How to Install XBMC on Your Apple TV 2

Great news for anyone looking for a tiny, cheap standalone XBMC box: You can now install XBMC on an Apple TV 2. Here's how it works.

First, the great news here: The Apple TV is an inexpensive $99—$100 less than the Acer nettop I installed XBMC to. I haven't tested it yet, but Engadget's video tour with a demo unit makes it look very promising. Installing XBMC on your Apple TV is a pretty simple process:

Step One: Jailbreak Your Apple TV 2

If you've got a Mac on hand, this is a pretty simple process using Seas0nPass.

Step Two: Log Into Your Apple TV as root and Install

From a Terminal prompt, you need to SSH into your Apple TV; you can simply enter:

ssh root@apple-tv.local

...and use alpine as your password. (That's the default password; if you've changed it, use whatever you changed it to.) Use your Apple TV's local IP address for the SSH connection ifapple-tv.local doesn't work.

Then simply paste the following code into Terminal, one command at a time:

apt-get install wget

wget -O- http://apt.awkwardtv.org/awkwardtv.pub | apt-key add -

echo "deb http://apt.awkwardtv.org/ stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/awkwardtv.list

echo "deb http://mirrors.xbmc.org/apt/atv2 ./" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xbmc.list

apt-get update

apt-get install org.xbmc.xbmc-atv2

Step Three: Enjoy XBMC!

That's really all there is to it. The hardest part is jailbreaking the Apple TV, and even that's a piece of cake.