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

[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

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 5 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 15 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 5mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was July 27th with 1 views. The most popular post that day was Starcraft 2 Beta Wings of Liberty in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx with Wine.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were appdb.winehq.org, ubuntulife.wordpress.com, slickeel.files.wordpress.com, ubuntuforums.org, and zealouscraft.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for starcraft 2, starcraft, starcraft 2 ubuntu, star craft 2, and starcraft ii.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Starcraft 2 Beta Wings of Liberty in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx with Wine June 2010
8 comments

SC2ALLin1 mod for Starcraft II Wings of Liberty Beta in Linux with Wine-1.2-rc4 and Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 (32 bits) June 2010
10 comments

Evolution Chamber: Starcraft 2 build order optimizer in JAVA November 2010

of One of the June 2010

Starcraft 2 Beta Wings of Liberty coming to an end July 2010

http://code.google.com/p/evolutionchamber/

I wonder if this software is more revolutionary then the already nice AI from Blizzard. Here is a link with some more information if your interested:

http://lbrandy.com/blog/2010/11/using-genetic-algorithms-to-find-starcraft-2-build-orders/

In the meanwhile you can download the offical game from the battle.net servers so when the keys will be available on 27-07-2010 you are ready to go!

http://beta-eu.battle.net/account/management/sc2/pre-download-page.html

GL HF

The current release of Wine in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx is 1.1.42. The current latest version of Wine is 1.2. That version had a fix for a bug that stopped me from running the AI mod in the first place so I figured out to just compile from source again:

a: Download Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Desktop 32 bits from http://www.ubuntu.com and Install it
b: Boot your new fresh OS and update the NVIDIA hardware drivers: System > Administration > Hardware Drivers > Choose [Recommended] Driver, click Activate
c: Reboot your PC to get the new graphics driver activated.

1: Install Wine from source and patch it so it still works after patch 16:

sudo aptitude install git-core build-essential -y
sudo apt-get build-dep wine -y
git clone git://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git ~/winesourcecode
cd ~/winesourcecode
wget -q -O - http://bugs2.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=29498 | patch -p1
tools/make_requests && ./configure && make depend && make
sudo make install

2: Download winetricks. Use it too install extra software Wine needs to run the mod. You need to click Accept a few times. I had to try a few before it worked, so some could be removed.

cd ~/.wine/drive_c
wget http://winezeug.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/winetricks
sh winetricks gecko fontfix allfonts corefonts mono20 mono22 mono24 mono26 vcrun2008 vcrun2005 vb6run dotnet20 gdiplus d3dx9 cabextract ie7

3: Download the Starcraft II Beta Wings of Liberty game installer from http://www.battle.net first and start it to download the game content. When the download is ready click the Install button and use this installation folder: C:\Program Files\Starcraft 2 Beta

wine ~/Downloads/StarCraft_2_Beta_enGB.exe

4: When the Installation is completed you can download the AI mod files. Note that the AI files (loader and maps) are not from Blizzard. Reference: http://sc2.nibbits.com/assets/starcrack-allin1/

sudo aptitude install unrar -y
mkdir ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/StarCraft\ II\ Beta/aimod
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/StarCraft\ II\ Beta/aimod
wget http://sc2.nibbits.com/assets/starcrack-allin1/files/228/get
wget http://sc2.nibbits.com/assets/starcrack-allin1/files/184/get
wine SC2ALLin1_setup966.exe
unrar e New_Official_Maps.rar
mv *.s2ma ~/.wine/drive_c/users/slickeel/My\ Documents/StarCraft\ II\ Beta/Maps/

Be sure to change slickeel to your username!

5: Start your new AI mod:

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Starcraft\ 2\ Beta/SC2ALLin1/SC2ALLin1.exe


A personal suggestion:

* Choose the Desert Oasis map and click Select map
* Put the human on Location 1
* Set the human Race to Terran
* Click launch
* Build 3 scv’s
* Build supply depot
* Build barracks
* Build refinary
* Put 3 scv’s on refinery
* Choose barracks and press X for tech lab
* Choose techlab and upgrade Reaper Speed
* Build another supply depot
* Build more scv’s
* Pump some Reapers
* Attack your enemy from the top by jumping right into their minerals line

Ofcourse, if they dont rush into you first!

GL HF