Comments on: Linux Boxee users get Hulu relief

By: Brainwrecked Tech

Brainwrecked Tech — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:35:47 +0000

Sixty Four Bits (and anyone else), there’s some help in the forums to get Boxee running on 64-bit Linux using chroot. While I haven’t tried to 32-bit libs way, I can only imagine — I never want to go back to the experience of 32-bit Firefox under 64-bit Ubuntu back when Adobe’s Flash plugin was 32-bit only.

A waste of resources is a bit of an exaggeration. CPU overhead is negligible, memory usage increase depends on whether any of the 32-bit libs needed to get Boxee running are already loaded in 64-bit form, and increased disk space is a definite although what’s a few hundred MB when our hard drives are measured in TB?

A waste of end-user time is more accurate. The time wasted on everyone’s part (the time the experts take to nail it down and script it or post directions + the time others spend executing said scripts and directions) can be better spent elsewhere. But then you start getting into a touchy area of open source. You are free to grab the code and work on it if you like, but not every end-user has the ability to code. In lieu, you can offer to test code and send bug reports on features you want, but not every end-user has the ability to be a good tester, either.

I think by now the devs have a pretty good idea that there’s a demand for 64-bit. Noise is made everywhere for 64-bit Boxee. But every platform Boxee is coded for handles 64-bit differently. Mac OS X only gets 64-bit support in Leopard (10.5). Windows XP Pro 64-bit is based on Windows Server 2003, and Vista 64-bit is (was?) notorious for lack of driver support. Under Linux, it’s all-32 or all-64, as evidenced by 32-bit compat libs. Boxee is still alpha, so it’s best to go with 32-bit for broader support and get things working there first. Once things stabilize in beta or RC, I’m sure the devs will add 64-bit.

By: forested665

forested665 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:28:00 +0000

Using 32 bit compat libs is just wasting resources.

By: Sixty Four Bits

Sixty Four Bits — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:12:53 +0000

There’s plenty of other fish to fry before a 64-bit version. But good luck… and why can’t you run the 32bit version on that 64bit box? Should work if you install the 32bit compat libs

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:11:11 +0000

Yes, boxee can play .mkv (x264, etc) files (and MPEG .ts files, etc)

By: Television Spy

Television Spy — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:06:44 +0000

That’s pretty nifty …but is this official support for hulu, otherwise they may just nuke it again.

By: JJMacey

JJMacey — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:43:58 +0000

Dakota Smith,

We need to talk. I’m about to change from openSuSE11.1 to Jaunty.

I’ve that AMD dual-core 2.2GHz processor on my Notebook. And want to go 64-bit, and get my MTV for free!

Best Regards,

JJMacey
Phoenix, Arizona

By: kumar

kumar — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:43:07 +0000

can boxee play hd content in .mkv format?

By: Dakota Smith

Dakota Smith — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:53:51 +0000

Hrm … still no 64-bit version, though.

I’m a sysadmin with a nice Lenovo T61p running Jaunty 64-bit. With the addition of the 64-bit Java plug-in, there’s nothing I can’t do on a daily basis.

Why would I go to 32-bit now? They need to work on a 64-bit version.

By: craig

craig — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:40:53 +0000

Thus another reason the Windows version of Boxee should be upgraded a little faster than it has been.

By: tom sella

tom sella — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:29:07 +0000

this version has been long awaited, and we are very happy to have finally brought it on par with the mac version.

regarding netflix, unfortunately netflix requires silverlight 2.0, which is currently unsupported on linux (silverlight 1.0 is supported by the efforts of the mono people in moonlight).