Just as I’m about to start using an Intel “Next Unit of Computing” (NUC) as a media device in place of my 1080p-unfriendly original Apple TV, up pops a major new release of OpenElec, the XMBC and Linux-based media centre software.

I’d already installed XBMC on top of Ubuntu 12.10, but I was having some issues with Ubuntu’s Plymouth boot screen loader and HDMI detection. OpenElec, being a more streamlined package, would solve my problems I hoped.