SlaXBMC

As its name might suggest, SlaXBMC is a Slackware-based operating system build around the XBMC Media Center application, designed to help you transform a regular computer into a powerful and reliable media center system.

The OS can only be installed on 32-bit or 64-bit PCs

The distribution is available for download as two installable-only ISO images of approximately 700MB in size each. One comes with software packages optimized for 32-bit architectures and the other one for 64-bit hardware platforms.

Therefore, if you own a modern computer, we strongly suggest you to download and install the 64-bit edition of SlaXBMC, otherwise grab the 32-bit flavor as it flies on older machines.

Old-school boot prompt with support for extra parameters

From the boot prompt of the ISO image you will be able to pass extra kernel parameters in case you want to boot an existing operating system or perform a system memory diagnostic test. The default kernel will boot automatically in two seconds.

The entire installation process is text based

Being based on Slackware Linux, SlaXBMC comes with a text-mode installer, which will first require you to choose a keyboard map, login as root (system administrator), as well as to type the “setup” command (without quotes).

To install the OS on your computer, you’ll have to remap your keyboard if you’re not using an US one, set up your swap partition, set up your target partition, choose an installation source, select software packages to install, and select an installation type.

During the the second part of the installation, which takes place after all packages have been installed, you must install the bootloader, configure the network interfaces, system clock and timezone, as well as to set up users and passwords.

It’s also available for Raspberry Pi

Besides 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms, SlaXBMC is also available for the ARM architecture, running very well on the popular Raspberry Pi computer board.

What is new in this release:

• Exit to desktop mode via XBMC
• Reboot/Shutdown the PC via XBMC
• Enable/Disable toggle for XBMC autostart
• Enable/Disable toggle switch for PulseAudio/ALSA via the desktop right click menu
• Automated download and install/update of Google Chrome via the desktop right click menu (only available on Developer mode installations)
• Automated download and install of the Adobe Flash plugin via the desktop right click menu (only available on Developer mode installations)
• Select the screen DPI via the desktop right click menu
• Less than 3.5 GB root partition on full installation (Developer mode)
• Less than 2 GB root partition on minimal installation (Minimal mode)
• XBMC Frodo 12.3
• Select packages update mirror from the desktop right click menu
• Retrieve security patches from the desktop right click menu
• Perform package updates/installation/removal from the desktop right click menu
• CEC library and LIRC