Alain Kelder is a Giant Dork

Install Boxee with APT on Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

Boxee folks helpfully host an APT repository (http://apt.boxee.tv/), but, as of this writing, only for Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) and 8.10 (Intrepid). But if you happen to run a later version such as 9.04 (Jaunty) or 9.10 (Karmic), you could still install from the Boxee repository through the magic of APT pinning. This method should work just as well with later versions of Ubuntu also.

Update 5 March 2010: Since APT repository at apt.boxee.tv appears to be unmaintained, I've reverted back to manual installs until an updated repository becomes available. I don't recommend you follow the steps below unless you want to get stuck with an outdated Boxee version. Here are the steps to revert back.

First we make sure the system is up to date:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

Note: If you're running Jaunty, substitute references to "karmic" with "jaunty".

Create "/etc/apt/apt.conf" to tell APT that Karmic is our default release:

APT::Default-Release "karmic";

Create "/etc/apt/preferences" to give Karmic packages a higher priority than Intrepid packages:

Package: *
Pin: release a=karmic
Pin-Priority: 990

Package: *
Pin: release a=intrepid
Pin-Priority: 450

Create "/etc/apt/sources.list.d/intrepid.list" to tell APT where to get Intrepid packages:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid main restricted universe multiverse

Create "/etc/apt/sources.list.d/boxee.list" to give APT a source for Boxee packages:

deb http://apt.boxee.tv intrepid main

Now we update APT to pick up our changes and install Boxee:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install boxee

If all worked as it should, you should find shortcut to Boxee under "Applications" > "Sound & Video". Now, as new versions of Boxee are made available through their APT repo, we can get them through Synaptic APT GUI or via the console by running "sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude safe-upgrade".

Once Boxee adds Karmic support to their repo, we can remove the Intrepid Ubuntu sources and replace references to Intrepid with Karmic so APT will continue to get Boxee packages from the Boxee repo, just get Boxee packages for Karmic instead of Intrepid:

sudo rm /etc/apt/apt.conf /etc/apt/preferences /etc/apt/sources.list.d/intrepid.list
sudo sed -i 's/intrepid/karmic/' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/boxee.list
sudo aptitude update

Once Boxee packages become available from Ubuntu sources, we can remove the Boxee repo altogether:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/boxee.list
sudo aptitude update