Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 7-18.
The remote control function
Summary
In this chapter you got an introduction to XBMC and why I am a big fan of it. XBMC is a very mature project and is
supported on a wide range of hardware. I highly recommend you take a look into where else you can take advantage
of XBMC in your home. I showed you a Linux distribution that was highly optimized for the Raspberry Pi. This was the
first time you moved away from using Fedora, and as you saw OpenELEC is nothing like Fedora! You also found out
that just like Fedora sometimes things don't work right away. I showed you how to debug the install script.
Then we looked at a way to get NTP running on OpenELEC; this dealt with the root filesystem and how it gets
unpacked on each boot. The choices behind OpenELEC became very clear when I talked about the optimization made
to the distribution, especially the GCC compile and link-time settings. Understanding the optimization settings and how
the GCC will optimize your code will play a large role in the upcoming chapter on cross compiling for the Raspberry Pi.
Once OpenELEC was up and running, I pointed out a few quick tips for the Raspberry Pi. Do keep in mind that
these settings are experimental and may break your installation. If you find you've made it worse, don't panic: just
use SSH to enter the OpenELEC install and reverse your change. Luckily you have that root filesystem that you can't
change! Lastly I showed you how to set up the web server in XBMC. Please do set a better password than I did!
Now that you have a web server up and running, you could use the amazing remote control for your Android
phone. You did not expect me to control an open source media player with an iPhone now, did you? There are many
possibilities for the Raspberry Pi, whether it's using it as a streaming music player via the GPIO LCD project or as a
small hidden media player for your TV.
In the next chapter I will show you how to build a real-time clock, which would have come in handy with our time
issues in this chapter. On to that next!
