The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Distro for nettop HTPC?

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by v1k1ng1001, May 4, 2010.

  1. v1k1ng1001

    v1k1ng1001 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    239
    Messages:
    738
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I have an Acer Revo 36xx that's ATOM 330/ION with 2gb of RAM.

    I've been running Ubuntu 9.10 and now 10.04, both x64 versions as the primary OS. I'm displeased with a couple of things:

    1. Flash really stinks. There are some improvements with 10.04 but still not as great as I'd like it to be. I wonder if going with x86 and flash10 would be a great improvement?

    2. There is this video tearing issue. Again, 10.04 is an improvement but still not that great.

    3. Support for many popular hidef video formats seems spotty at best. Are there any good distros out there that will handle hidef media?

    I appreciate any input! :confused:
     
  2. aznguyphan

    aznguyphan Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    207
    Messages:
    517
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Linux Mint might help with the video issues, it's better designed for multimedia. Maybe look up mythbununtu for even more htpc focus.

    But as for flash, that's not going to get better for Linux any time soon. Flash 10.1 is bringing hardware decoding out for Windows only, not Mac or Linux. Mac just recently got hardware accelerated 10.1 'preview release' called 'Gala'. But it's so shoddy that it increases cpu usage half the time.

    No news for acceleration in Linux in sight.
     
  3. osomphane

    osomphane Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    81
    Messages:
    426
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Actually, since Apple shunned Adobe on their mobile platform, Adobe stated they've refocused their efforts at 10.1 w/ hardware acceleration for linux/android. It may be in the pipes shortly...
     
  4. DEagleson

    DEagleson Gamer extraordinaire

    Reputations:
    2,529
    Messages:
    3,107
    Likes Received:
    30
    Trophy Points:
    116
    Dont recommend default Ubuntu 10.04 for Ion Nettop.
    Cant get the damn HDMI audio to work. :(
    With Ubuntu 9.10 it was working perfectly.

    Maybe Linux Mint 9 with Nvidia drivers HDMI audio works?
     
  5. aznguyphan

    aznguyphan Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    207
    Messages:
    517
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    That is good news, but I doubt hardware acceleration on Android w/ARM processors will translate to desktop Linux and the variety of hardware that it'll need to support.

    But at least there's hope.
     
  6. v1k1ng1001

    v1k1ng1001 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    239
    Messages:
    738
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I really want more support for common hi def formats. Tried to watch x264 files yesterday and it was a total disaster. :(

    The flash situation is liveable and I don't need hdmi audio.