XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub that can be installed on Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, and Android. Gotham is the codename for XBMC Media Center version 13 which was released on May 4th 2014. XBMC Media Center was formally known as XBox Media Center but was later changed sometime in 2009. This tutorial will show you how to upgrade or install this free and open-source media center in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10 and Ubuntu 12.04.
Some Key Features in v13
- 3D playback improvements and GUI support.
- Android hardware video decoding for most Android devices, allowing HD playback.
- Auto wake on lan to wake NAS devices and other network shares, on-demand.
- Episode bookmarks for video files or ISOs that contain more than one episode.
- Movie sets now can now be managed (edit, remove, add) within XBMC.
- Sending video to UPnP/DLNA targets such as other XBMC instances and even some smart TVs.
- Improved UPnP library sharing including resume points and watched status.
- New network cache options
- Customizable touch screen controls
- Improved subtitle download features
- Simplified audio settings and improved underlying audio engine
- For more details, go to official release page
Install / Upgrade XBMC Media Center
For most users, all settings and your library will be preserved in an upgrade. It never hurts to backup your current userdata folder before upgrading. Also due to changes related to the add-on system and skin improvement, certain plugins, scripts and skins may become incompatible when upgrading from Frodo to Gotham.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc
Switch from XBMC Unstable PPA to Final PPA
sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:team-xbmc/unstable sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa sudo apt-get remove xbmc xbmc-bin sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install xbmc xbmc-bin