Observations for my AS-302T

[davlee]

This will be my last post on this forum as I have moved away from my AS-302T.

This was my first hands on experience with xbmc and linux and even though this box didn't work out, I'm leaving with some extremely valuable experience which more than makes up for the cost of this NAS.

Short Observation:

Linux is just not ready for XBMC.

There have been major improvements for gaming under Linux so video works really well, but standard audio support for 7.1 channel sound is a mess. There are problems with hardware drivers (open source vs vendor supplied), linux software APIs (ALSA or PulseAudio), hacked code (XBMC's AudioEngine) trying to do workarounds, basic identification problems trying to figure out how many audio channels are in your system or what the channel order is for correct speaker playback.

Hopefully the Linux community is able to unwind this mess, but I don't see any real progress happening over the next 12 months.

Long Observation:

This box is extremely easy to use if you do not have the time or experience to build your own NAS from components.

Asustor is a closed operating system and it is hard to install any open source applications not supplied by Asustor.

The Debian OS kernel on the AS-302T is pretty old and only 32 bit.

Intel is not making much progress providing linux video and audio drivers for this
CE5300 System on a Chip. Part of the problem is that a lot of software routines are now built into the chip, but the Intel drivers don't know how to use them and still rely on a underpowered CPU to figure things out.

XBMC 13.2 on a newer low power AMD 5350 Athalon works much better, but this chip is also very new and there is a lack of driver support, but there is active progress being made by AMD to provide drivers for Linux. I can't get bitstream 7.1 audio to work, but everything else works just fine.

Only XBMC systems which are fully functional are Window boxes with mature Nvidia graphic cards.

Final Setup:

AMD 5350 Athalon linux box with all my movies (MKV) and music (FLAC) files stored.
Ubuntu 14.10 with the latest Linux 3.17 64 bit Kernel for the Operating System.
XBMC 13.2 on linux to serve music only.
Samba services on linux to share movie files over the network.
OPPO 103D Blu-Ray player reading movies files using Samba services.
Emotiva XMC-1 connected via HDMI inputs to both the linux box and Oppo.
800 lbs of amplifiers, speakers and a 80 inch TV hooked up to the XMC-1

I think I can survive with this setup for a year or two until linux gets it's act together for audio.