It's relatively easy to install GIT on XBMC Live, but I didn't find it well documented anywhere. Login to your XBMC machine console -- either via SSH / Putty or directly from the machine (Ctrl+Alt+F2). After you are logged in, run the following command which will install the git utility:

sudo apt-get install git-core

You may need to enter your root password (default password is 'xbmc'). The system will likely prompt you to install some other required resources. Press 'Y' to install those resources.

Install Aeon / Aeon65 with git on XBMC Live

You can then use git to install themes for XBMC. For example, if you want to install Aeon65, do the following.

Change to the skins folder:

cd ~/.xbmc/skin

Get the skin via the GIT repository. You can find the git URL at the top of the GIT repository that most of the skin developers will link to in their main thread:

git clone git://github.com/temmi2000/aeon.git "Aeon65"

Note: the "Aeon65" is an optional parameter and simply downloads (gits) the skin into the Aeon65 directory. By default it would have gone in the "aeon" directory.

In the above example, the skin will get downloaded to the 'Aeon65' folder within the skins directory. Make sure the directory that you will be downloading to does not already exist. For example, I already had Aeon STARK in a folder called 'Aeon', so I downloaded the Aeon65 into a folder called Aeon65 per the command above.

Important: if you are running a stock build of XBMC (eg. not an SVN), you will probably have issues. Read my post on how to upgrade xbmc(-live) to the latest SVN. And if you are an Nvidia ION user, you may need to update your Nvidia drivers after you update xbmc to the latest SVN.

Update an XBMC skin with git

If you'd like to update your skin (which you got via git), you can navigate to that skins directory:

cd ~/.xbmc/skin/Aeon65

Then run the git pull command from that directory:

git pull

More notes: you can use git pull to update any skin that you've downloaded with GIT. In the example above, my skin was named Aeon65. If you just cloned Aeon65 down without renaming the folder, you will need to change directory to whatever you named the skin. If you can't remember, you can change directory to the skin directory, then get a listing of all the files/folders:

cd ~/.xbmc/skin/
ls

Which will get you an output like the following

Aeon65  Aeon Auriga  Aeon STARK  Alaska  Rapier  Transparency!

In the example above, I'll change directory to Aeon65 then get a listing of all files (including dot prefixed folders). What we are looking for is a .git directory to ensure this skin as downloaded with git in the first place:

cd Aeon65
ls -a

Which will get an output like the following:

.   720p    extras  .git        language  skin.xml
..  colors  fonts   .gitignore  media     sounds

If you see the git related folders, then you should be able to run a 'git pull' command directly from the folder you are in:

git pull

Comments (6)

Joe said:

	Thanks Great guide. Thank you.
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March 27, 2010
Votes: +0

Brendan Le Foll said:

	Thanks! Thanks for the small write up. However I think you mean "cd ~/.xbmc/skin" in the first part of the post! Cheers Brendan
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May 07, 2010 | url
Votes: +0

Josh Lyon said:

	missing period fixed @Brendan- Thanks for the catch on the missing period at the beginning of the post - it's fixed now!
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May 10, 2010
Votes: +0

jacob said:

	... I cant install GIT.. i get this message Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Package git-core is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source E: Package git-core has no installation candidate any ideas?
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May 15, 2010
Votes: +0

Dan said:

Problems installing git and svn's of xbmc live First, many thanks to you. Without this site I'd have been completely lost refining the set up of my Revo with XBMC Live. Great site. Great information. I've just run into a problem I can't crack and was hoping for some guidance.... (Note: using SSH via Terminal on MBP OS-X Leopard) When following instructions to 'Install GIT on XBMC Live' I receive the following: xbmc@XBMCLive:/$ sudo apt-get install git-core Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Couldn't find package git-core xbmc@XBMCLive:/$ And when I try to update XBMC I get the following: xbmc@XBMCLive:/$ sudo apt-get install xbmc Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: xbmc: Depends: xbmc-data (= 1:9.11+svn28256-jaunty1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: xbmc-skin-confluence (= 1:9.11+svn28256-jaunty1) but it is not going to be installed or xbmc-skin-pm3-hd (= 1:9.11+svn28256-jaunty1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: xbmc-web (= 1:9.11+svn28256-jaunty1) but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages All this is doubly concerned as I recently installed XBMC Live on a friend's Revo and the above procedures worked sweetly. All and any assistance greatly appreciated. Dan

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July 24, 2010
Votes: +1

watchse replicas said:

	replica watches I cant install GIT.. i get this message Reading package lists... Done Building dependency treedatejust ii watches replicas Reading state information... Done
	report abuse vote down vote up

July 30, 2010 | url
Votes: +0

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