First of all, we have to mention that eAR OS may be a good replacement OS for your multimedia-oriented computer. With it, you can install any application from the Ubuntu repositories since the system is based on Ubuntu. (Out of the box, Ubuntu, Medibuntu, and WineHQ repositories are added.) This implicitly means that the system uses codecs from the Medibuntu distribution, which means less hassle with the codecs.
eAR OS comes as either a freely downloadable Live CD or USD 99 Enterprise version. We will look into the free version in this article. You can either download eAR OS (free version) from their website or BitTorrent. Like the other Linux distributions, you can burn the ISO file as an image to a CD, insert it in your CD/DVD drive, and reboot your computer to start the installation. (If the installation screen fails to appear or the computer starts from the hard drive, go into the BIOS and set the boot order so that the optical drive boots before the hard drive.)
You will be greeted with an elegant-looking Gnome desktop with a Mac OS X style dock at the bottom. To start the installation, double- click on the installation icon on the desktop. When asked, use “earmusic” (without the quotes) as the password and then follow the steps to complete your installation. When you finalize everything and reboot, your new system will be ready. (Image on the left: courtesy of Linux.com)
To start the media center, from the Start Menu, go to Sound and Video → eAR Media Center. You will be greeted with a very simple, yet elegant screen. Before working with your multimedia files, I recommend that you to put your music, photos, and videos in the ear-Music, ear-Photos, and ear-Videos folders. This will ensure that you will have your files automatically appear in the media center view without any additional configuration being required. (The database that holds information about your files is updated with each reboot.)
Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your DVD, sound card, screen resolution, and wireless card are all set correctly. Also, I need to mention that your analog TV card will probably not work with the free version of eAR OS, as there is no built-in support for it. However, for Bright Hub readers, we have found a solution.
Please read on for that solution and more – using eAR OS.