Messages

1

Users / Re: Home automation bus ( X10, PLCBUS, EIB )

« on: July 07, 2008, 11:20:37 am »

you forgot Z-Wave. Much faster than PLCBUS, plenty of device manufacturers.

I did not forget. I have browsed may be tens of web shops selling Z-Wave .
It looks a much more American market oriented product.
Some shops selling it in Europe for European standards have even
more limited selection than PLCBUS.

Some european i found http://www.mypowershop.eu and http://www.elekhomica.nl

The http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Where_to_Buy mentions also http://www.chtukltd.co.uk/
but at the moment there is no products in their website at all.

If someone knows European shop with good selection or
even one wallswitch even nearly as stylich as PLCBUS Crystall switch or Berker B.IQ , please tell.
In wall units it is problem that also mechanical installation dimensions differ between USA and Europe.

Kate

2

Users / Home automation bus ( X10, PLCBUS, EIB )

« on: July 06, 2008, 11:45:45 pm »

I have been thinking what home automation bus to chose. It looks a like there is
three choices in Europe, X10, EIB and PLCBUS

X10 is very common, easy to get and really cheap solution. Based just on specifications
it look a like to be slow, so latency from switch to lamp etc could be easily long,
limited address space, only 16 devices within house code so multiple house codes
need to be used and then computer route between them ? I have not find any even
good looking wall switch units sold in Europe, only boring looking stuff.

PLCBUS looks a like being solution fixing many of the problems, it is little bit
faster, more device address space and Crystal Switch units looks great
and price is not bad at all.
The problem is that it looks a like being really rare, i have found only one
selling it in European Union, http://www.elekhomica.nl and one web shop in HonKong,
that's all. And at the moment just one source and PC-adapter is out of the stock.

EIB needs separate control cables, it is fast, it has lot of suppliers and least
Berker has lot of really goods looking wall switch units. There is
really large variation of related stuff, as example http://www.knx-online-shop.de .
I think that largest problem is price, it is really expensive. When Cystal switch costs 60 Euro,
EIB ones costs least two times as much. Same thing in all other related devices.
Some estimate is that system price will be more 4 times PLCBUS .

EIB starts to be so expensive that it becames cheaper to fix N800 or old Nokia 770 to every room wall
and use just some Maxim Single wire or I2C controlled relays to controll lights and do many
other nice things.

I nearly ordered PLCBUS but just the one missing key component stopped me. What will be future
if everything is depending one supplier and couple of retailers in all world ?

EIB and X10 looks a like safe, but i am thinking limitations of X10 . Price of EIB
puts me thinking th N800 solution and there i am again, beginning of the decicion making lopp
again and again.

The plan is to have final system with some Crystal switch like units in most of rooms and then
few fixed N800 in some selected rooms like Living room and Home theater and then the mobile
N810 devices.

Kate

3

Installation issues / Re: Apt install ?

« on: June 30, 2008, 02:06:57 pm »

Should it start the setup wizard at all when i use CD install to existing system but just
give web admin for doing setup ?

It looks a like the root cause to get my setup meshed up is
the installation wizard ?

In the laptop i am using, there is so old ATI controller that it does
not support OpenGL but Webamin has OpenGL permanently checked for Orbiter and
grayed out so that i can't disable it.

Kate

4

Installation issues / Re: Apt install ?

« on: June 25, 2008, 04:41:23 pm »

I took previous thing as a serious warning and instead trying to install any my home servers, i just
took one laptop running a gutsy and run the CD install there. I just have some comments
as user feedback. I like the LinuxMCE concept but i just like to point some usability issues that i find .

Some of the things mentioned may be me fault. I think that i was giving answer to keep original network
config but and may be it was my fault to chose OpenGl with Aplha fot ATI based paltop.

• When we are installing to existing ubuntu installation, we really should by default assume that the systems settings for network, display and existing SW packages are right and not change them
• It SHULD NOT change display settings like rresolution. If the system is already configured, the display resolution is already right. For me the installation wisard started offer some choice of fansy reselutions without choice to keep old or no applicaple resolution in choices list. There was no 1400x1050 that is default LCD resolution in most laptops, there was no 1280x720 that is one of most common for home theatre wvideo projector resolutions, there was no 2560x1600 that is 30" monitors standard resolution. At result, there is no resolution for laptop screen. no home theatre or my living room computer. It looks a like LinuxMCE setup got xorg.conf meshed up so that it wes not even possible to fix with GUI admin tools but
  needed hand crafting or removing the file and then reconfiguring it by Gnome gui tool
• If the computer is in network, it has allready exactly right network settings including IP and firewall. Just handcrafring /etc/network/interfaces were needed to return original IP
  configuration. I still have iptables setup made bu LinuxMCE and i have not yet find where it does it and how to disable it 
• It looks alike the LinuxMCE wipe out completely my Gnome installation, i had both KDE and Gnome, If it decides to remove packages, i hope that it least asks before
• After booting up it started the setup wisard ,Setup wizard is nice but and it it is nice that it helps a lot. May be some problems were because i choose OpenGL with Alpha and may be it did not render everything correctly . but i don't know how to chage it simpler alternative ( OpenGl without alpha or even the static image version .
  
  
• Some times there just is no right answer like in resolution. In rooms setup i really did not find any way right way to change of number of the rooms. It did not take the number keys but clicking with mouse to some empty screen area right side of room list incremented some values. For somehow i got to next screen and the system was believing that i have only three bathrooms and started to ask in what room i have this server and there was no way to go back rooms menu, it always said that i need to chose room..... As my opinion, there should always be cancel/exit if there is for some reason yet right answer.

With web admin interface i was able to correct most things that setup wizard get meshed up. I got the screen size right. I have still
some rendering problems.  May be because Fw setup is still meshed up i cant access my media files forom my UPnP ( or NFS ) server  and for same
reason i have not yet got it working with N810/maemo orbiter client.

I will continue working with it and i try to get it at first playing my media library, then get N810 orbiter on board and then go to setting
up home automation.

Kate


[some missleading instructions removed]

5

Installation issues / Re: Apt install ?

« on: June 23, 2008, 10:25:27 pm »

Kate,

What you are trying to do is actually a goal of ours, however we are still far from reaching that goal..

The CD install does exactly that, and goes through systematically and solves dependancy hell.
That is why the CD install takes 3 times longer than the DVD install..
the DVD install, while erasing your entire drive, extracts  a 'base' configuration directly to the drive with all the configuration done prior to the copy.

It would be much easier to do debian install using repositories and instead loading CD images. The
CD-images anyway are just debian repository caches. It would be much faster and easier to end user lust load MCE installer
that sets up MCE network repository and then downloads .deb files as needed as does standard debian installer tools.

Kate

6

Installation issues / Apt install ?

« on: June 03, 2008, 07:55:21 pm »

Is it possible to install LinuxMCE with standard apt-get ?
I tried to use google as "linuxmce apt install" but i did not find anything interesting.
Or should i just start building it from source ?

I just like to find as comfortable way as possible to install it to existing hardy
server and i don't like mesh up or overwrite all my config files.

I think that controlling my home automation can be done with
existing server and there is no good reason to have yet an other server
just for that. Just one server makes nearly 2000KWh/year .

As UI i will use N810

Kate