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General => Users => Topic started by: Seer on March 06, 2009, 11:04:37 pm

Title: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Seer on March 06, 2009, 11:04:37 pm
Hey there everybody! 

I was wondering what brought everybody here to use LinuxMCE.  Do you have a friend that is using it?  Someone mention it on some other forum?  Did you buy something from one of the companies selling Pluto/LinuxMCE products?  What's your story?

Here's mine:  A few years ago I got a HDTV, which kicked my old TV to the bedroom.  I've been using my PS3's DLNA receiver to stream media from my computer, which works well, but not perfectly.  It also leaves that bedroom TV to the old semi-broken DVD player and the PS2.

Then, the wife got into searching for fansubbed anime, which often are encoded in MKV dual audio, which the PS3 doesn't like.  Then the Bluray player on the PS3 died, and I was  hurting for something I could control from my couch, maybe something I could also port over to my bedroom TV, and also take care of some other small tasks I've been wanting (like a mediawiki site for the house, a replacement for my consumer grade router, and a better Linux based DLNA server, and an easy way to jump into home automation)

I've seen the word "LinuxMCE" a few times on other forums, as I've set up asterisk phone system at an old job and on the FUPPES site.  I've always been a GNOME man, so at first I looked around for other solutions.  Finally, I also wanted to get back into programming, as my new job doesn't have any (!) and I don't want to skills to wither. 

The YouTube video pulled me in.  25 minutes of everything I can do, using all the components together, and on my favorite OS to boot!

So, what about you?!
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Marie.O on March 07, 2009, 12:09:58 am
I looked at PlutoHome back in 2005-06 iirc but could not get it to work.

But remembered the cool flash presentation.

ffwd to Oct-Nov 2007 - A friend of mine wanted a small distributed media system. Since then, I have spend nearly 70% of my waking hours, working, fixing, playing with lmce
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: b4rney on March 07, 2009, 12:41:33 am
Nice thread idea!

I remember seeing the video on youtube and thinking it was a scam. It was just too good!

I now have a cat6 wired home with various orbiters and a large NAS with my ripped DVDs and two DVB-S cards. I still can't believe how good this system is. So glad I got here and thanks to the developers. Not to mention the support available in this forum.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: tschak909 on March 07, 2009, 02:11:44 am
I came to LinuxMCE in March of 2007, but didn't become a developer until September 2007, after the 0704 release.

Since then, I have spent almost all of my waking time, alongside posde, working on, and improving LinuxMCE.

My interests in this system arise from my private research in ubiquitous computing, particularly the aspects of human to computer interaction, and distributed networking. LinuxMCE is proving to be an excellent test-bed for a lot of things to work on in this area, as a home is a perfect place to implement massive sensor networks, far reaching distributed UI, and cross pollination of data between tasks.

-Thom
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: totallymaxed on March 07, 2009, 10:17:15 pm
Well we saw Pluto at the CEBIT show in March 2005. At the time we were looking for a Open HA system that we could invest effort in and build an installation business around. We signed a commercial agreement with Pluto in the summer of 2005. We spent the next 3 years testing hardware/software and supporting Pluto's software development and contributing many improvements/changes. During 2006/7 we installed 12 systems in our own homes and those of our friends/family to test our ability to install/support the system 'in real the real world' and did literally 1000's of installs in our lab to test all aspects of the system. Fast forward to May 2008 and we took an order for our first HA system based on LinuxMCE.

Andrew
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Ray_N on March 08, 2009, 09:27:14 pm
We (wife and I) had an old CRT TV in the basement (entertainment room, if you can call it that), but the basement is way too cold during the winter months to go down there. Out of our home based business, we bought a nicer large flat screen for the living room to make presentations since we didn't want clients to be in the cold of the basement.

We really cant say that we watch TV... but on very small occasions, there were some shows we would have preferred to watch in the larger screen (Lost for me, Desperate Housewives for her).  ;D But there is no cableTV connection in the living room. So we needed a way to stream the cable signal upstairs. So I started looking...should I go with a Slingbox? Well that needed a PC to be connected to the LCD. Well, if we're going to have a PC up there, might as well have a DVD and whole media center solution also, no? So, is there something else besides Slingbox and the like out there? A friend of mine very casually, very nonchalant mentioned he had heard of MythTV and LinuxMCE.

I love Linux and missed it a lot since I hadn't worked with it much lately. (I used to work with Linux, during my undergrad in Computer Engineering, 11 years ago). So I started my research, reading through the forums, and here we are today...just today I finished building the system, and just closed the box. (pictures attached  ;) ) Am very exited about this and looking forward to contributing to the community. I was surprised to know that LinuxMCE as itself is not even three years old, so if its this "old" (new really) and it functions so nicely, I thought, just imagine what it will be 10 years from now...
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: phenigma on March 09, 2009, 12:14:28 am
Hi all!  I've been running MythTV for about 3 years running multiple frontends on Xebian and have been looking for a way to incorporate home automation and voip. I first saw LMCE about a year ago in some MythTV forums and I played with it for a bit but didn't really have the hardware to implement media directors properly.  I had forgotten completely about lmce until I recently saw some of tschak's lmce videos.  The DT366 touchscreen padorbiter video hooked me and I decided to jump in.

I just finished building a core/hybrid system out of a P4 using with my file server as a NAS and a couple old (but apparently capable) pcs for mds.  I'm also using my Windows Tablet PC and a Nokia N800 as orbiters.  I hope to add a DT366, voip, irrigation control and eventually lighting, thermostats and maybe even a serial interface to my solar hot water system controller.

J.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: tkmedia on March 09, 2009, 01:17:41 am
Late 05 while trying to find an option to play my flac files on my Turtle beach Audiotron  I found plutohome... I managed to get it installed on the one Tyan board compatible at the time. Even managed to get a diskless  MD going.  Got follow me working with my Nokia 3650. Unfortunately that is far as I took it for a long time. Anxiously awaited and tried most pluto-home version since 2.036 iirc . March 07 with lmce 1.0 saw progress. With the 0704 release saw more, still did not try most of the HA features. I got involved with testing in for 0710 release. Now I am using most of lmce features and working with the 0810 testing.  Some day soon hope to add some of my own code to the mix. Recently got licensed by Pluto-Home to sell pre-installed systems. Looking forward to see what 2009 and 0810 Linuxmce will bring.




Tim
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Afkpuz on March 09, 2009, 02:16:33 am
My story is long and gradual, but is interesting to me when I look back on it.  It involves me moving completely from a passive windows (only used for games) to the media powerhouse of linux.  I first discovered linux in 2006.  A computer science class which everyone has to take at my school (gen ed class) involved giving presentations on windows vs. Macs.  After every point, like "windows is more vulnerable to viruses", the prof would also make a little linux jab, like "but linux doesn't get viruses at all".  So, he introduced me to ubuntu dapper drake.  I think it was 6.04.  Well, my particular lappy had some video card trouble and I gave up on linux.  I had never needed to put this much effort into getting my computers to work.  But eventually, a computer science major on my wing heard about my troubles and found a fix for me.  I finally had a working linux box.  I quickly learned to love linux, especially ubuntu. 

Then, later that year, the tech help area of my school was selling a used 32" crt monitor.  It was massive, cheap, and weighed 150+ pounds (I checked the tech specs on it), so naturally, I bought it.  I started by just playing movies and music on that monitor.  Since I was in a small dorm room, I could sit back on the couch and use this monitor hooked to my lappy.  Well, pretty soon, I wanted a dedicated computer for that monitor.  We watch alot of movies in college now-a-days, plus everyone was impressed by such a big monitor.  So, I ended up building a desktop computer to drive the monitor.  This was very nice and good, so I soon upgraded to surround sound speakers and began looking for the best linux movie player.  In that search, I discovered mythtv.  It worked pretty nice and could do music and movies, which is all I wanted.  So, then I bought a cheap IR remote and got that going.  Pretty soon, I thought I'd give TV tuners a try.  So, I began to dabble with that.  Soon, I signed up for schedules direct and ditched the 150 pound monitor for a sleek, off brand lcd tv. 

So at this point, I was just enamored with linux in general and would browse around youtube watching linux videos.  And low and behold, I came across the LMCE demo video.  I was blown away and immediately knew I wanted to chase that rabbit.  Several upgrades and a whole lot of tinkering later, I have a sweet, working system that will definitely keep expanding as I graduate college (may of 2009!) and get a house.  I can't imagine still using boring old windows.   
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Techstyle on March 09, 2009, 02:51:10 am
In 2006 my DVD player died and I had an excuse to build a machine to go in my Living room connected to a LG LCD Screen and my Pioneer Reciever.  I wanted to be able to watch/listen to media I had, until that point, dotted around the various machines on the Network.  I installed Windows MCE 2005 but it didn't really live upto my expectations - Problems with codecs and multiroom ability.  First I learned to live with it and then I wanted to expand to Automation to run some X10 stuff.  I installed a trial of MControl for Win MCE which worked well but I continued to research alternatives and then I stumbled upon LMCE in middle of 2008.

I downloaded the latest Beta of 7.10 and installed on my living room PC, I had some old hardware around me so built a MD for the bedroom and a PDA as a roaming orbiter.  I added the X-10 stuff, more HDD for media (my DVD collection), about 200ft of CAT5E cable, I have ordered 2 gigabit switches ($25.99 on amazon at the mo).  
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: hari on March 09, 2009, 09:19:25 pm
Stumbled over the webpage in 2005, signed up at the old plutohome page in Aug 2005. My "homeserver" was a Transmeta based HP Thin client with a usb disk attached, running debian. I really disliked the fact that it was "a own distro", looked at the 100s of packages, decided to better use a vm on my notebook for testing. I was appealed by UI1 in the vmware screen, _NOT_. Of course I did not have any functionality (no media in the vm, no tuners, no lighting, no nothing). So I decided this is crap and left :-)
I think it was Sep 2007 when I found out that my latest gadget (n800) runs "the orbiter" on a blog. Found out that the name had changed (LinuxMCE) and started reading the forums and the wiki. As I already had a squeezebox and a cisco 7970, too, this was a perfect fit. At first I was annoyed by requirements like dual nic and dhcp. I tried to fight it (see arpwatch patch *ggg*). Then I started to enjoy that it does everything what I did with my old homeserver (slimserver, samba, nfs, boot infrastructure, asterisk, ...). But nearly out of the box. My goal was to have all my devices at home plug and play.. that got me addicted.

br, Hari
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: sambuca on March 10, 2009, 01:49:59 pm
I had been using Freevo for a number of years, as a pure audio/video media centre. Then I started to set up TV recording, but was not quite happy with the fact that I needed the computer in the living room to stay on to record a show. I was also in the process of building a new house, so I envisioned a system with a central storage and recording capability. I also liked the idea of using cat5/6 to transfer tv signals to every room.

Crawling the web for such systems I stumbled upon Plutohome. It seemed to do everything I wanted, and even had possibilities in HA, which I wanted to experiment with. After looking for a while I did a test install on a old (too old) PC, but it was to slow and restricted in its setup (not having MDs) to be of any use. And I was not thrilled with the locked-down approach to the setup of the system. So I kept looking for alternatives, not having completely given up on pluto either. Then I found LMCE. It was based on Pluto, was less locked-down, and its intention was to be a add-on/package to standard Ubuntu. After some thinking I decided to try it out. So, in the autumn of 2007, I ordered a server to install as a LMCE core. If I didn't use it for LMCE, I could always find other uses for it. But its still running LMCE  :)

I could have written dozens of reasons why I chose lmce, but I guess you all know  :)
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: bulek on March 10, 2009, 02:29:26 pm
Hi,

I've used first Misterhouse and then combination with Freevo, that gave me quite working system. At that time I read about Pluto V1 and admired those that can afford such system... Then noticed announcement for V2 to be in "open source spirit" and I joined the project - basically from the ground up...

Now I'm using it in our new family house with full blown automation system (over 300 variables-objects are exchanged between automation level and LMCE)... Pretty complex system...
 

Regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: seth on March 10, 2009, 06:18:26 pm
 :)
I was a knoppmyth user/release tester for about 6 years. I had a Master backend running gentoo, and 4 Knoppmyth frontends. I also had an old 486PC running IBM's Home Director software, and had several X10 lighting and appliance adapters working with plug in keypads in various locations throughout the house. One day a friend of mine in my local LUG, mentioned Pluto home to me. I attempted to use their software on existing hardware, and was met with much dismay, and vexing, and a lot of beer drinking. While looking through the posts in the Pluto forums, there was mention of another platform, an open platform, and that is when I discovered LinuxMCE.

While I have not been an active user of LinuxMCE as long as some, I had the pleasure of throwing it into my production environment at home. I started with a single core/hybrid installed from the kubuntu 704 cd and the 2 disc LinuxMCE 704 cd installation method. This was a huge step forward, but as an avid mythtv user, and the bits of mythtv that were broken in version 704, led me to try the beta for 710. I have been using 710 ever since. I shut down my old 486 with its IBM home director software, and incorporated my X10 into LinuxMCE. Now I have a core/hybrid, and 4 MD's, as well as a host of lighting and home control devices both X10 and Insteon.

I can see no use for any other platform. This does everything I will ever need, and more that I haven't even sat down with yet. I can not wait for the beta of 810. I wish sometimes I can do more than answer forum questions and the occasional wiki contributions, but I am not a developer, although I aspire to be. Maybe with the next version I will cross that bridge, but until then, I am completely satisfied with my current deployment, and with the hard work of all the developers making this "free as in beer" product, better than the systems that could break your bank, the next release will be even more Satisfying.

Regards,

Seth
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Anthony_Molg on March 11, 2009, 02:40:33 pm
Stumbleupon Video http://www.stumbleupon.com/ (http://www.stumbleupon.com/)

The Windows MCE Vs Linux MCE video. The videos are great, they got me here keep them coming.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Dale_K on March 11, 2009, 03:20:28 pm
Google
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: WhateverFits on March 11, 2009, 04:30:30 pm
I have run most everything from GeexBox to MythTV in many incarnations. I am a software engineer and a networking freak so I really love the idea of network booting the computer that hooks up to the TV. I saw Pluto posted to Slashdot in 2004 and was fascinated. I did absolutely nothing about it at the time but continued with my existing MythTV and GeexBox (plus MisterHouse) experimentation. A friend of mine mentioned LinuxMCE some time back. I realized what it was and immediately installed it on a spare system. It is no longer on my spare system and is my central server for everything. In my downtime between studies, I'm looking at the HADesigner and trying to see if I can fix a few bugs in it like ODBC. :D
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: rvetruba on March 12, 2009, 07:11:55 am
the video... and i'm so green it's my first linux install, but I'm hooked on the dream!

I do happen to be a great designer, IMHO, coder, not much at all - but I'd love to help the project and make it look nicer..i'm not sure how to get involved but am open.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: tschak909 on March 12, 2009, 07:52:57 am
rvetruba: You should look at my HADesigner screencasts, here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Developers_Guide#9.3.1_HADesigner

These are a series of in-depth tutorials dealing with Designer, and making UI variations for each and every possible target. Please watch them all, and you'll start to see the scope of why Orbiter is very different from the UI for say... XBMC. ;)

-Thom
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: WhateverFits on March 12, 2009, 03:40:25 pm
rvetruba: I second that! Please come up with some nice themes if you are a designer. If you can't do the entire thing, come up with ideas and screen mockups. Post them. Ask for comments. Other people (like myself), who are more technical than artistic, can run with your designs and create the interface in HADesigner.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: valent on March 14, 2009, 09:49:50 am
the video... and i'm so green it's my first linux install, but I'm hooked on the dream!

I do happen to be a great designer, IMHO, coder, not much at all - but I'd love to help the project and make it look nicer..i'm not sure how to get involved but am open.

rvetruba this project needs designers much more than coders IMHO ;)
Any help is really appreciated... I'm amazed at graphic design of some open source projects, for example XBMC has a beautiful interface. LinuxMCE is not bad but not as slick as XBMC or some other projects out there...

Just my 2c ;)
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: MarcoZan on March 15, 2009, 11:57:06 am
Back in 2004 I started a personal research about HA softwares. The topic has been always fascinating to me, and moreover at that time I started to have plans to renovate an old house to live in so I wanted to make up my mind on the best possible choice.

I started with Misterhouse, but as I was living in a small rented apartment I did not make any special arrangement with lighting (just some CM11 devices). System was indeed nice, WAF factor was not so bad.

Several factors pushed me to keep on searching for more HA project, with the idea to choose one that could be a possible base to build a business upon. I found a lot of project, but basically they were kind of "home breed" and therefore not really suitable.

Reading Misterhouse mailing list I stumbled on a post of a guy (that turned out to be Tinia/Bulek) stating that Pluto was switching to Open Source, then I gave it a try.

Learning curve of Pluto isn't a breeze, expecially if you don't have robust linux skill and expecially if you choose to start with hardware that does not fit exactly. So I had to fight a bit to get my VIA EPIA M10000 hybrid to work, but in the end it has been a pleasant fight. Pluto was covering definitely better the multimedia aspect and it overall seemed way more powerful to me, so I started to write a rude GSD to drive a Weeder I/O board to control some light and a simple surround system. This increased dramatically WAF factor, so I was allowed to buy a new server and switch VIA hybrid to simple MD.
The idea was then to get as much confidence with system as possible, to study some C++ and OO programming and afterwards to start with some "under the hood" approach with the codebase. Unfortunately Pluto momentum started to progressively fade, and it seemed to me that I was putting a lot of effort basically on a dead horse. So I put everything in kind of "suspended mode".

Reading from time to time Pluto Forum I found out in summer 2007 that project was forked, and this pointed me here. I joined the forum and as soon it was released I switched my Pluto system do LMCE 704.
In the mean time renovation works for my house were already started, but it was not too late to make some change to wiring and lighting system in order to set up an infrastructure relying on LMCE.
Now I'm living in my new house since last july, my LMCE 710 system is still a small one (1 hybrid and 1 MD) but nevertheless in my spare time I wrote a rude and dirty GSD driver to integrate my lighting and electric shutter system (heavyly based on Dan Damron Insteon driver structure).

I've plenty of thing still to be done on my system (improving GSD, implementing anti-intrusion and video surveillance, integrating telephony, integrating different remotes, integrating LCD devices, integrating iButtons, speech synthesis ...) and no time to get them done.
To be honest in this particular economic situation I don't really regret not to have spare time ... but also I hope to find a better balance between my family and my job that allow me to exchange back something to LMCE, that is probably the best way to thank those great guys that are doing such an incredible work.

Marco
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: itsmeok on March 16, 2009, 09:07:05 pm
I came to the linuxmce website after my brother showed me the comparison video on You Tube. I was considering buying a commercial HD video player. In my eyes this is a brilliant product and I do believe in the strength of a community developed product against commercial developed products.

As not having a huge knowledge of linux it is sometimes challenging. I hope to be able to help out more in the future. Currently trying to document the things I am doing on my system for other new users. I do believe that documentation will prevent the same questions to be asked over and over again, taking time from all members.

I just build my second system with a small hiper case (DVD player size) for my livingroom. I get a lot of interest from everyone visiting the house.  ;D

I am not a developer but for my work I am involved in development as test consultant / manager. If that would be of any help sometime.....


Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: tschak909 on March 16, 2009, 09:19:07 pm
itsmeok: trust me, that would help a ton.

The scope of the entire system is HUGE, and we need a regression framework to put into place to make sure that our functionality is consistent from release to release, especially as things change underneath as time goes on.

-Thom
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Craptastic on March 17, 2009, 03:19:18 am
Part accident, part destiny perhaps.

After a multitude of failures with the Bell ExpressVu PVR (total of 8 units in just over two years) I knew that I had to do something. Unfortunately, we had just started having a family and well, like me, my kids don't sleep so I get even less sleep and less time to myself so the project went no where until about a month ago.

I was aware of MythTV from my desire to not be tied to dedicated hardware, and I used to dabble in DVB so I really wanted flexibility. I also wanted to eventually get home automation going.

In my desire to get this moving, searches about MythTV made a connection to LinuxMCE. This solved both of primary objectives.

I have looked at a lot of automation systems over the years and found this to be quite impressive from a capability standpoint.

For the last month I have been handpicking my parts and ordering them from across Canada and finally have my hybrid "running". I have not connected it to any TV feeds yet, hope to do that next week.

I have also started mapping out my deployment of other aspects such as security.

I would love to get to the point of having security up and running, MAME playing, irrigation control, camera at front door, full lighting control (likely Zwave), HVAC, phone, maybe a remote weather station for actual temperature etc.

I am very green to Linux as a language but have done a reasonable amount of personal programming in other languages so it is not completely foreign. I hope to contribute and to truly be part of the community and not just a user. It seems that standard phone services needs some work so that might be an area I could contribute to.

For the next few months time is scarce but I do plan on soaking up as much Linux as possible. If anyone has any recommended resources for Linux or Ruby or anything else they would not go to waste.

I look forward to contributing and hope to affect positive change during my time here.

Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE? >> UI
Post by: rvetruba on March 19, 2009, 07:17:20 pm
Thom, et al - i'm playing more with the system, and starting to get a feel for it..in my case, it's a linux learning curve too.

Anyway, I'll start a new post about UI (or ID an existing one).

Also, software is easier to change than humans.

Human patterns and existing conventions should be used whenever we can... as an outsider coming in, I'll put forth a few observations:
a. Noobs like me should get greeted, in a perfect world - the way I have been here. It's very helpful to know there's an online forum for questions, and furthermore, the forums aren't just for tech gods who look down on my lowly questions. What we're really creating here is improvements in people's lives... the wealthy who hire home automation experts might not care, they just hire someone to fix the problems - but for the masses, LMCE is close

b. I'd love to see (help with even, if anyone's in Los Angeles?) a "what next" video or stupid-simple wiki...say you installed LMCE - now what? What PVR to buy? What is an orbiter (I've figured it out...)? What do I need to control my stereo? A big-@ss "start here" I think will help more people not just install it, but make it part of their life.

c. Orbiters should default to a contextual layout. Any orbiter should control any device, but this is something i'll push for and am happy to help design context-specific orbiters. I'm guessing the main orbiters might be: Entertainment, Security (Entry/Exit)... perhaps bedroom (wake-up + sleep shutdown + security..?) + main default + kitchen specific if anyone tackles assisted cooking?
   (note: this conversation moved to new post - plz reply there)

d. This could be presumptious for a rookie, but I think I saw a post that LMCE is home automation, not entertainment center...but I think I reject the assumption that this has to be the case - only because those two are not contradictory. It can be both and has the basics of such already (??). The music player for orbiter needs a lot of work, but
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE? >> UI
Post by: Afkpuz on March 19, 2009, 10:03:32 pm
d. This could be presumptious for a rookie, but I think I saw a post that LMCE is home automation, not entertainment center...but I think I reject the assumption that this has to be the case - only because those two are not contradictory. It can be both and has the basics of such already (??). The music player for orbiter needs a lot of work, but

Well, I would hope that both media and HA are being worked on.  However, I can see how HA would take alot more work than media playback.  Linux already has several very nice media players that IMO would be easy to integrate into something like LMCE.  Home automation though doesn't have alot of native linux support.  But yea, I agree that there are some improvements I'd like to see with media playback.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: lmce3000 on March 22, 2009, 12:14:57 pm
Hi All,

Finally decided to join the forum. I've been using linux for over 15 years, My home/office is 90% Linux.
I've got a couple of Win XP instances running in VMWare server, because there are some applications that
are not yet available for Linux, but as soon as they become available, I will ditch XP altogether.
I stumbled upon Linuxmce a while back, but never had the time to put a system together. As a business
owner, I clock some serious work hours. Finally managed to get some free time a couple of months ago
Bought some hardware and built a killer core/Hybrid system. (Quad Core / 3 Gigs of Ram / 250 Gb OS Drive
500 Gb Storage and a 1TB NAS) Overkill perhaps, But I call it forward thinking, by the way, my hardware
had some issues with LMCE, but with a couple of trips to the command line, passed a few commands to Grub
and a few VGA card tweaks. I've got the Hybrid running with UI2. SWEET!  After a dozen or so installs and reinstalls.
I've got a working system. My system is on 24/7 for the past month with no issues or whatsoever. I'll add
my hardware list to the wiki at some point. Right now, I've got two Laptops working as MDs. One is attached to my TV via
Svideo and the second Laptop is setup in the dining area. Will be adding light modules, IP cams and so on soon.
Also looking into the ASUS EETOP as and MD for the kitchen area. I think the touch screen would be great for
the wife to browse for recipes and play her fav shows and or listen to her fav songs while she's cooking. It is a
work in progress, needless to say, LMCE, Very Addictive!!!
Linux MCE with all it's rough edges is the best solution for HA out there by a mile. I'm hooked.!!!  ;D
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Steve on March 22, 2009, 09:02:52 pm
I started messing with linux back in 1996 when all there was slackware and redhat. As time moved on went to debian cause it was alot more user friendly. In 2004 built a debian full fledged server probably over kill, but i like to dabble into new things. I had tried linuxmce 1.0 never did get it to work so I canned it. About a month ago was googling for a better system to fit my lifstyle without the overkill and found linuxmce which I thaught had disappeared of the face of the earth so I loaded up 7.1 and much to my amazment everything worked this time with alittle bit of patching the kernel. If you are very new to linux dont try it. I joined the forums and have been pretty happy with it. Great job to all the developers! Someday soon I would like to contibute more than just alittle knowledge.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Pnuts on March 25, 2009, 06:18:52 pm
I have been using XP-MCE for about 4 years now and my wife loves it. Talking to a virtual team member\coworker of mine, we got on the topic of MCE's. He was thinking of setting one up himself and i mentioned I had been using XP without any problems. He mentioned LMCE as one of the options available. I dismissed it without even looking at it as I was content with XP-MCE.

Fast forward about 6 months and I just moved into a house we just purchased. Now that I have free roam to do what i want to it, I considered adding some IP Cameras and began looking into different ways to do this. I mention this to that same coworker and he brings up LMCE again. This time he also provides a demo video from google video. After watching it, I was sold.

I played around with it for a few weeks isolated on my home network and decided to make a run at installing it on my main network. Well, after a long weekend, a fed up wife, and getting poorer TV reception then the XP-MCE, i had to scrap the rollout and return everything to normal. Biggest wife complaint was lack of internet while i was doing most of this.

Move forward another 2 weeks and im at it again, this time, I keep it simple instead of trying to do the house at once. I have a hybrid setup in my office\media room which is providing dhcp to the house. an HDHomerun hopefully arriving today and shortly after a gyro mouse. Once i can get my wife comfortable with it, ill turn the xp-mce machine in the front room into a 2nd MD. Then I can work on doing zwave lighting and more automation things.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: ivanp on March 28, 2009, 08:34:53 pm
In the middle of 2008 i saw that famous Google video. I dont know how i got to it, i think i was just googling the term MCE. After viewing the video 3 times in a row (yeah, it took over an hour for that ;D) i was convienced to at least try installing it. I am a total Linux newbie, but I work in IT and networking so know a lot of it. After seeing that i have almost ideal parts for it (M2NPV-VM, PVR150) i figuered out it was destiny for me to try it ;D :D ;D. After first install didnt know a thing how or would to do. After reading of tons of stuff on Wiki and here on forums, decided to give it another shot. Ordered Fiire Chief online and started to build a system step by step. My system is small, Core and 2 MDs, all located in one small room, just for testing purposes. Few orbiters and now moved on to VOIP and Zwave. After i am sure it all works i will try to convience my parents (since i still live with them in a flat) to let me hook it up all through the house. Been lurking this forum for almost a year now and decided to join as i think i can help some ppl with trivial stuff. Hoping that one day i ll be able to upload a moive to youtube/google of my entire flat controlled by LinuxMCE.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Che on April 19, 2009, 04:02:11 pm
Stumbled accross the site about a month ago, whilst looking for Media Center Stuff, and so far, it's all questions for me.
I will be using Vista for the moment, bbut as soon as I can, I will upgrade to LMCE.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: extremeshannon on April 19, 2009, 11:53:04 pm
I just happen to come accross the website over a year ago. I was looking to rip movies and play them accross my Netgear EVA8000 and found kaleidoscope liked the concept but was to much for me. I search some  more and ended up here and I don't plan on leaving. Thanks for a great experience.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Murdock on April 21, 2009, 04:09:41 am
I was desperately searching for an alternative to Windows MCE and stumbled across the lmce website, watched he video and got excited. I spent the next couple of months planning what I needed to do to get started. I budgeted and purchased a Fiire 12TB (of which I'm currently using 4TB) and a fiire diskless MD, ran cat5e cable behind my walls and spent a weekend getting up lmce 0710. Since then I've been configuring a usb UIRT, hardening the core kernel and becoming familiar with the lmce system, all the while finding this website and the wiki an invaluable tool.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: nite_man on April 23, 2009, 12:05:26 am
I started working with Plutohome in February 2006. We tried to build a custom home automation system. We made custom controller to control lighting, heating and sparkling. Interface between Plutohome and controller was implemented using GSD. During one year we fixed a few bugs together with Pluto development team. Together with Chris we ported Orbiter to Maemo platform. Unfortunately I left company where worked with smarthomes and now  LinuxMCE  is my hobby only.

Recently I started Russian community (http://linuxmce.ru) of LinuxMCE to promote it in Russia.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: spic0m on May 10, 2009, 11:54:39 am
Hi to everyone!

After many years in Microsoft hostage with 2k i didn't want to upgrade in xp or vista so i started looking for alternatives, i ended up with Ubuntu and "saw the light" :).
Next discovery was asterisk, a thing i was dreaming for years, then i heard of mythtv and started thinking if there was a way to implement all this in a nice package.
Unfortunatelly my knowledge in programing and in linux os was not enough to accomplish this so one day surfing here and there i saw the video! That was it, my prayers was heard, next day i started ordering stuff (tv cards, remotes, etc.) and now, without much effort i have a hybrid pc running smoothly media (tv,dvd,music) and gathering money for lighting sensors and the rest.
The only thing bugging be is the telephony but i'm optimistic :).
Thank you all guys who participated in this project.
Title: Re: How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?
Post by: Bozza on June 28, 2009, 03:05:41 pm
I had been using various versions of Windows Media Centre (Everything from XP to Windows 7 RC1) and was reasonably satisfied with them until..... CHILDREN!! I got myself a living wrecking ball which went on a mission to throw all the DVD's across the house and demolish anything in his path so I really needed a way to fix this.

I then went on to finding linux based media centres and tried MythDora, Mythbuntu, standard MythTV on an Ubuntu install and finally eAROS but they either didn't seem to suit or in the case of eAROS just didn't work period.

MythTV was the closest but I only have 1 MCE remote and couldn't put a kb/mouse in the bedroom due to the whole wrecking ball situation.

I continued to google and came across the digg on LinuxMCE, skimmed through the video and decided to give it a whirl

So I grabbed an old Athlon 64 3500+ system I had previously decommissioned as my server and installed LinuxMCE onto it.

Install went well until it came to configuring TV.. I have an Asus U3100 DVB-T USB tuner which 710 doesn't even recognize... After a bit of research I found the firmware file for my tuner and was on my way to television goodness... Now that I had a working core this didn't solve my problem so I installed a diskless MD in my own bedroom to test and was pleasently suprised with how simple it was to get going.

I now have a second MD in the loungeroom attached to the LCD TV and have plans to put one in my sons room (Pending wife approval to run more cables)

I also plan to configure the telephone/camera systems and ultimately some HA equipment (Again pending wife approval) but for now i'm happy with just media

Overall it does some things I find strange (Such as being able to sort videos in any order except the order/structure i've copied them onto the core in) but the pros far outweigh the cons so i'll try to get used to it or jump into the deep end and try and change it.  :)

That's my story ;D