Hello bbg
To add a PPA to the Package Manager you need to give it the following information, in a specific format:
1: The domain name of the server
2: The full path of the Packages file (which may be text, .gz or .bz2, (it doesn't matter for a PPA as it's small)
3: The first part of the path to the installation files, that is not specified in the Packages file.
4: The title you want for the repo
To get this, open the PPA web page in a browser. Click on "technical details of repo", select "Precise" in the drop down box.
The path it gives is the answer to 3: and you can take 1: from it as well.
To find 2: click on the link and then navigate down the tree until you get to the Packages file. In your case its this:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/pulse-eight/pu ... 6/Packages
That is the answer to 2:, but I used Packages.bz2 because that was what the other entries in the package manager had.
Next you need to edit the file /root/.packages/DISTRO_COMPAT_REPOS to add the information. So make a backup copy and then open DISTRO_COMPAT_REPOS in a text editor. It's a bit difficult to follow because there are two very long lines of data. But there are some words desribing what each line consists of.
The first line is 1:|2:|4: and the second is 1:|3:|4: So in your case they are:
ppa.launchpad.net|
http://ppa.launchpad.net/pulse-eight/pu ... BMC-Pulse8
ppa.launchpad.net|
http://ppa.launchpad.net/pulse-eight/pu ... BMC-Pulse8
Copy and Paste at the end of each relevant line of existing data, but after a space and before the "
Save the file.
Open Package Manager and select: "Configure" and then "update". When it asks, you can skip all of the repos apart from Launchpad, the Ubuntu ones take a long time to process.
When that is finished, restart the Package Manager and select "configure" choose the 3 Ubuntu repos, your Launchpad repo and uncheck the rest. Restart Package Manager.
Select your Launchpad repo on the title bar.
Enter XBMC in the search box and let it search the Launchpad repo. It will display the list of packages there.
Now you are in normal Puppy territory. Get it to download XBMC and its dependencies.
If you click on XBMC - architecture independend data, it will probably pick up xbmc-bin as a dependency.
The Package Manager will search all of the repos for the dependencies, so there will be duplicates in the list. You need to uncheck the ones you don't want. For example, it will find xbmc-bin on Ubuntu Universe and on launchpad. You need to uncheck the Ubuntu one.
I think that XBMC may require 24bit colour, but Puppy defaults to 16 bit. I'm not sure, but that was the last thing I changed before it started working.
If XBMC does not run from its menu entry, find xbmc.bin and run it from the command line and see what errors you get. Also look for the xbmc logfile.
I have written this from memory, apart from the launchpad paths. And I hope I haven't missed any vital steps.