HTPC project, part 4

I have had problems getting XBMC to work on a minimal Ubuntu installation. I was using these instructions, but I know found out that some Linux desktop is required. I opted for xfce since I'm not going to use it that much and it's light-weight. After installing xfce and tweaking the settings a bit (audio settings inside XBMC and copying the xorg.conf file from those instructions) I can view videos and listen to music, so the most important stuff seems to be working now.

I set audio to "HDMI" and 5.1 format (I'll let my A/V received to the downmix) and it seems like the motherboard connects to HDMI2 rather than HDMI1.

Viewing DVD's and Blurays directly from the disk doesn't seem to work and neither does ripping or transcoding them. Looks like I need to install some plugins for that. I also need to configure Samba again, wish I had remembered to save the config file earlier...

I'd also like to have the video player work so that when I select the directory containing the VOB's it would automatically start to play the correct one. Now I get to see all the files in the directory and have to figure out which one to choose.

Stuff to do:

• Install swiss-army-knife to allow DVD and Blu-Ray ripping/transcoding.
• Install driver for the LCD display.
• Install lirc for the controller.
• Make sure the best possible image scaling algorithm is used for SD videos.
• Make movies work like they would from a disk, i.e. no selecting single VOB's.
• Configure Samba.

Progress:

• SAF is now installed and at least an initial rip of a DVD to a ISO file works. I had a few issues with this (couldn't find the correct package, initially put the rip dir to the root file system and I think it run out of space) but nothing major.
• ISO images work well enough.
• Samba is now configured.

But I did find a new issue: the web interface doesn't work. By all accounts it should, but even though it opens up, nothing can be done with it.