Messages

4366

Users / Re: Changing or adding pics in place of flickr pics

« on: October 12, 2007, 07:45:53 am »

That's why I hacked the perl script - as that way the images are still resized.

Chris

Yes I looked at your changes. Nice work.

I am writing a new script that uses inotifywait to watch the directory for files that are moved into it or are deleted. In fact its the same call that the UpdateMedia binary uses to watch for media files that are added to the lmce directory structure.

4367

Compatible Products & Services / Re: Z-Wave have a new PC Interface ZCS201

« on: October 11, 2007, 04:49:14 pm »

Well, that sucks. I've gotten pretty familiar with the zwave implementation while creating the insteon interface, so if it's something simple (like a Zwave protocol version check) then I think I could fix it.  If it involves something like a large protocol change, I think we'll need a dev kit from Zensys (and they're fairly pricey)

Its just the drivers are not compatible... lmce looks for certain device/manufacturer codes when it auto-detects the Zwave interface... if the interface does not have a valid code then it is ignored.

4368

Installation issues / Re: Help with DVD install...

« on: October 11, 2007, 04:45:13 pm »

I have tried this numerous times and have read probably 200 different topics in here and another 100 out on the web trying to help solve my problem.  I followed all of the screen shots that are on the DVD Quick install tutorial on the site.  They work great until it says to take out the disc and reboot the machine.  I do that and after it reboots it goes through post and then just sits there on a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left hand cornor.   I have tried the recovery tool that is on the DVD with no luck.  There is no Grub as I would expect and I can't find the xorg.conf file to check and see if that is a problem.  Is there anyone out there that has had a similar problem that can help?  I hope I have explained it well enough.  If I haven't please as questions as I am more then happy to answer.

Thanks in advance for you time, knowledge and patience.

Hi,

When your Core boots you should see a screen that offers you the option of going to the Grub bppt options screen. Take that option and edit the Grub line that boots your Core so it includes the NOAPIC option. This should fix your problem... at least it did for us when we hit a similar problem. You can also see a thread here about adding NOAPIC;

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2502.0

Hope this helps.

Andrew

4369

Installation issues / Re: Linux MCE kills my adsl connection

« on: October 10, 2007, 04:00:36 pm »

I don't want to turn the DHCP in the Linksys off, because the LinuxMCE will just be a media player thats on for some hours every day, but I need the DHCP server to be on day and night. So, how do I turn off the DHCP server of the LinuxMCE? I can't remebert that the setup asked me about that, it's not very nice to enable a DHCP server without asking...

You can turn the Core's DHCP of in Web Admin... but you will loose the PnP Engine if you do;

Open a Web browser at the Core/Hybrid and go to 192.168.80.1 in the Address Bar

Login to Web Admin using whatever login you created at setup (ie the first user you created) and then go to ;

Advanced -> Networks -> Network Settings and un-tick 'Enable DHCP Server' then click 'Update' at the bottom of the screen and you done.

4370

Installation issues / Re: Linux MCE kills my adsl connection

« on: October 10, 2007, 02:07:52 pm »

Can you explain in detail how your Core/Linksys/network are laid out? what connected to what etc etc would help figure this out I think.

I already mentioned that in the first posting. I do have a Linksys WRTG54G, the WAN Port of that router is connected to the rest of my network. The DSL modem is not directly connected to the Linksys WAN Port, ist just connected to my switched network and gets to the WAN port via some switches. So it is definitely possible for the LinuxMCE to have ethernet access to the DSL modem and the WAN port of the Linksys router. I never had any problems with that configuration before, there is a DHCP server running on the Linksys router, it never interfered anyhow. I don't want to LinuxMCE to act as a DHCP server in the network. I thought LinuxMCE might be so clever not to turn on any dhcp server as it got its own ip from another dhcp server at startup.

Well thats would seem to be the heart of your problem. LMCE is fighting the DHCP in your Linksys. Turn the Linksys's DHCP off and you should find that your setup works fine.

By the way I have the same Linksys as you in my Home LMCE system. My Linksys's WAN port is connected to my Cable Modems LAN port and gets its WAN side setup using the my providers DHCP. My Linksys has its DHCP set to off and I use a single NIC in my Core. The Linksys has a fixed LAN side address IP of 192.168.20.1 and my Core has a fixed LAN side address in the same IP circle at 192.168.20.99 and my core has the Linksys set as its gateway/DNS (ie 192.168.20.1). My core then issues LAN side addresses in the 192.168.80.1 range from the same NIC. All devices on my LAN therfore get 192.168.80.1 addresses if they are themselves set to DHCP.

Hope the above helps you.

All the best.

Andrew

4371

Installation issues / Re: Koolu Media Director??

« on: October 10, 2007, 11:14:37 am »

I think you're right Andrew - this is the reply I just got back from Koolu:

The Koolu unit is able to output up to 1920x1440 as an analog VGA signal. For video and performance purposes, we recommend the video be 720x480 and in MPEG-4 format.

With respect to supporting the menus, it should support them with alpha blending provided two things:
1. The colour mode used is 32-bit
2. The menus do not require any 3-D acceleration (the AMD Geode only has 2-D acceleration)

As such, the menu will work, but performance may not be as quick (ie: changing menus) as on a regular desktop.

I spoke with one of the Pluto devs about the Geode and they confirmed that it would almost certainly work ok as its X86 based. But the processor is just too underpowered and graphics don't have enough acceleration to balance that. So I dont think it will prove to be a good platform for MD's at the moment.

4372

Installation issues / Re: Linux MCE kills my adsl connection

« on: October 10, 2007, 11:03:33 am »

I don't think that it's a problem with flicker. I can download gigabytes, having bittorrent running, etc. This never caused any disconnect. LinuxMCE is not just causing diconnects, it completely prevents my dsl router from establishing any connection. When I tell the Linksys router to bring up the connection, it takes some minutes, then it tells me that it could not get an ip address from the pppoe peer. I think that the LinuxMCE tries to use the dsl modem for whatever and interferes with the communication between the router and the modem. I'll do some changes in my network and connect the dsl modem directly to the routers wan port, so that the LinuxMCE has no access to it. I think this will solve to problem, but I'm still curious what the LinuxMCE tries to do.

It sounds to me like it might be that your Core's somehow offering DHCP addresses to the WAN side your Linksys... and if your Linksys is set up to get its WAN side connection from your ADSL providers DHCP server then that would certainly cause a problem like you have described.

Can you explain in detail how your Core/Linksys/network are laid out? what connected to what etc etc would help figure this out I think.

Regards

Andrew

4373

Users / Re: Changing or adding pics in place of flickr pics

« on: October 10, 2007, 10:50:58 am »

To all those having problems with white images etc....

I have also had this problem on one of my MDs. The same pictures show correctly on all the other MDs.
This MD is a laptop using ATI drivers and UI2 with overlay (rather than alpha blend).
My other two MDs that are currently running are both using Nvidia drivers and are running UI2 with Alpha Blending.
So I assume that it is somehow related to either the driver OR the Alpha Blending (or both I guess). The other difference is that the other two are hooked up to TV resolutions (TV[PAL] and Projector[720p]) whereas the laptop is using its screen in a PC resolution[1024x768 from memory].

The laptop does have some of the pictures showing up however - this made me play around a bit and I resized one of the pictures to a smaller resolution and it then showed up. So it looks like it is a problem showing pictures of a certain resolution and greater.
I have not experimented enough to prove this 100% or to find the resolutions that cause the problem, but a workaround might be to create a copy of the picture you want to use and resize it for the screen saver. Bit of a pain I know.

The flickr.pl script does resize images if they are above a certain size - so it might be a known limitation (by the Pluto Developers) either that or they are just saving space.

wrt. deleting the flickr images - thhis should not be a problem as the code checks for file existence before adding it to the list of images to display.

HTH
Darren

Yes its definitely the size of the image thats causing the problem. It just so happened that many of my test images were within the size limits for the ScreenSaver. I resized a number of much bigger images that were not displaying even though they had the correct attributes in the DB... and magically after a resize they appeared!

You can do the resize using the command line tool 'convert'. The following line will resize the image at /home/public/data/pictures/IMG_1023.JPG to 1024x683 and then write it back to /home/public/data/pictures/IMG_1023.JPG again;

sudo convert -sample 1024x683 /home/public/data/pictures/IMG_1023.JPG /home/public/data/pictures/IMG_1023.JPG

Andrew

PS One of the devs at Pluto just told me that the size limits for the ScreenSaver binary are based on the following formula;

image_width * image_height < 3,240,000

4374

Installation issues / Re: Koolu Media Director??

« on: October 09, 2007, 03:26:17 pm »

Has anyone tried this?  Curious if the video card is supported in LinuxMCE.  The price is attractive.
http://www.koolu.com/

Hi there,

Coincidently we are looking at another Geode based machine and the big problem is that the processor (500Mhz) is really too slow for reasonable performance when playing video (and also possibly sluggish performance even in the Orbiter) and the graphics capability looks to be only VESA. So really these machines might just about be ok when running the Orbiter... but thats about it.

Fore decent video performance in a fanless/low energy design you currently really need to look at the Via C7/CN700/CX700 with the processor clocked at 1Ghz or above (the C7/CN700 combo typically gives power footprint of about 12-14W under video playback load). An alternative is the C3/CLE266 based Via boards they are less expensive and less powerful though.

Andrew

4375

Users / PXE booting under VMware on the MacBook Pro

« on: October 08, 2007, 10:11:27 pm »

Hi all,

Just wanted to report that we successfully added a new MacBook Pro running VMware as a PXE booted MD today. It installed perfectly first time and runs like a dream... DVD playback from local, ripped and remote DVD's was excellent. Also the AVwizard would configure the MacBook into any of the currently selectable video resolutions without a hickup (that a challenge on a real PC let alone an emulated one ;-))

More over the next few days!

Andrew

4376

Users / Re: kernel change -> dont boot.

« on: October 08, 2007, 10:02:04 pm »

i was changed the 2.6.15-generic kernel to 2.6.16-low-latency version, with dselect. but when i rebooted, the system cant stand up. the loading process is start alwasy, but few seconds later freese and other some seconds later i got a promt named "initramfs" (it looks busybox). if i try boot with the old kernel i got some situation.

how can be repared? i tryed the dvd recovery option but cant help.

Looks like a re-install... lmce-0704 requires the 2.6.15-generic kernel

4377

Users / Re: Changing or adding pics in place of flickr pics

« on: October 08, 2007, 10:00:25 pm »

Hmmmm... followed the instructions on the wiki page and added the file association etc to a few sample JPG images (all .JPG) in the flickr/2007/ folder via the web admin. Did a reload, and I now get a blank black screen that fades to white, pauses, and then back to black again. Its almost like it can't load the images at all? Am I doing something wrong? I've disabled the flickr.pl script and deleted all the sub folders and their images from the 2007 folder...

Well Darren's Wiki page worked for me... I renamed /usr/pluto/bin/flickr.pl to /usr/pluto/bin/flickr.pl.backup then I deleted the /home/flickr/2007 directory. I then added the new attribute to about 20 images I copied into the /home/public/data/pictures directory and did a reload... when the screensaver kicked next time my pics appeared :-)

4378

Installation issues / Re: [Solved]LinuxMCE load fails (Dcerouter login:)

« on: October 08, 2007, 12:54:12 am »

Andrew,
Guess I wasn't clear enought, but that's exactly what I did from the start. 

My BIOS is set for "PCI" as the primary video device, but LinuxMCE is using the PCI card, but detecting my on-board card, and setting xorg.conf to use the on-board's drivers on the PCI card.  I plugged in my VGA cable into the on-board, and sure enough, it's not even functioning.

The option in my BIOS is "Primary Video Device".  I have 2 choices, "On-board Graphics", or "PCI".  I can't "disable" the on-board, only choose one or the other (and I'm assuming it is in fact disabled since when I plugged in the vga cable & there's no output) .  LMCE is detecting my on-board video card, but the BIOS outputs only the the PCI card like it's set to. 
Is there a way of manually inserting the correct driver settings in xorg.conf before the avwizard starts (during the dcerouter login/xserver crash loop)?  I'm trying to use a Nvidia GeForce 6200 oc PCI card.  Why isn't the initial installer following the BIOS' "lead" and detecting the "primary video device" it's telling it that it's using? 
Also, I've been using the VGA output the whole time.

Hi Again,

Ok I think the problem stems from the fact that the DVD iso was built on a machine that has an nVidia graphics chipset embedded on the motherboard. Because thr DVD iso is essentailly a snapshot of the machine it was built on the first time the installation boots on your hardware it does not do all the hardware detection that it would do if it was installed directly on your machine. In essence the installation still thinks its running on the machine it was built on and gets confused by the fact that your machine has a PCI 6200 but also has onboard Intel too... so you end up getting a little of each so to speak.

Having said that we have installed from the DVD iso on machines that have a similar configuration to yours without any problems at all... so this may well be down to some small additional similarity your motherboard has to the one that was used when building the DVD iso.

I am sure that if you did a full install from the Kubuntu 7.04 CD and then the lmce-0704 dual CD install this confusion would not happen.

Anyway I'm glad you got your system working :-)

Andrew

4379

Installation issues / Re: [Solved]LinuxMCE load fails (Dcerouter login:)

« on: October 07, 2007, 07:42:38 pm »

I am having the same problem as well.  I used the quick-install DVD.  At first boot, I get the dcerouter login screen that flashes from a blank screen to the login.

Here's an important question for everybody:  Does this MB that everyone is talking about have an on-board video card?
This is my problem!  During the initial install, it's detecting my on-board P.O.S. Intel vid card, then assigning the driver for it to my new Nvidia Geforce 6200 OC PCI card!  I looked in my xorg.conf and found that it's trying to use the "i810" driver on my nvidia card.  This ofcourse causes X to repeatedly crash (the flashing dcerouter login prompt). 

My BIOS is set for "PCI" as the primary video device, but LinuxMCE is using the PCI card, but detecting my on-board card, and setting xorg.conf to use the on-board's drivers on the PCI card.  I plugged in my VGA cable into the on-board, and sure enough, it's not even functioning.  So why the hell is it doing this???

I've used the trick of replacing xorg.conf w/ xorg.conf.pluto.avwizard.  This will load the wizard, but after trying to select a resolution, it tries to change the resolution immediately, and just reverts back to the crashing X/dcerouter login. 
After I pick a resolution, and the flashing login reappears, I went into xorg.conf & changed the driver from "i810" to "nv", this allows me to finish the avwizard, but the resolution is never correct (I suspect because I'm not changing the video card settings to the completely, only the driver it's using).  I tried to change the driver entry to "nv" BEFORE starting the av wizard, but it doesn't work.

So the big question is, why is LinuxMCE assigning my PCI video card the deactivated on-board video card's drivers during the initial install setup?  And what can I do to xorg.conf to get everything working correctly before i even start the avwizard?

Thanks for your help! 

Try disabling the on board Intel graphics in your bios and enabling the nVidia... then on boot up hold the 'Shift' key down to force the AVwizard to run again and allow you to set the correct settings for you newly enabled Video card.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

4380

Users / Re: login

« on: October 07, 2007, 07:38:03 pm »

Nice to hear, could you please share your answer with the rest of the forum? Then someone who has the same problem later will find your solution.

If you use the DVD iso installer then the login is set to;

user = linuxmce
pass = linuxmce

For Web Admin the login/password will be the username of the first user you created when the Setup Wizard ran (ie login & password are set to th same string)

Hope this helps.

Andrew