LinuxMCE Forums

General => Users => Topic started by: geekyhawkes on May 15, 2009, 12:09:31 am

Title: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 15, 2009, 12:09:31 am
I have finally made the jump to getting my MCE hybrid setup!  Below is a list of the hardware i have ordered so far;

     AMD Athlon64 5050e Socket AM2 Dual Core Processor - Retail   
   SilverStone GD02S Silver Media Center Style,No PSU      
        Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro Sock754/939/AM2 Cooler

ASUS M3N78-EM NFORCE 8300 Motherboard
RAM-2GB    800MHZ 2GB 240 PIN DDR2 PC6400    A    
HIPER 425 WATT 18DB SILENT PSU A    A    
KWORLD DVB-T 399U PLUSTV DUAL DV    A    
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.12 500GB    

Im hoping this will be a nice little hybrid once i get it up and running.  I will report back as and when i get it working! (More likely report back asking for help!)

Andy
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: skeptic on May 15, 2009, 04:37:50 am
You've already made the jump so it's too late, but I probably would bump up the HD to 1T or more.  Under $100 (US) for a 1TB drive.  As long as you don't rip a ton of movies, 500G will be just fine. 

BTW, I really like the silverstone cases, but I'm too cheap to buy one so I'll just be jealous of yours.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: Craptastic on May 15, 2009, 05:00:05 am
Welcome.

I have the same motherboard, which really is the critical piece and it has worked really well for me. For ongoing testing and implementing I had to move off our main TV (720p) and use CRT so I added in an EVGA 6200 PCI Gfx card and for $50.00 it works even better.

With an upgraded nvidia driver (of early April, forget the rev) the board would do full UI2 very well. I only saw occasional artifacting of one or two lines during high action scenes. The addition of the EVGA card gets full UI2 with zero issues. Works flawlessly with DVI, VGA or S-Video up to 720p that I have tested.

I have not yet upgraded kernel or migrated to 810 to get the onboard NIC working  but I am still learning and deploying and it does what I need right now.

For a second NIC I would suggest a PCI Express card to save one of only two PCI slots. Forget the model off hand but I have an Intel NIC that works out of the box.

Anyway, I am certain you will be happy. There is so much to explore and learn and try. When you see this working on a tablet PC like a WebDT with audio and video information and cover art added in it is very slick and definitely a conversation piece for any guest.

Craptastic
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: alx9r on May 15, 2009, 08:26:53 am
geekyhawkes,
In case you haven't already come across it already, there is a new guide in the wiki to help with mainboard selection.  You can find it here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/How_to_Select_Mainboards_for_Your_LinuxMCE_System
It might help you when you are selecting a mainboard for your next LinuxMCE box.

Alex
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 15, 2009, 01:43:51 pm
Alex,

i did read the guide in the wiki and found it VERY useful indeed!  Definatly recommend it to others!  As far storage I already have a buffalo NAS that I am intending on using so that will take total storage up to 1TB.  I am planning on running MCE on a 250gb sata drive i have lieing around to keep the system partition seperate.

Craptastic, have you had any luck getting audio over HDMI with the motherboard?  I have found a few posts saying it doesnt work, and I am really keen to get this working until i can sort the cash for a decent amp.

My TV is an LCD made by dell that has a round RS232 post on the back.  Has anyone any idea if i can use this to switch the tv on/off as in the demo video?  The use of RS232 in A/V gear is new to me, is the assumption that all manufactorers use a standard pin/out setup allowing the PC control of the items?

Thanks for the help so far!
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: tschak909 on May 15, 2009, 04:09:51 pm
You would think there was a standardized RS232 protocol to control TVs and amps.

Unfortunately, no.

But don't worry,

If you can find the protocol specifications (either in the back of the manual, or on the website), you can easily make a device template to control your TV :) You can use the Sharp Aquos RS232 template as a basis for it. Then once you have this, you can make a plug and play script to send a test command to the TV and expect a response, you can then use this to detect if the TV is connected, and automatically set it up in the setup wizard.

Once you have this, you can work with us to fold this into future releases.

-Thom
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 16, 2009, 11:47:00 pm
Thanks for the tip.  I do have the rs232 spec document (thank you google!) but am having no luck in finding the sharp template?  The wiki entry appears to be deleted.  Can you steer me to the correct place please?
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 17, 2009, 04:26:09 pm
I just have one other (potentially) stupid question at this stage, do i need 2 NIC if i am planning on using wifi to connect to my router and the onboard nic to run the MCE network?  I cannot see any reason for a second NIC if i access the internet via wifi, but i might have missed something!
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: tschak909 on May 17, 2009, 04:53:32 pm
This is not a supported configuration in 0810, so I am unsure of what will happen. It's not possible in 0710 at all.

-Thom
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on May 17, 2009, 05:16:32 pm
I just have one other (potentially) stupid question at this stage, do i need 2 NIC if i am planning on using wifi to connect to my router and the onboard nic to run the MCE network?  I cannot see any reason for a second NIC if i access the internet via wifi, but i might have missed something!

I run one wireless NIC and on gigabit NIC.   it takes some manual configuration to get it to work though
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: GasVe on May 17, 2009, 06:23:30 pm
Hi:
   I have used this wireless card TL-WN651G for my "internet" connection and the integrated nic of the MB as the MCE network and it works pretty good, the trick is this board uses uses a Atheros chip recognized at the first try, the only issue faced was after a reboot it does not start automatically, but this issue was fixed using acommand line in /etc/rc.local.
  My network arrangement is as follow:

        Switch/Wirelles router <------->  wireless nic | LinucMCE | integrated NIC <------> 

Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: tschak909 on May 17, 2009, 07:12:19 pm
Guys, instead of duct taping your setups,

why don't you work on actually providing us a patch to support configurations like this?

-Thom
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: Techstyle on May 17, 2009, 07:55:25 pm
If you cannot get a patch together at least an explanation in the Wiki so others can use the same steps.  But as Thom said, integration is better than individual tweaks.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 17, 2009, 09:44:32 pm
I totally agree! I would be very pleased if someone could write up a wiki topic on using wifi and an onboard NIC under 810!  At least then several others can benefit from the knowledge, and if hard pressed i am sure we can make a script to run after the mce installer.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: tschak909 on May 17, 2009, 09:50:44 pm
No!

*Thwaps-geekyhawkes-on-the-head*

We need to make the network scripts aware of devices other than eth0/1, so that they can be configured BOTH at post-install, AND after install in the web admin.

Come on guys, stop thinking like duct-tape!

-Thom
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on May 18, 2009, 04:42:34 pm
I honestly don't know where to start at making a patch and haven't had time to research that.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 18, 2009, 09:36:29 pm
I understand duct tape is not the correct long term way forward, but it is capability NOW which is attractive to lots of people I am sure. 

For the guys that have managed this setup like gasve and itspac is there any chance you could write something up here as to how you managed to get the wireless setup? 

Thanks.


As an aside, i am still having issues finding the sharp tv rs232 protocol to modify.  The wiki link appears to be deleted on the sharp tv.

Thanks
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: GasVe on May 19, 2009, 05:57:56 am
Hi:
     I am writing something quick in this post, I hope in the short term write something in wiki. My setup is configured in the way that is for reasons coming from history, the others matter of convenience.

1. I always followed the idea of having a firewall as simple as possible and having LMCE as firewall is quite far from that, it is a really a huge set of diffrent parts of pieces of software development, I prefer and I feel more comfortable having a single piece of hardware, running the Linux kernel, iptables and support software and nothing else.

2. Why wireless, you always mentioned the wife factor I am living in a rented home and I in plans to buy a new house, so I was no in the plan to make drill to in the wall to run cables from from where is mi FW to the living room, first I started with a single cable running just over the floor, but usually my wife tripped with the cable, so then wireless was my only choice.

3. I use for MB a Abit AN-M2HD, someone had complains because it show the integrated NIC as eth1 instead of eth0, so this is not bug to me really it is nice feature that uses a lot because I can use the integrated nic, 1GB, to move data from my laptop from and to the LMCE, so it is used as hybrid, currently I have installed LMCE 7.10 I didn't made any attempt to install 8.10 I need to buy a new disk to play a bit without touching my current configuration. 

4 How I use the wireless, I said previously I am using a TP-LINK  TL-WN651G, because it uses Atheros chip and It can be get in my country, Chip Atheros is recognized as working wireless in Linux since a long time ago, so my election was right I installed the card and it worked at the first try. I have configured using wpa-personal, the next is my  networks file, of course the critical info was changed:

auto lo
   iface lo inet loopback
   
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
   address 192.168.80.1
   netmask 255.255.255.0
auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
   pre-up /sbin/modprobe ath_pci
   wpa-driver wext
   wpa-ssid your-ssid
   wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
   wpa-psk the_passphrase_generated_with wpa_passphrase

Even when ath0 is configured in auto it never started automatically, so here it is the "duct tape" I used the next lines in /etc/rc.local
RANA="/tmp/ranita."$$
touch $RANA
/sbin/ifdown --verbose ath0 >> $RANA 2>&1
/sbin/ifup --verbose ath0 >> $RANA 2>&1
exit 0

The funny story was that it was not working, so when I have tried to debug the messages coming from the output of the commands it worked and it is working for about 3 months, maybe some kind of the delay I am just guessing.

The good thing about LMCE it is being a huge machine even can be touched in the way I did without breaking it.

I hope these lines show which are the reasons for that kind of setup.

Best Regards


GasVe
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: Marie.O on May 19, 2009, 09:57:22 am
I honestly don't know where to start at making a patch and haven't had time to research that.

Most network related scripts can be found with this command:
Code: [Select]
ls /usr/pluto/bin|grep net -i|grep -v Orbiter

On top of that, you have the web admin to take off:
Code: [Select]
ls /var/www/lmce-admin/operations/network

And for the install, we have the new-installer. Finding out, where stuff happens in there:
Code: [Select]
grep ifconfig /root/new-installer/*

I am sure, you people can make it work fairly fast, but splitting tasks:

and in the end, EVERYBODY will have a solution working out of the box, without the need to manually twiddle around. Something that people new to Linux do not like doing.

GO! GET IT DONE!
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on May 25, 2009, 05:12:10 am
hi,

I'm definitely not great at writing scripts, but this worked for me with one wireless card and one ethernet NIC. For now it assumes there is one of each and the wireless is the external interface.  maybe someone can take this and make it more robust or universal.

I do not have a setup with two ethernet NICs to verify it didnt change anything.

I modified mce-install.sh for the install scripts like this....

Code: [Select]
if [ ! -e /tmp/mce_wizard_data.sh ]
then
#       cp ./mce_wizard_data.sh /tmp
        if ip link|grep -E -i "eth|ra|wlan|ath"|grep -v -c ether > 1
        then
                if ip link|grep -E -i "ra|wlan|ath"|grep -v -c ether >0
                then
                        wiface=`ip link|grep -E -i 'ra|wlan|ath'|grep -v ether|cut -d ':' -f 2| tr -d [:space:]`
                        lface=`ip link|grep eth|grep -v ether|cut -d ':' -f 2| tr -d [:space:]`
                        sed "/c_netExtName='eth0'/c c_netExtName='$wiface'" mce_wizard_data-double_nic.sh| sed "/c_netIntName='eth1'/c c_netIntName='$lface'" >/tmp/mce_wizard_data.sh
                else
                        cp ./mce_wizard_data-double_nic.sh /tmp/mce_wizard_data.sh
                fi
        else
                cp ./mce_wizard_data-single_nic.sh /tmp/mce_wizard_data.sh
        fi
fi

like i said..  i'm not good at this but giving it a shot.

after using that during install its work in my 810 alpha2 system, but the web-admin says there is only one card even though it shows the wireless card and ethernet card.. I'll play with that next
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: Marie.O on May 25, 2009, 02:10:03 pm
itspac,

thank you for that script. Would you mind opening a trac ticket, and attaching it?

I am really looking forward to your changes for the web admin.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on May 25, 2009, 02:40:46 pm
Great work thanks for this!  Hopefully it will make it into the release of 810!
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on May 25, 2009, 03:16:31 pm
itspac,

thank you for that script. Would you mind opening a trac ticket, and attaching it?

I am really looking forward to your changes for the web admin.

i made a trac and attached.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on May 30, 2009, 03:09:02 pm

I am really looking forward to your changes for the web admin.


I will make a trac for this too, but for now.  The changes to networksettings.php will help you switch between the two cards.   I think I will try to make a version that lists each card and allow the user to choose which is the internal and which is external in case there is more than two cards installed.

Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 04, 2009, 12:44:49 pm
Im really looking forward to your next output itspac!  I am really after a wireless MCE solution as much as possible, and cannot help but think i wouldnt manage it without your help!
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: dlewis on June 04, 2009, 02:16:57 pm

I am really looking forward to your changes for the web admin.
I will make a trac for this too, but for now.  The changes to networksettings.php will help you switch between the two cards.   I think I will try to make a version that lists each card and allow the user to choose which is the internal and which is external in case there is more than two cards installed.

Let's get this in Trac so that it can be incorporated in 0810...
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on June 04, 2009, 02:48:51 pm

I am really looking forward to your changes for the web admin.
I will make a trac for this too, but for now.  The changes to networksettings.php will help you switch between the two cards.   I think I will try to make a version that lists each card and allow the user to choose which is the internal and which is external in case there is more than two cards installed.

Let's get this in Trac so that it can be incorporated in 0810...

The file I attached has a trac for it.

I wont be making any additional changes until after July.  Busy with work travel  and moving... 
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 07, 2009, 08:35:38 pm
itspac, i installed today using your update to the mce-install.sh and have had some success.  The install has gone fine but the light on my usb wifi card is not on and the mce machine doesnt seem to be going out onto the internet.  IP address wise my router is set up as dhcp but i wouldnt have thought that would matter for the external link?  The wifi connection was setup and working in kde before beginning the install if that matters.

Can you give me a pointer as to how i might get this working from here?

Strangly (to me at least) mce seems to have messed up my connections in kde.  I am no longer able to connect via wireless (when i drop to kde from within MCE) and my wired connection doesnt seem to connect to my router for the internet now either?
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on June 07, 2009, 10:36:07 pm
Yeah mce doesn't seem to use network manager. I found I have to have my wireless connection without network manager first
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 07, 2009, 10:42:26 pm
Sorry, can you give me some more details on setting up your wireless connection without network manager?  It was all working before the mce install but has dropped off since.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on June 07, 2009, 10:46:51 pm
Ill be working on security stuff when I get a chance.

Does mce have the correct card listed in the web admin?

What type of security/encryption do you use?
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 08, 2009, 10:34:55 am
I use WPA on my network at the moment.   I am just about to add your network.php and will report back if mce finds the card correctly (just fixed the firefox install to get to the web admin and got my second HDD up and running.) 

As far as IP mce recognising the card, if i go to advanced-network settings then the following is displayed;

external=169.254.6.239 dhcp(wlan0)

However this is out of the ip range of my router (which is dhcp) and also the light isnt on on the dongle suggesting something isnt quite right.

Thanks for your help, if i can get wifi working that will please the wife and make the MCE more popular than wires everywhere!
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 08, 2009, 10:40:24 am
Stuipid question, where do i need to put your networksettings.php?  I cannot find the mce-admin website folder
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: Marie.O on June 08, 2009, 11:20:41 am
Stuipid question, where do i need to put your networksettings.php?  I cannot find the mce-admin website folder

do a
Code: [Select]
find / -name networkSettings.php and you shall find it.
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 08, 2009, 01:24:03 pm
Looking at it, all seems fine within network settings, but where do i need to specify the ESSID etc of the network so MCE knwos which network to connect to wirelessly? 
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on June 10, 2009, 04:29:44 am
a few thing about setting up wpa without network manager
http://linux.die.net/man/8/wpa_supplicant (http://linux.die.net/man/8/wpa_supplicant)
http://linux.die.net/man/5/wpa_supplicant.conf (http://linux.die.net/man/5/wpa_supplicant.conf)


sorry i dont have alot of time to work with this right now.. but if you can write conf file and get yours to work it's a start
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 10, 2009, 06:27:12 pm
Thanks.  I will give this a go and report back how i get on. 
Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: geekyhawkes on June 10, 2009, 07:12:53 pm
ABSOLUTE LEGEND! Works exactly as you would hope and easy as.  Just follow the guide links you posted and all works fine with WPA network!  Fantastic work, thank you so much!

Im just playing witha  bash script to auto run at startup, im thinking the best place is #/.kde/Autostart/wifi

Edit:  /.kde/Autostart/wifi doesnt seem to work as it only appears to be run when you drop to the KDE desktop and not during normal MCE startup. 

Edit: rc.local doesnt seem to like running the background process and strangely my USB wifi dongle is only detected if i unplug and the replug it after the boot up process has occured.  Definatly no major issue, i am happy to unplug / replug and then run the code myself from the kde desktop albeit not the most elegant solution!  (It is definatly 100%better than trailing cables around the house!)

Seems sensible and should give chance for most services to be up and running before the wifi kicks in

(Just got to get my DVB-T and HDMI audio working now lol!)

Title: Re: I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..
Post by: itspac on June 11, 2009, 12:35:30 am
Good you have had some success. You should be able to make a network script and have it run when it enables the wireless interface