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Hi there!
I just ordered a mini-ITX mainboard including all the necessary components to set up a file server/media center combination. Now I realized I'll hardly need my real desktop computer. So to keep my electricity bill down I guess I'll shift to the new nettop-like thing for my daily computing needs. The question arising is:
Is there any way to have a smooth media center UI for mp3/dvd/CD playback, but also have the option of running an ordinary desktop environment for more serious stuff? I don't know anything about xbmc, mythtv and the likes. I assume something like "have the user decide from kdm whether to run xbmc or kde" would work, but this makes for some very un-seamless switching between media playback and serious stuff. Is there some better way? I'd prefer running like xbmc, cause I expect it to boot faster than kde4, but I may be wrong...
Any ideas anybody?
Best wishes,
Rufus
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You can run xbmc in full-screen mode and set it to start at boot.
I have openbox running on mine but you could just as easily use kde or gnome. When xbmc starts full-screen there is no border so you can't tell that its really just an app running over a "normal" WM/DM. If you need to minimize it you can just hit the \ button which brings it to "windowed" mode where you can move the window, minimize it, etc.
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