Some tweaks to XBMC

Okay so I re-installed XBMC live on my HTPC (my hard drive gave out).
Still some stuff just wouldn't work. Took me quite some time to figure it out. So I thought I'd post it here, maybe it's of some use for someone. I installed a LiveCD from XBMCfreak.nl.

First of all I had no sound whatsoever. I've now got sound over the optical cable (SP/dif). The settings I used:

- In System - settings - audio output:
- Optical/coax
- speaker 5.0
- all three buttons ON
- audio output device: iec958
- Passthrough output device: iec958

Before my hard drive crashed I had audio over HDMI (just to the TV) and over the optical cable. I'll have to look into that again... I'll post it when I've fixed it. For now at least I've got sound.

Secondly I had no internet connection. Turned out that some settings in the "interfaces" file were wrong. This is how I solved it:

- Check what connection is set in "interfaces" in /etc/network (eth0 or eth1)
- Enter "ifconfig -a" in the terminal on the XBMC machine. Does this match the settings in "interfaces" (both eth0 or eth1?)
- If not. Change the setting in "interfaces" to match the output of ifconfig and save. (If it is the same I guess you've got a different problem)
- Then enter "sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart" and it should be working.

Finally I wanted to change the keymapping for my remote. That wasn't too difficult:
Create a file named "keyboard.xml" in ~/.xbmc/userdata/keymaps

In this file you can add/change the default settings by using this layout:

< .keymap>
< .global>
< .keyboard>
< .t mod="ctrl,shift">FullScreen< ./t>
< ./keyboard>
< ./global>
< ./keymap>

- Remove the space and period after each "<" I had to do this to prevent the browser of thinking it's html...

You only need to put the keys you want to change in this file. For the other keys the XBMC default will be used. For more info see here. The default XBMC keymap can be found here.

Hope it helps! Any questions: let me know. And also, if you've got a solution how to get sound over HDMI, let me know.