XBMC Live is based on Ubuntu and can be installed permanently just the same. In the future, OpenELEC might surpass the official XBMC build, but it is not there yet.
It worked just fine; however I ran through a weird issue with HDMI sound output that I wanted to document here.
By default, even if HDMI video output is enabled and running fine, sound still goes through the analog output. I had to check and or change the following:
- Go to Programs, Audio Mixer, make sure that IEC958 outputs are not muted (there are 3 on my setup, which are all enabled now)
- Go to System, Settings, Audio output, and choose HDMI for Audio Output, Audio Output device and Passthrough output device (and not IEC958)
- Finally, play a video and check that in Audio settings, Audio output is set to HDMI. For a couple of videos, I had to force Output stereo as I'd get only noise otherwise.
Done!