After having tried a few media center solutions, I decided to go with XBMC Live for the eMachines ER1401 I bought recently (OpenElec can be an excellent alternative though if you don’t intend to install emulators to play old school games).

The eMachines does not embed a DVD Reader and I unfortunately don’t have an external one myself. I had to figure out how to install XBMC Live from a USB key and this post will give a quick tutorial on how to do it yourself.

To do so, we will need to download two files before we can start:

1. The XBMC Live ISO available from the official website.
2. A software to setup the USB key, either Unetbootin or LILI

I personally chose LILI on my Windows 7 machine as Unetbootin is not yet supported by Mac OS X Lion. The usage is pretty straightforward:

• Plug your USB key (a 4Gb one is sufficient)
• Choose ISO as source and select the XBMC Live ISO file you just downloaded.
• LILI automatically recognizes it. Once loaded, click on the lightning icon to write the content of the ISO and create a bootable USB key.
• Once the operation is finished, you will also need to copy the ISO file on the root of the USB key. You will understand why this is necessary later on. It can be convenient to rename it into xbmc.iso.
• Plug the USB key in your eMachines and start it.
• While the bios is booting up, press F12 to access the boot menu. Select your USB key.
• You will be presented with a new menu, select the “Install XBMC Live” option.

The installer is pretty straightforward, especially for people used to installing Linux distributions. However, after having selected your language and keyboard layout, the installer will complain that it cannot find the CDROM. We copied the ISO on the USB key for this purpose: we are going to mount this ISO as a virtual device and use it to finish the installation process. To do so, follow these simple steps:

• When asked for the CDROM, press CTRL + ALT + F2 to switch to the second terminal.
• Create a folder to mount the USB using the command : mkdir /mnt/usb
• Create a folder to mount the ISO using the command : mkdir /mnt/iso
• Mount the USB key in /mnt/usb: mount -t vfat /dev/sdXX /mnt/usb (normally sdXX should be sdb1 in our case, but adapt it to the device corresponding to your USB key)
• Mount the ISO: mount -t iso9660 -o loop /mnt/usb/xbmc.iso /mnt/iso

The ISO is now mounted as the loop device /dev/loop0 (a loop device makes a file accessible as a block device). The last step is to point the installer on our virtual device. Switch back to the installer using the key combination CTRL + ALT + F1 and select the following options:

• Load CD-ROM driver from removable media? <No>
• Manually select CD-ROM module and device> <Yes>
• Module needed for accessing the CD-ROM: none
• Device file for accessing the CD-ROM: /dev/loop0

You can now finish the installation process, reboot, and enjoy your newly installed XBMC. If you need further information, feel free to ask in the comments.

A few additional tutorials are coming in the next days, detailing how to output the audio on the HDMI port, how to setup your library to work perfectly with XBMC and how to transform your HTPC into a gaming platform using Rom Collection Browser. Stay tuned!

 

A big thanks to iPhase for the CDROM part of the tutorial.