GeeXboX 3.0 Lands With XBMC 11 Integration

After nearly a year of waiting, GeeXboX 3.0 has arrived with XMBC 11 integration in tow. The developers announced the latest build today, revealing that it also includes PVR functionality, which means that you can watch and record live TV using GeeXboX 3.0. That feature will definitely be appreciated, as will the fact that the developers of GeeXboX have made this latest version compatible with a number of different ARM systems, in addition to the typical x86 32 and 64-bit systems the program typically supports.

The total size of your GeeXboX 3.0 download comes in at 140MB. You have the addition of new firmware and driver support to thank for that bump up in size. Of course, those additional firmware and drivers improve hardware support, so we're thinking it will be quite easy to live with the increase in download size. The development team still wants GeeXboX to be available on "as many PCs and devices as possible" though, which suggests that future releases of GeeXboX won't be quite as big.

Still, 140MB definitely isn't bad for what you're getting. Have a look at the full list of release notes below, straight from the GeeXboX website:

New features

• XBMC Media Center 11 "Eden" frontend.

• PVR support for DVB Digital TV, to watch and record live TV

• Improved remote control support

• Support for Full HD videos on PandaBoard

• Support for Full HD videos on Cubox

• Improved HDD installation

• Installation support for (U)EFI systems

• Installation support for SSD's

Supported Architectures

• x86 32 and 64 bits PCs

• ARM TI OMAP4 Pandaboard

• ARM nVidia Tegra2 Harmony

• ARM Cubox (armada5xx)

• ARM Snowball ux500

System

• Linux Kernel v3.4.4.

• Systemd v188.

• BusyBox v1.21

• Connman Network Manager v1.6.

• Xorg Server v1.11.4.

• Mesa v8.0.3

• OPKG Package Manager v0.18

• USB persistent user data storage.

Audio Drivers

• ALSA v1.0.24.1.

• Support for Analog, SPDIF and HDMI output devices.

Video Drivers

• Support for Intel, nVidia, ATI, Matrox and VIA GPUs.

• Support for CRT, LCD and HDMI output devices.

• OpenGL and OpenGL|ES hardware assisted graphics acceleration.

• VDPAU, VA-API and Crystal HD hardware assisted video decoding for nVidia, Intel and Broadcom GPUs.

Input

• Mouse and Synaptics touch pads.

• HID Keyboards.

• Remote Controls.

• PluseEight CEC devices.

Networking Features

• NFS shares.

• Samba auto-discovery.

• UPnP / DLNA media discovery.

• ZeroConf services announcements.

• HTTP server.

• FTP server

• SSH server

MediaCenter

• XBMC Media Center 11 "Eden" frontend.

• Movies and TV Shows, with subtitles support.

• Music Collection

• Pictures and Slideshows

• CDDA, DVD and (non encrypted) Bluray support.

• Media Database Support.

• Internet MovieDB / TVDB metadata and covers grabbers.

• Skins

• Vu+ addon

• Xvdr addon

• Vdr server

• Tvheadend server

That's quite a long list, so GeeXboX enthusiasts have a lot to look forward to with this latest release. A download of the ISO is available right now from the GeeXboX site, and in order to begin using it, all you need to do is download it, stick it on a USB drive, and reboot your computer. After that, you're free to enjoy, and be sure to check out our interview with the folks behind GeeXbox while you're waiting for your download to finish!