumb Drive should not affect the hard drive of the computer you use to boot with. Live CDs/DVDs/USB drives are a great way to test drive linux on your PC with no real commitment!

Video How To (Creating a Linux Mint USB Thumb drive)

Video Pending… But uts REALLY easy, just go to Pendrivelinux.com and get the universal installer. Then use it to make a “Mint 12 DVD” based thumb drive.

3.1 Boot to Mint

Build the Mint bootable USB thumb-drive using the Universal USB Installer from pendrivelinux.com. Run the app, Select Linux Mint 12 DVD, download the Knoppix ISO from the their website (use the check box in the Installer app to automatically find the ISO) and  build the drive. There is no need to create a “user space” so do not worry abort the option. When the build is complete, plug the USB drive into a computer and boot to it. Soon after, you should have a desktop running Linux Mint. If it doesn’t work, try another computer with older or more generic hardware.

In this guide I will be using the Mint Live image and will be booting from a thumb-drive as opposed to the CD. I will also be editing files in GEdit since is is easier to use then nano or VI, but you may use any text editor you prefer. Booting from a USB drive will cause my internal hard drive to be mapped as /dev/sda, the bootable Mint thumb-drive to be /dev/sdb and finally the AppleTV thumb-drive (when plugged in) to become /dev/sdc. If I were to use a live CD there would be one less device and the AppleTV thumb-drive would be /dev/sdb. This is all confusing I know, and to a windows user it’s down right mind numbing. But don’t worry, just try and boot with a USB thumb drive in a computer with only a single hard drive and then all the device names should match my examples! But if you must use a CD, remember that everywhere I use “/dev/sdc” you will likely needs to replace it with “/dev/sdb.”

3.2 – Plug in the newly created Apple TV thumb-drive to mount the partitions

Video How To (Using Linux Mint to edit the boot files:)

Plug in the AppleTV thumb-drive after the Mint desktop is visible. If everything went according to plan you should be presented with a pop up showing that the USB drive was detected and two new drives should show up on the desktop, “Linux” and “Recovery.” Ignore the popup…

At this point we could use the mouse to navigate the file system, but it may be faster to just list off the commands to run, so I am going to do it that way! Click on the Menu option in the lower left of the desktop and selct the “Terminal” option. This will open a white terminal window.

3.2.1 Modify com.apple.boot.plist in the recovery Partition

Enter the command:

sudo gedit /media/Recovery/com.apple.boot.plist

This will launch GEdit (like notepad…) in a window and open the file “com.apple.boot.plist” from the Recovery (boot) partition on the Apple TV. Leave the terminal window open even though it will display useless information from GEdit while that app is open.

GEdit will look like this:

Now from within the text editor, use the arrow keys to locate the line of text that reads as follows:

<string>root=/dev/sdb3 ro vesa video=vesafb<string>

Change the /dev/sdb3 to /dev/sda3

<string>root=/dev/sda3 ro vesa video=vesafb<string>

Why are we doing this? The HFS+ “recovery” partition is used by the AppleTV kind of like a BIOS in a traditional PC. When a USB device is plugged into the AppleTV with a properly formatted recovery partition, the apple TV will use it (instead of the hard drive) as the boot partition. By modifying the com.apple.boot.plist file we are telling the AppleTV to continue its boot process from the third partition on the first drive. Since Crystalbuntu expected there to be a hard drive at /dev/sda it was designed to boot from /dev/sdb so that the hard drive will be ignored and Crystalbuntu can boot from the thumb drive. Now that the hard drive is gone, we need modify the device name in the file to continue to point to the thumb drive, now named /dev/sda.

Finally, save the file from the title menu and close GEdit.

If you cannot save - Sometimes the file system of the thumb drive will get corrupted and this will make it so that you cannot save the file… If this happens, just re-create the drive with Sam’s tool. I’m sure that there is also a file system check that could be done to repair the corruption, but I always just use Sam’s tool to re-image the drive.

3.2.2 Modify the fstab file on the ext3 “Linux” partition

The “Linux” partition should also be monted on the desktop of Mint, and it is actually the root file system that will be used by Linux on the AppleTV while it is running. The fstab file is the “File System Table” and it tells the OS where various partitions are mounted. In much the same way that we modified the boot file, we need to update this table to replace the /dev/sdb references with /dev/sda.

To edit the file, run the following command in the terminal window used before, or open a new one:

sudo gedit /media/Linux/etc/fstab

In the text editor, locate any instance of the text /dev/sdb# (such as /dev/sdb3 or/dev/sdb2) and replace the /sdb with /sda, i.e. /dev/sdb2 will become/dev/sda2 and /dev/sdb3 will become /dev/sda3.

Here is what is will look like before you edit:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sdb3
/dev/sdb3 / ext3 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 $
# /dev/sdb2
/dev/sdb2 none swap sw 0 0

here is what it needs to look like (edits are red):

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
 #
 # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
 # /dev/sda3
 /dev/sda3 / ext3 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 $
 # /dev/sda2
 /dev/sda2 none swap sw 0 0

Again, save the file from the title menu and close GEdit.

That’s it! The device will now boot from the USB Drive with no more edits.

But… There are a few more things that can be useful, so if you want to set a static IP address or set-up component video, keep reading!

3.3 Modify the /etc/network/interfaces to set an IP address

Video How-To (Adding a Static IP Address)

In my network I want my AppleTV to have a static IP address, and to do that I need to set an IP in the /etc/network/interfaces file as well as setup DNS in the /etc/resolv.conf file. If you want your AppleTV to use DHCP, ignore this step. Also, DNS is critical! At each boot Crystalbuntu looks for updates, and on the first boot it is mandatory to retrieve the XBMC application and CrystalHD drivers. If you set an IP here without also setting up DNS (next step), Crystalbuntu will not boot!

Type the following command to open the file in a terminal window:

 sudo gedit /media/Linux/etc/network/interfaces

The file will look like this (note the DHCP reference in the last line):

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

And you need it to look more like this (edits in red:)
(NOTE: replace the addresses below with what you want for your network)

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.101 
netmask 255.255.255.0 
network 192.168.1.0 
broadcast 192.168.1.255 
gateway 192.168.1.1

Save the file and close the window.

Next, we will need to add DNS information to the /etc/resolv.conf file.

sudo gedit /media/Linux/etc/resolv.conf

The file will be empty, so add these lines (Edit the first line to match your local router or DNS, the second line is a free DNS server and is optional.)

nameserver 192.168.1.1
nameserver 8.8.8.8

Save the file and close the window.

3.4 – Edit the xorg.conf file to enable 720p (or 1080p) over Component video

Video How-To (Editing the xorg.conf file)

If you use HDMI, forget about this section… But if you need component video output (or composite), you need to edit the xorg.conf file. Most guides tell you to do this, but not how… Well… It’s very easy and this is what I did so feel free to cut and paste right out of this guide!

Run the command:

sudo gedit /media/Linux/etc/X11/xorg.conf

This will open the xorg.conf file in GEdit. Once open, navigate with the mouse or arrow keys to the end of the file and look for the section that starts with:

Section "Screen"

You will need to add the following four lines under the Monitor “monitor0” section.

Option "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
 Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPONENT"
 Option "TVStandard" "HD720p"
 Option "TVOverScan" "0.80"

And then, under the SubSection “Display” line, add one more line:

Modes "1920x1080" "1280x720" "1024x768" "720x480" "800x600" "640x480"

The result should look like this (edits in bold:)
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPONENT"
Option "TVStandard" "HD720p"
Option "TVOverScan" "0.80"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "NoLogo" "True"
SubSection "Display"
    Modes "1920x1080" "1280x720" "1024x768" "720x480" "800x600" "640x480"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

When done it should look like this at the bottom of the file:

Hit save in Leafpad and close the window.
NOTE – If you need Composite video, you may try the following… But DO NOT DO THIS unless you NEED Composite.

For composite output, Connect a cable from the green (luma) component output on the AppleTV to the yellow composite input on the TV. The xorg.conf need the following settings for “Section Screen”Section “Screen” instead of those posted above.

Identifier "Screen0"
 Device "Device0"

Monitor "Monitor0"
 DefaultDepth 24
 Option "DPI" "100x100"
 Option "UseEvents" "1"
 Option "AddARGBVisuals" "1"
 Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "1"
 Option "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
 Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
 Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE"
 Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
 Option "TVOverScan" "0.80
 Option "NoLogo" "True"
 Option "Coolbits" "1"
 SubSection "Display"
 Depth 24
 Modes "720x480" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
 EndSection

Remove:

Section "Extensions"
 Option "Composite" "Disable"
 EndSection

3.5 – Closing out of Mint

That’s it! We are all done with Mint so shutdown the computer now and plug the AppleTV USB key into the AppleTV!

Now - If you have not already done so, rip apart the hardware in Part 3 – Modifying the Apple TV Hardware

The original Apple TV (ATV) never really made sense to me as a retail product. It was too expensive, had too many moving parts and it could only play media from Apple. I actually bought one years ago when they first came out but I quickly returned it when I realized that it could not play the high definition MKV files (h.264) that I typically use. My attitude changed however when a few enterprising developers built a new Linux back-end specifically for the ATV and coupled it with he Broadcom CrystalHD decoder. The result is a simple to use media center that runs XBMC and can play just about any video file I can throw at it. There are plenty of guides out there to install the CrysatlHD board and get up and running, but I specifically wanted a silent media center that would pull all of its content from a shared folder on my Synology NAS.

So, if you are like me and your goal is to have an inexpensive, low power and silent set top box that can instantly stream lots of different kinds of media files from either a computer or a NAS device somewhere on your network, keep reading!

Video – What is Crystalbuntu??

Some Background – What is an AppleTV, a CrystastalHD card Crystalbuntu and XBMC??

The Apple TV was Apple’s first attempt at getting iTunes into the living room and is basically a very small computer. It has an Intel 1Ghz Pentium “M” CPU, 256MB of RAM soldered onto the motherboard along with a low end nVidia Geforce GO 7300 GPU with 64MB or VRAM. This is just enough horsepower to play Xvid/Divx movies in standard definition, or some very specific H.264 (MKV/MP4) movies that just happen to conform to the iTunes specs.

Like I said above, its just enough to let you watch iTunes in the living room and play some music, but nothing else really. The ATV is no longer being sold new as it was replaced by a very nice second generation unit (also capable of running XBMC, but it has some shortcomings) but the original ATV can still be found on eBay and Craigslist for less then $100.

The Brodcom CrystalHD board, specifically the BCM70015 model is a Mini PCI card that is able to add hardware decoding for a bunch of video formats. Its actually designed for things like netbooks and other small computers that that have slow processors and are thus not able to play HD video without some help. The card does one thing and one thing only, when properly installed with the correct drivers, software video players may use it to decode video files without bogging down the CPU on the computer.

It just so happens that the AppleTV is exactly the kind of low end computer that the CrystalHD was designed for. The trick is that you need to first install the hardware and then configure the drivers and software before it will actually do anything. Again, there are other ways to do this than installing Linux, but for the very best performance, Linux is the way to go!

Crystalbuntu refers to running the Ubuntu OS pre-loaded with the CrystalHD drivers on an AppleTV. There are a number of ways to do this, but the easiest way is to use a tool built by Sam Nazarko called (intuitively enough) “CrystalHD for AppleTV.” Sam’s tool will take an existing 4GB (or larger) thumb-drive and turn it into a bootable Linux disk that can be used by the Apple TV. By making a few modifications to the drive after running Sam’s tool we can take this a step farther and remove all of the moving parts from inside the ATV to create what may be the best media player available today… For about $150 and in about an hour.

Sam’s tool will install what is commonly refereed to as “Sam’s Image” on your thumb drive. The image consists of four partitions including the Apple “recovery” partition and a Linux swap file. The rest of the disk is dedicated to a pre-configured installation of Ubuntu Linux 8.04 along with some scripts that will automatically setup XBMC and the CrystalHD drivers upon first boot. Its really cool stuff!

If you want to try Crystalbuntu without removing your hard drive and fan, just run Sam’s tool and plug in your Thumb-drive to the AppleTV. Booting to Crustalbuntu will in no way effect your existing AppleTV hard drive so thee is no risk. Unfortunately, there is also little point to running crystalbuntu until you have installed a CrystalHD card, and if you’re going to rip the bottom off your AppleTV, why not go all the way and make it silent too!

XBMC is an application origionally developed as the “X-Box Media center” and designed to play media files from an X-Box. Over time XBMC evolved into a robust PC application for use with Windows, Apple and Linux. Today, XBMC is one of the best “front ends” available for an HTPC (home theater PC) and has also been ported as an application for jailbroken AppleTVs (first and second generation.)

The first generation AppleTV is basically a purpose built and low end HTPC, but when combined with Linux and the CrystalHD adapter, it becomes a very powerful device that XBMC can take full advantage of!

A NAS device refers to “Network Attached Storage” and is basically a small, low power purpose built PC that serves a single purpose; make the contents of its hard drive available to the network. Think of an external USB hard drive that plugs directly into your network without the need for  a PC attached to it. In my case I use a Synology DS110J with a single 2TB hard drive. The NAS costs about $100 and the drive is about $75 and this investment allows me to “share” about 1.8TB of storage on my network at all times without the need for a server or PC running. The Synology NAS actually runs an embedded version of Linux and will allow me to do some other cool things (like run MySQL to share my XBMC database to all my media player… More on that later…)

This Guide will walk you through everything you need to do to take an old AppleTV and turn it into a totally silent, network media player running XBMC using Sam’s Crystalbuntu image.

What you need:

An apple TV (Original First Generation, not the new “black” ATV2)
a USB Key (4GB or 8GB recommended) I use a cheap Kingston DataTraveler 4GB
A Broadcom CrystalHD BCM70015 card NOT the BCM70012. It will work, but not as well… Trust me, I have both…
Media files shared on the network I use a Synology DS110j NAS device with a 2TB drive

What Next? Go on to Part 2 – Configure the Thumbdrive

I love digital media…

And, I especially love the techie gadgets that make it all possible. In fact, I think I may have a bit of an obsession dating back 2002 when I bought a shuttle SS40 to make a (seriously over priced…) MP3 Jukebox complete with serial remote and monochrome LCD character display. At the time I had not even considered the possibility of using a computer to play video on my TV for anything more then a novelty, but that first try at a media PC started me me down the path to building the ultimate HTPC media hub. Now, a few years later and with literally dozens of motherboards, cases and video cards bought and sold on Craigslist, I finally gave it all up in favor of an Apple TV…

I think that says a lot about the current state of the set top box media player industry since it is now possible to spend about $100 and get all the video processing power that used to be locked inside a full blown computer. My very last HTPC served me quite well running both Media Portal and Hulu desktop. The fact that I could have a relatively cheap device (grated it was the size of a desktop computer…) that looked like a piece of stereo equipment and would allow me to use Netflix, watch live TV and play high-def videos with ease was a point of pride. I mean seriously, what kind of techie worth his or her salt doesn’t have a PC in the living-room?

The problem though… was that the whole setup was just a bit too buggy for every day use by anyone but myself. Inevitably, when my wife would want to watch something there would be some kind of windows update or other Media Portal quirk that made the whole setup useless. Not to mention the fact that a PC is loud, requires someone to push the power button when you want to turn it on and… Was never really polished enough to act like set top box that just works. Sure, I could have spent more time and money making it really, really good, but at the end of the day, its a hobbyist toy for a techie and not a user friendly appliance.