Zotac MAG Nettop box with XBMC and Ubuntu 10.04

[michael hurd]

I originally built one of these net top boxes for a friend, who was absolutely floored when I hooked my laptop via HDMI to her new 50" plasma and demonstrated XBMC. ( Xbox Media Center )

She had asked me what it would cost to have a set up like that for her living room. I told her for less than the cost of a retail store PC, I could put together a box that would do everything she wanted it to do ( stream movies and music, as well as surf the internet ) and more for less.

Enter in the Zotac MAG HD-ND-01-U mini-PC. This little box has an Mini ITX motherboard, 2GB of DDR2-800 ram, an Intel Atom processor and an Nvidia ION graphics processor. Storage is handled by a 160GB 2.5" hard drive on board.

Link to Zotac's USA specs : http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-mag-hd-nd01.html

The unit ships without an operating system, and after getting frustrated trying to get a copy of Windows XP onto a USB flash drive [ the Zotac mini-PC lacks a CD/DVD drive ] I ended up downloading Ubuntu 10.04 to a USB flash drive and tried it out on my Windows Vista laptop before deciding to do an install with it.

Link to Ubuntu home site here: http://www.ubuntu.com/

Download desktop version here: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

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The package:

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Start up materials, propaganda.

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VESA back of monitor mount for LCD's with either 75mm or 100 mm mounting, Zotac MAG PC, and stand mount pictured:

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Power supply brick and cord. I pitched out the two prong with adapter cord end and replaced it with a standard 3 prong cord. ( like what my laptop uses )

[michael hurd]

This was only the second time I have installed an operating system, so this may be handy to others that have never attempted this either. There is no PS/2 connectors, so you must use a keyboard with a USB connector. On this particular computer, pressing the Delete key will get you into the BIOS menu, where you must select what drive to check when the unit is booted up.

Select USB drive as the # 1 choice and then save the changes in the BIOS and exit. The unit should boot up on the flash drive. If you can't get into the BIOS by pressing the Delete Key, try another newer keyboard. ( seriously ! )

The unit with a 4GB Lexar Firefly USB drive and silicone roll up keyboard. Monitor is an old LG Flatron LCD unit. Notice the orange ring: the computer case is made out of a translucent plastic ( similar to smoked plexiglass ) and the ring lights up through the case.... nifty!

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As long as you have told the computer's BIOS to check for an operating system via USB drive, when it starts up, you should be rewarded with this screen.

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A moment or two later, you should be displaying this as your desktop, at this point you are running the operating system off of the USB drive. You can try out Ubuntu 10.04 before you decide to install it, in the case that you want to permanently install it, click on the icon that says: Install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

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When you start to install the Ubuntu operating system, it asks you a bunch of questions.

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Timezone:

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Keyboard layout:

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It then asks you what you would like to do with your empty computer hard drive:

You can install Ubuntu and tell it to use the entire disc space, you can have a dual or triple boot where you could install Ubuntu alongside Windows XP, Vista or 7.

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Then, your desired user name, password, login options and computer name.

In this case I called it:

[<yourusername>-XBMC-Ubuntu-Nettop]

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Somehow, I skipped photographing step 6.... however, step 7 is where you tell the installation portion to format the drive and install the OS for good.

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When you are done with that, you should see this for a few moments:

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For the next step we need a working internet connection: The Zotac MAG has a built in wireless networking adapter, but it's range isn't the best. ( I have read there is a way to up the power through different drivers )

I was about 6 feet from the wireless router, and it was found and immediately online. You may want to use an ethernet cable to get your internet up and running if you aren't able to get the wireless to work well.

Once you are connected to the internet, you want to go to the upper left of the screen, and from the drop down menu, select:

Applications > Acessories > Terminal

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Once you have entered the Terminal, type the following line:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:team-xbmc

The terminal will ask you for your password, this is what you chose when you were setting up the passwords / login etc. Type your password in and hit the Enter key. After you have a cursor again, and the screen has stopped scrolling, type:

sudo apt-get update

You will also want to utilize NVidia's hardware acceleration(VPDAU) so enter in:

sudo apt-get install libvdpau1 nvidia-185-libvdpau

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It's been a few days since I did it, so it's a bit fuzzy at this step, I don't recall if I had to manually go to the Synaptic Package Manager after exiting the Terminal, or it automatically showed up in the [ Applications > Accessories > Sound and Video ] menu or not.

If you don't show XBMC in that drop down menu, back up and then select :

[ System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager ]

Click Reload: then search for XBMC. Hit the search button. Select XBMC for installation with your mouse. Mark additional changes if prompted, then apply and agree to any changes.

You should now have XBMC showing up in the [ Applications > Accessories > Sound and Video ] menu. []

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If you attempt to play a file with sound, you most likely will have no sound card selected, I had to set this up manually as well. The primary usage for this nettop was to play movies and music through the HDMI connection to the plasma.

Open the Terminal again:

[ Applications > Accesories > Terminal ] and then type in :

alsamixer

You will be prompted for your password again, type it and hit the Enter key.

You should see this screen here:

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Under each vertical bar, you will have to make sure that they all have a [00] rather than [MM].

[MM] stands for mute, you don't want a mute computer do you? [:S] Using your arrow keys on the keyboard, move from one slider to the next, to change from muted to on, press the M key on your keyboard.