I've been looking into cutting the cable, and one of my options is using an old machine running Kodi. I have an old Acer Aspire R3610 that ran XBMC for a minute before I ignored it after whatever addon I was using got shut down. I installed the latest version of Kodibuntu on it.....well it took me 3 tries, because the machine would freeze on me at some point on the install.
The first time I tried, my wireless network wasn't showing on the "do you want to connect wirelessly and get updates" screen. I had an ethernet cable plugged in that also wasn't detected. It froze on this screen.
The second time, I got the same thing where it didn't find my wireless network. It froze when it was almost done installing.
The third time, my wireless network showed up and I finished the install! At first, it was not connected to the internet. I had to go into the desktop mode and connect to my wifi. Success! I installed an add on and started watching 10 seconds of a movie.......but all of this setup was being done on an old monitor using a VGA cable, and I had no sound. I just wanted to make sure it worked.
This morning I wanted to look for more addons. It booted into desktop mode instead of straight to Kodi. My wireless network was not available. Plugging in the ethernet did nothing. I'm mostly useless on a linux machine.....so I have no idea how to diagnose this. Is wifi turned off? No idea how to check. Is there something wrong with the network card on the Acer itself? Who knows.
Please help. I tried searching the Ubuntu forums.....but I don't know enough to even know how to ask for help. The most common response is that people have their laptops in airplane mode. I'm pretty certain the Aspire doesn't have a switch to toggle wifi on or off.......and that shouldn't affect the wired network.
I'm stumped.
The first time I tried, my wireless network wasn't showing on the "do you want to connect wirelessly and get updates" screen. I had an ethernet cable plugged in that also wasn't detected. It froze on this screen.
The second time, I got the same thing where it didn't find my wireless network. It froze when it was almost done installing.
The third time, my wireless network showed up and I finished the install! At first, it was not connected to the internet. I had to go into the desktop mode and connect to my wifi. Success! I installed an add on and started watching 10 seconds of a movie.......but all of this setup was being done on an old monitor using a VGA cable, and I had no sound. I just wanted to make sure it worked.
This morning I wanted to look for more addons. It booted into desktop mode instead of straight to Kodi. My wireless network was not available. Plugging in the ethernet did nothing. I'm mostly useless on a linux machine.....so I have no idea how to diagnose this. Is wifi turned off? No idea how to check. Is there something wrong with the network card on the Acer itself? Who knows.
Please help. I tried searching the Ubuntu forums.....but I don't know enough to even know how to ask for help. The most common response is that people have their laptops in airplane mode. I'm pretty certain the Aspire doesn't have a switch to toggle wifi on or off.......and that shouldn't affect the wired network.
I'm stumped.