Fit-PC3: Installing Linux Mint 12

From fit-PC wiki
Revision as of 14:40, 8 January 2012 by Irads (Talk | contribs) (ATI Catalyst video driver)

Jump to: navigation, search

Prepare installation media

  • You can use USB DVD/CD-ROM Drive or USB Flash drive (disk-on-key) as installation media.
  • Download Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" - CD or Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" - DVD.
  • If you are using USB DVD/CD-ROM - burn downloaded image directly on DVD/CD.
  • If you are using USB Flash drive, 1GB would be enough, use "Startup Disk Creator" utility to create LiveUSB.

Base installation of Linux Mint 12

  • Standard Linux Mint installation - choose timezone, partitions, username, password etc.
  • Unplug USB DVD/CD-ROM / USB Flash drive and reboot
  • Login using previously selected username and password.

ATI Catalyst video driver

  • fglrx is a proprietary ATI Catalyst video driver that provides XvBA (X-Video Bitstream Acceleration) support.
  • Install fglrx driver and other required utilities.
sudo apt-get install fglrx xvba-va-driver vainfo
  • Note: reboot required to take advantage of the new fglrx driver.

XBMC with XvBA

  • XBMC is a well-known free and open source media player and entertainment hub for digital media.
  • There is XBMC release with direct XvBA support.
  • It requires fglrx driver (version >= 8.911) that still not present in Linux Mint 12, need to download and install it manually:
sudo wget -P /tmp http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/2:8.911-0ubuntu1/+build/2952743/+files/fglrx_8.911-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/fglrx_8.911-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
  • Now you can add XBMC XvBA repository and install the media player
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wsnipex/xbmc-xvba
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc xbmc-bin
  • XBMC will support HW video acceleration out of the box.

Tips and tricks

  • Fix VLC media player window style:
    • Open VLC player, go to the Tools->Preferences->Interface
    • Set "Force window style" option to "GTK+".
  • Enable video acceleration on VLC media player:
    • Open VLC player, go to the Tools->Preferences->Input & Codecs
    • Check "Use GPU acceleration (experimental)" checkbox.