XBMCbuntu

XBMCbuntu (formerly XBMC Live) is an open source and freely distributed operating system based on the world’s most popular distribution of Linux and built around the widely used XMBC Media Center application, now known as Kodi.

Available for download as a 64-bit Live CD

The distribution is available for download as a Live CD ISO image that runs only on modern computers supporting the 64-bit (amd64/x86_64) instruction set architecture. The ISO image can be written on a CD, DVD or USB media, so you can easily boot it from the BIOS of a PC.

The distribution can be permanently installed

From the Live CD boot menu, you can try the XBMCbuntu operating system without changing anything on your computer, permanently install the distribution with or without fixed DPI, boot from the first disk drive.

In addition, you can check the disk for defects (only if booting from a CD or DVD media), access a help screen with detailed information about boot options, as well as to access advanced options, such as the graphical or command-line expert installers.

It’s based on the upstream XBMC Media Center 13 release

Currently, the Live CD will drop users to a login screen, where they must use the “xbmc” username (without quotes) to login. No password is required. Be aware the you must own a supported video card in order for the XBMC Media Center to work properly.

It can be used in persistent mode from a USB stick

The best feature of the XBMCbuntu operating system is the persistent mode, allowing users to save settings and reuse the live environment whenever they want. For this to work, you must write the ISO image to a USB flash drive of 1GB or higher capacity.

The future of the XBMCbuntu distro

As you might know, XBMC has been renamed to Kodi on August 2014. Therefore, the XBMCbuntu distribution will also get a name change starting with the next release, version 14.0.

What is new in this release:

• Today we announce the first beta in what we hope is a very short pre-release cycle. Dharma has been in development for over 9 months now, and we're quite happy with the result.
• The improvements are too many to name, but head over to the milestone page to get an idea. By far the biggest new feature is the Add-ons system. Our community is full of talented script-writers, skinners, and designers; we wanted XBMC to display their full potential. The result is a powerful and flexible system that allows for complete customization of the XBMC experience. Gone are the days of digging for the latest version of buggy plugins, or incomplete skins in our forums. Most of our users probably never even made it that far.
• We have refactored everything that doesn't belong inside the core of XBMC to be an addon. So in the future, your scrapers, visualizations, skins, etc. will update automatically (unless disabled). Since opening the xbmc.org repository a few weeks ago, submissions have been pouring in. We expect to have a very nice collection by the time we reach our final release.
• But don't let the add-ons take away from the loads of other features (hardware acceleration, anyone?) that have gone into XBMC in the last 9 months. We'll be sure to hi-lite some of the other big features in the coming days/weeks.
• For those brave users, please give beta1 a shot. Builds are ready for all OSs, visit the download page to grab them. If you stumble upon any nasty bugs, be sure to send us a QUALITY bug report. Beware of (at minimum) the following:
• As always, treat this as beta-quality software. Be sure to back up your profile in case you decide to roll back.
• The clunky old web interface has been removed. We're working hard to have a new one ready for final release.
• svn-ppa users may have to remove old xbmc packages before installing Dharma.
• You may have to reset your screensaver and visualization settings after upgrade. These are now addons.
• Pre-Dharma scripts/plugins/skins will NOT work with Dharma, but most have been updated accordingly.
• Enjoy. And to the add-on creators: keep the submissions coming!