Below you can find my howto for setting up your Philips AMBX starter kit to be used with XBMC media centre in Ubuntu Linux Maverick Meerkat 10.10.
My setup firsts boot ubuntu, then gnome, then xbmc. If your setup is different you should keep in mind that this howto might not work flawlessly for you.
You should make sure you have your Ubuntu with XBMC setup working. Also connect your AMBX hardware via USB
1: Install needed packages
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install subversion ruby ruby-dev libusb-ruby libusb-dev libportaudio-dev libavdevice-dev libswscale-dev libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libxrender-dev libsdl1.2-dev libx11-dev gcc -y
2: Download needed software
mkdir ~/ambx
cd ~/ambx
wget http://www.xs4all.nl/~loosen/boblight/boblight-1.3.tar.gz
wget http://www.a-k-r.org/ruby-usb/ruby-usb-0.2.tar.gz
svn checkout http://combustd.googlecode.com/svn/branches/combustd-ruby-0.2
3: Install boblight-1.3
cd ~/ambx
tar xfz boblight-1.3.tar.gz
cd boblight-1.3
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install
4: Create boblight configuration file and open the file with your favorite editor
sudo touch /etc/boblight.conf
vi /etc/boblight.conf
5: Fill up the boblight configuration file with the following and save it afterwards:
[global]
interface 127.0.0.1
port 19333
[device]
name AmbX_Combust
output "ruby /usr/local/combustd/applications/boblight/boblight.rb"
channels 15
type popen
interval 20000
[color]
name red
rgb FF0000
[color]
name green
rgb 00FF00
[color]
name blue
rgb 0000FF
[light]
name left
color red AmbX_Combust 1
color green AmbX_Combust 2
color blue AmbX_Combust 3
hscan 0 33.33
vscan 0 66.66
saturation 3.0
proportional 20.0
value 3
threshold 20
interpolation on
[light]
name right
color red AmbX_Combust 4
color green AmbX_Combust 5
color blue AmbX_Combust 6
hscan 66.66 100
vscan 0 66.66
saturation 3.0
proportional 20.0
value 3
threshold 20
interpolation on
[light]
name wwleft
color red AmbX_Combust 7
color green AmbX_Combust 8
color blue AmbX_Combust 9
hscan 0 40
vscan 0 33.33
saturation 3.0
proportional 20.0
value 3
threshold 20
interpolation on
[light]
name wwright
color red AmbX_Combust 10
color green AmbX_Combust 11
color blue AmbX_Combust 12
hscan 60 100
vscan 0 33.33
saturation 3.0
proportional 20.0
value 3
threshold 20
interpolation on
[light]
name wwcenter
color red AmbX_Combust 13
color green AmbX_Combust 14
color blue AmbX_Combust 15
hscan 33 66
vscan 0 33.33
saturation 3.0
proportional 20.0
value 3
threshold 20
interpolation on
6: Install ruby-usb-0.2
cd ~/ambx
tar xfz ruby-usb-0.2.tar.gz
cd ruby-usb-0.2
sudo ruby extconf.rb
sudo make
sudo make install
7: Move the downloaded combustd files into your system
cd ~/ambx
mkdir /usr/local/combustd
mv ~/ambx/combustd-ruby-0.2/* /usr/local/combustd/
8: Testing
sudo boblightd
export DISPLAY=:0.0
boblight-constant ff00ff; sleep 5; killall boblight-constant
9: Create 2 start up scripts
sudo touch /usr/bin/ambx
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/ambx
sudo echo "#!/bin/bash" > /usr/bin/ambx
sudo echo "boblightd" >> /usr/bin/abmx
sudo touch /usr/bin/ambx2
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/ambx
sudo echo "#!/bin/bash" > /usr/bin/abmx2
sudo echo "boblight-X11 -t 0.1 -s 100" >> /usr/bin/abmx2
10: Start abmx script at boot time by creating a udev rule
sudo vi /etc/udev/rules.d/99-ambx.rules
11: Fill up your udev rule with the following
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0471", ATTRS{idProduct}=="083f", ACTION=="add", RUN+="/usr/bin/ambx"
12: Make sure the DISPLAY environment variable is set properly by opening up the environment configuration file
vi /etc/environment
13: Add the following rule to the environment file and save it
DISPLAY=":0.0"
14: Start ambx2 script at boot time by create a startup application within gnome and save it:
System > Preferenced > Startup Applications
Name: ambx2
Command: /usr/bin/ambx2
Comment: ambx2
15: Reboot and et voila, everything should be working!
My thanks go out to the following howtos. I made my own howto because the ones below didnt get my abmx setup working flawlessly while setting up and after rebooting.
http://www.lockstockmods.net/2010/05/22/xbmc-live-linux-with-ambx/
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=71912
