Quick list of features but there are plenty more:

- Linux 8.0.4 “Hardy” OS (until just recently the last linux distro that properly output audio over hdmi on the AppleTV 1) which uses very little ram on the AppleTV 1. Additionally the Linux install has a complete build environment so you can fairly easily compile and install future versions of xbmc (including the git trunk) right on your AppleTV 1.

- XBMC 11.0 “Eden”

- Quartz 3.1.8 as the default skin, the most “AppleTV like” skin to date with many more features than the stock OS. Very light and very customizable. Of course you can always add any skin you wish via the addons manager in xbmc.

- Apple File Protocol (AFP) networking. Preferred networking for your Mac especially since smb is broken on OS X Lion.

- Full Airplay and Airtunes support. Stream Audio and Video from any PC running iTunes or any IOS device (e.g. iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch …).

- 20GB Media partition on internal drive auto mounts on your mac desktop for very easy transfer of content to the AppleTV 1 local drive for local storage and playback.

- Full support for the AppleTV 1 usb port. Perfect for connecting a usb external drive for even more local media storage ( as of this time you can not do this with either the AppleTV 2 or 3 even if jailbroken). The port also supports a usb dvd optical media drive so you can run a dvd drive right from your AppleTV 1.

Changes are pretty much in the xbmc linux partitioning area where it will now actually add a set of default directories (Movies, TVShows, Pictures, Music and Storage) to the Media partition as well as set read/write permissions, which 0.1.9 was supposed to do but it didn’t work right.

Also a slight rearrangement of the Partition New Drive tab so hopefully it’s a bit more intuitive.

So, as XBMC goes into a “hard freeze” for 11.0 “Eden” it is also apparent that any dependencies are now pretty much frozen as well. Therefore I thought it might make sense to release a “beta” of AtvCloner XBMC Linux Image 25 which is probably the last image before XBMC releases an official public version 11.0. You can download it here.

This image has XBMCs git head (latest and greatest from the development repository) from literally this morning installed by default. This includes python 2.6, turbo jpeg (read: faster UI performance), AFP networking as well as NFS networking. Also … AirPlay and AirTunes (yes, your xbmc linux AppleTV 1 is now Airplay and Airtunes compatible!). Yes, it is kinda neat to send music or videos from iTunes, iPod, iPad or iPhone … via airplay/airtunes to your XBMC linux modded AppleTV 1.

Better yet, for advanced users … all of the dependencies and the build environment to compile and install XBMC up to and through the upcoming XBMC 11.0 code named “Eden” are in place. !

Why “beta”? Well because I intend to release a final Image 25 once the default skin Quartz has a new upcoming official release and once XBMC 11.0 is official. That said … this image has everything needed to run and/or compile the latest and greatest on your AppleTV 1.

Now, while I thought it might be prudent to wait for the official XBMC 11.0 public release … the improvements are just to hard to keep under wraps, as well there have been plenty of dependencies added since Image 24 … so, here is AtvCloner XBMC Linux Image 25 (beta) via bit torrent!

Hence the XBMC Library Auto Update Addon. Now this was originally written for XBMC 10.0 and 10.1 Dharma by Rob Weber and was available in the official repo. Basically the Addon allows you to specify time intervals upon which XBMC will scan for new content in your Video or Music libraries. Very nice! However since I have updated to xbmc’s Pre 11.0 “Eden” source code I notice it was broken in the newer XBMC versions.

Now, I found this addon to provide the type of library auto updating I wanted on a system like the AppleTV running one of the AtvCloner XBMC linux images. So, what to do ? Well rewrite it to be compatible with newer version of Pre-Eden XBMC. So I did so and it works, I also added a check so that if there is already a scan occurring the Addon will cancel its scheduled scan and reset the timer. As well as it was originally written if either a movie or a song is playing it will cancel the scan and reset so you don’t have reduced performance while watching your content.

This addon is already installed on all AtvCloner XBMC Linux images since image 21 but I figured I’d offer it here for any other folks running XBMC since it works as far as I know on all XBMC supported platforms (tested here on linux and osx, not sure about windows but I can not see any reason it wouldn’t work there).

Please note: you need to be running XBMC as of this revision I also posted this on the XBMC developer forums where there is a bit more info.

if you want to try it out … download it here and install it via the XBMC addons manager with “Install from zip”.

NOTE: As was said above, this is already installed on AtvCloner XBMC linux images and as well will also NOT work on XBMC 10.1 Dharma ( the addon in its original form from Rob Weber is available via the xbmc Add ons Repo for that version).

Additonal information can also be found at the AtvCloner forums.

Also of note, AtvCloner 0.1.9 also fixes a bug where you had to select something in the “Boot Image Path” field even though you were doing an “ATV Linux XBMC w/ CHD support” partitioning scheme (which does not use a (boot.dmg) to enable the “Prepare New Drive ..” button.

This version of AtvCloner works with any previous AtvCloner Linux image as well as the normal stock AppleTV OS cloning.

AtvCloner 0.1.9 Change Log:

Partiton New Drive Tab:

- Fix issue where choosing “ATV Linux XBMC w / CHD support” checkbox still required choosing a source boot.dmg even though it was not required.

- Refactor the updateUI code to be a bit more intuitive.

- Set the widget sizes to mini and allow more room for the Activity Window.

XBMC Linux / CHD partitioning:

- Set permissions to read/write on the Media partition (fixes issue where after install of the drive to the atv perms had to be set via ssh).

- Create default directories on the Media partition which are: “Movies, TVShows, Music, Pictures, Storage”.

Miscellaneous:

- Add ” AtvCloner Forums” to the Help menu.

Now, as I alluded to in this post the original AtvCloner XBMC (linux) image had several shortfalls, the biggest of which was that it could no longer depend on the xbmc ppa to allow for any updates past xbmc 10.0. So this image includes a build environment to be able to build xbmc. Yes, you can (if you want) build new xbmc revisions right on your AppleTV 1. There are a slew of other neat features like Apple File Protocol mounting on your mac, support for the usb port on your AppleTV 1, XBMC 10.1 pre-installed, almost half the file size (1.71 vs the old image size of 3.6) as well as a newer installed version of the Transparency skin for xbmc. Besides those major bullet points there is a fair bit more included. I will now *finally* try to update documentation so you can find out where things are at if you decide to mod your AppleTV 1 with AtvCloner.

Additonal information can also be found at the AtvCloner forums.

More information to follow, but for now thats it!

Check out AtvCloner Community Support

1. I tried installing Linux 10.0.4 Lucid and XBMC 10.1 from their ppa … it works! However, performance on the AppleTV 1 is … poor at best. Uses too much ram and cpu to really be worthwhile on the AppleTV 1.

2. Then I tried OpenElec for the AppleTV 1 … this (I figured) was progress as its not based on any linux distro (the kernel is custom compiled) and is optimized for the AppleTV 1 . Result: while its a nifty piece of kit … my excitement was quelled when I realized after some testing and use … it had the same performance issues that Linux Lucid has. Basically after watching a couple movies … there was only about 40 MB of ram left and after that the interface got sluggish ,etc.

So … what to do ? I went back to my original Linux Hardy image and decided to talk to the good folks over at XBMC to see what could be done to Hardy 8.04 to keep it current with XBMC even though their ppa dropped that platform. WIth a bit of work and a whole lot of help from davilla over there, I not only have Linux Hardy running current XBMC but actual development code that is pointed towards XBMC 11.0 (Eden). Further the image now includes the build tools to compile current XBMC on the atv 1 itself … which means I can keep it up to date with the latest XBMC (or for those that want to delve in deeper … so can they) !

To get an idea of the performance difference. Linux Hardy 8.04 will tend to leave about 140 to 150 mb of the AppleTV’s paltry 256 mb of ram free when just sitting idle … both Lucid and OpenElec in my testing after watching a movie or two will only leave about 40 mb free. The result to the user is very sluggish ui response and dropped frames while watching any more movies. Unacceptable. For the AppleTV 1 Linux Hardy 8.04 is still the leanest , meanest distro around imo.

Anyway … the long and the short of it is … I am still working on a few things on this XBMC (Linux Hardy) image but figured you ought to know that it is really fun and plan to release it at some point because XBMC has made some significant advancements in their development code which I am pretty sure you will love. Oh, and I *still* have to get to that Linux XBMC image documentation out as there is much that is not explained but some has been covered in the comments for the original AtvCloner XBMC Linux release.

At the same time I am trying to make the atvcloner xbmc install a bit more “mac friendly” so that there is less time spent getting your content onto your “new” AppleTV 1. After all … its all about your content!

Feel free to ask any questions. It looks awfully good for those of you wanting to keep a breath of fresh air in your AppleTV 1′s!

Now, adding a Broadcom Crystal HD card in place of the stock Wireless card (yes, you lose wireless) and installing a Linux partition that boots right up into XBMC turned out to be just the ticket! Given the rather lengthy process it requires to do this from the terminal manually I got to thinking why not just modify AtvCloner to do a special partition scheme using a premade XBMC / Linux image. Well it works, and has been pretty thoroughly tested.

You will need three things:

1. The new AtvCloner 0.1.8
2. A modified recovery.dmg
3. The XBMC / Linux image

Now the biggest issue is the size of the Linux image, its a full linux install modified for use on the AppleTV 1 including support for the Crystal HD card and boots directly into XBMC. However as such it is 3.64 GB which would kill my web server. Given the size I decided to use Bittorrent for both the XBMC / Linux image and the modified recovery.dmg. If you are not familiar with bit torrent you will need a bit torrent client. For the mac I strongly recommend Transmission its free and works great on a mac.

Edit: It is appreciated if you can continue to seed for a while after downloading the images. That way everyone can get it faster. Its normal etiquette for torrents to seed afterwards as much as you downloaded. If you can’t for some reason thats fine, but it would be appreciated!

Here is what you need to download:

After you get all three files go ahead and expand them (they are all zipped), you will use AtvCloner as before but instead of just using your backed up stock AppleTV OS files you will use the modified recovery.dmg for recovery and also add in the XBMC / Linux image for the linux parition that said use your stock backed up efi.dmg . Make sure to check the “ATV Linux XBMC w/ CHD Support” checkbox before preparing your new drive.

NOTE: the XBMC Linux partitioning does not use your boot.dmg as it is “single boot” this avoids having to manually perform a recovery boot via the atv remote as well saves about 900 mb of your hard drive space for the Media partition for local storage.

Also, this image will offer up a remote share on your mac once the atv boots called atv-xbmc. To mount it on your mac (and then be able to transfer media over to it) use login: atv , password: xbmc.

To ssh into the AppleTV its the same user name and password:

ssh atv@your.atvs.ipaddress

when asked for the password use ‘xbmc’.