XBMC is growing up. Gains cool new services.
Remember a few weeks back when we announced our new Bytemark server? Well, we’ve already put it to very good use. In addition to setting up the buildbot mentioned previously, we’ve also created an extremely versatile file repository for XBMC use. Over the past few months, we’ve worked with several university and ISP link admins to create an extensive mirror system all over the world — one that can be used for xbmc releases, nightly builds, skins, plugins… the list goes on.
Before going any further, on behalf of the XBMC team and community, I would like to give my sincere thanks to all of the mirrors that have agreed to host us. At the moment, we’re up to 13 and still growing. I’m especially grateful to Neil Bright and Georgia Tech who have offered to be our master mirror. See the link at the end of this post for a full list.
On to the good stuff! Firstly, I’d like to introduce Billy (our oh-so-clever nickname for the buildbot). You can check it out here, though it’s probably not of much interest to most users. The system consists of a master server that dishes out build instructions, and a series of slaves to carry them out. We are currently building standard configurations of XBMC for Linux, Windows, and OSX (x86 and ppc) on a nightly basis, though we also have the ability to kick off a build for any configuration and OS at any time. What a timesaver for us! The Linux ppas are still being hosted on launchpad, though this may change in the future. If you would like to contribute a buildslave, drop us a line.
The more interesting part for users is the mirror system that hosts these builds. For that we chose Mirrorbrain, which has been a delight to work with. Another big thank-you to Peter Poeml from the Mirrorbrain project, who is probably the most helpful developer I’ve ever encountered. This is a great piece of software that constantly checks the status of the mirrors and dishes out files based on certain criteria, in an effort to ensure that downloads work as quickly and reliably as possible. It also generates Metalinks which allow you to download from several mirrors at once!
So where to find the new goodies? Head over to the new mirrors page. Currently you’ll find official nightly builds. That’s right, for our bleeding-edge users and testers there is no longer any need to scour the forums for nightlies, now you can get them at blazing speeds directly from the source!
By now you might be wondering if we plan to host addons here, and the answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. I’ve already sent out messages to all of our skinners offering to host for them. This should eliminate the need for rapidshare and the other (annoying yet helpful) free file hosting sites. The mirror system is slated to be the backend for the official XBMC addon installer that is in the works though at this time there is no ETA for that, I’ll be sure to share when there’s something to show off.
Thanks again to all the mirror admins and their respective universities and companies, you can see them below. A current list of the mirrors will always be available here. Please get in touch with us if you would like to become an official mirror.
Georgia Tech, HostEurope, NetCologne, SoftList.de, University of Mannheim, University of Granada, University of Seville, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, The Computer Society at LU & LTH, Swedish University Computer Network, Oregon State University, Secsup.org, University of Idaho, AussieHQ, Optus, Rotterdam University
Please be patient with us in the beginning. The new features are a work in progress and we’ll be adding to them often. There are bound to be a few kinks to work out now that the mirrors are public, so feel free to report any major issues in the forum and we’ll take a look as quickly as possible.
Enjoy!
Update: Dutch mirror added: Rotterdam University
Oh, this sounds awesome, way to go! For us end-users: “This should eliminate the need for rapidshare and the other…” is very welcome. ;)
No more downloadlink searching for Skins and(?) Scripts/PlugIns?!
Great!!!!
Cheers,
David
Great work guys.
I personally really appreciate the effort you put in explaining and describing your dev processes.
This is great! Currently I have my ATV set up to point Launcher to thequestor’s nightlies. What URL should I get Launcher to point to to get the official XBMC latest nightly for ATV/OSX? Thanks in advance!
@Jimmer
Someone else has already pointed this out, I’ll include a ‘latest’ link soon.
@theuni
Awesome! Thanks dude….
Great work as always. This is very welcome :)
these are awsome news! you guys are the best … saw these buildslave on a lot of other projects, and it’s a hughe timesaver
I’m very pleased to see that German Companies and Universities contribute.
Wow! Lots of stuff moving for XBMC. I’m really happy of this specific development, the nightly builds are really appreciated.
Guys, I think that a lot of people are waiting for the support of CUDA or anything that can switch the task to the GPU…
Is there going to be a web based repository for plugins? I know you can host them but what about web management?
Wow. If this is what you guys do in your spare time, i’d love to see what you do for a day to day job.
Will be cool when you can browse skins and skins and view previews from the sofa before installing it :)
This is awesome news! Will make things much easier when I build my new HTPC.
How about also hosting a SVN or Git repository for skinners and other addons?
One common place for them to publicly develop all skins, plugins, and scripts?
What about using OpenMAID framework as a base for the interface to be used for uploading and downloading addons?
OpenMAID is an open source web framwwork designed for this exact purpose by the MeediOS project, it’s really nice!
Skin it to match XBMC website then just add VBullitin login to it for using our forum accounts and your are golden :)
OpenMAID would allow for very easy web management by addon developers that are not part of the XBMC team ;)
Well, thanks also the XBMC Team, which has made this possible :-)
Without them, we won’t have such a wonderful which we could support! ;-)
Thanks, its a pleasure to be here and look around.
By the way, is this maybe also designed to be the first planned step of adding a auto-update function to XBMC?
For us using nightly SVN builds it would be great to have an “update to latest version” button in the GUI.
@Jimmer
See here: http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/osx/latest.dmg
This may change in the future.
@Alex
Thanks for the tip. After a quick look, details look scarce. Do you work on the project?
Sorry I do not work on the OpenMAID or MeediOS project, no I’m only a user.
I just think that OpenMAID is a really easy to use web interface for this purpose.
You might want to try asking zag2me, I’ve seen zag2me in the XBMC forums.
@theuni The source code for OpenMAID is available in MeediOS SVN, and I think that it’s documented in their wiki.
@theuni
Thanks, but I’ve found a strange problem. I think because I already had the Launcher pointing at thequestor’s nightlies when I added the XBMC.org nightlies as a source, then the launcher app locks up every-time I try to select the downloads section. Possibly it can’t deal with two separate sources serving up builds that are identically titled? I removed launcher, re-installed it and it works again without the XBMC.org source…. Could it be two identical files confusing launcher, or your URL?
Any chance of having win32GL builds? I’ve just discovered that CrystalHD support needs GL under Windows and doesn’t work properly under DX.
any chance other branches will be added like dsplayer?
Other branches will not be added for public consumption, only for internal use. We don’t want the general public using branched builds… they’re in a branch for a reason. Once merged to trunk, then we’re interested in feedback.
This is awesome i love XBMC now its fully functional on my hardware i can’t imagine why i did not knew this software before. I hope to set up my own compagny soon and i’m willing to make donations to the developers if they put these donations to good use.