Next step is installing a software to the SD card I purchased so that the Raspi can actually boot. I decided to go with Raspbmc since it seems to be the most fully functional XBMC solution for the Raspberry Pi. Raspbmc does not have a stable release yet, so there are still only release candidates which get updated quite often. The most current is RC5 which is what I installed. The process is to flash your SD card, insert it to your Raspi and power on. The rest of the process is automated, it downloads the necessary files, then installs and reboots into XBMC. My first time around was unsuccessful, possibly due to the fact I was plugged in with a composite cable instead of HDMI. RC5 seems to have an issue with composite cable and no image is shown. So I reformatted the SD card, plugged the pi in with HDMI instead and let the the files download and install and it worked! The Raspberry Pi booted into XBMC and my LG remote worked without any further tinkering! At this point the pi is basically very much useable, so after installing the 1channel.ch add-on I took a break and watched an episode of Scrubs.
I have found a bug however! With certain LG remotes there is no “back” button. Just my luck! So this makes the pi a little less useable at this point as I had to plug in a keyboard to be able to back out to the main menu again. Some research shows there is a way to map a new button to act as the back button. Requires I SSH into the pi and edit a file called remote.xml. Now I run into a problem with SSH! For some reason I am not able to gain access to the pi from another computer.
Another problem for another day! Happy to see the Raspberry Pi up and running regardless of my remote issues.