Hi,

Possible I missed something but I cannot find a way to burn ripped DVD from HDD to DVD back. It it possible with current LinuxMCE implementation? Also in what format LinuxMCE rips DVD? Is it possible to burn it using K3b?

Thanks in advance.

There is no 'in-built- way to burn a recorded DVD back to DVD again. However the ripped DVD's the lmce makes are iso's but they have the extension .dvd

So in principle it should be possible to burn them to DVD with K3b...

Andrew

Hallois

I just read this:
"I have 2 network cards, one connected to my cable modem, the other to my home's ethernet switch"
- from the What to expect LinuxMCE wiki.

Does this mean I have to have two network cards in my linucMCE core (hybrid) for all this to work and have it connected between the modem and router?

All our Cores have a single Network Card. It just is not a problem at all. Just have separate LAN & WAN side Ip ranges;

LAN Side at the core on our systems are;

Core lan address: 192.168.80.1
Core WAN address: 192.168.20.99

We use a DSL or Cable modem with a Wireless/Router in front of the Core and have a single rj45 cable from the Core's LAN card to a LAN port on the router (the core is attached to normal LAN port on the router... not the WAN port on the router). The routers WAN port is then connected to the DSL or Cable modem. The router gets its LAN side setup via DHCP (this depends though on your provider) and has its LAN side DHCP switched off (as the core provides DHCP). Therefore the Router is the gateway on the LAN side and we usually configure ours with a fixed address of 192.168.20.1 (in the same range as the Core's LAN side address of 192.168.20.99) and the same Net Mask as the Core. Then in the Cores Network Setup screen (accessible from Web Admin) you set the WAN side up with;

Core WAN address: 192.168.20.99
Core Net Mask 255.255.255.0
Core WAN gateway: 192.168.20.1 (** ie the router is the gateway)
Core WAN side DNS: 192.168.20.1 (** ie the router supplies the DNS)

We have setup many cores this way without any problems at all.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Andrew

I spent some time to configure VDR under Plutohome about year ago. But without luck, unfortunately. What I'd like to suggest is check if vdr works as stand-alone application. The difference between integration MyhTV and VDR in the Plutohome/LinuxMCE is that MythTV is a part of the system. Possible Pluthome/LinuxMCE won't work without it at all. But VDR's integration is very pure and it supposes that VDR is installed and configured before run under Plutohome/LinuxMCE.

Actually, it'd be great to have a choice between MythTV and VDR. Here is a thread on German VDR forum about integration with Plutohome - http://www.vdr-portal.de/board/thread.php?threadid=32551  if somebody is interested in it.

What you get after installing the linuxmce-0704 release in terms of vdr is a hang-over from an much earlier attempt to integrate vdr in Pluto and it is broken. We have vdr 1.4.7 working well under linuxmce-0704 but it is still undergoing testing. So I can't say how long  it will be before it will be available. But the intention is that is will be.

I keep getting the error: ata2.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) after the Kubuntu screen when I'm trying to install. After this error pops up the installation doesn't continue.

Hi,

We've seen this on one of our installs to. What we did was rebooted and used the boot in 'Protected Mode' Grub menu option to boot the machine. You will then see a lot of console messages scroll through on boot up but you should eventually get to either the KDE Desktop or the LMCE manager window and then the boot will be normal from there. Next time you boot you should be able to let the machine boot using the default Kernel in your Grub menu without a problem.

Once booted dont forget that with the DVD iso install you will need to go into Web Admin and configure your external network settings to suit your requirements. Also even after you have chosen to add 'DVD Playback software' in the add software screen of the Setup Wizard you will still need to run the setup script from the console as follows to make DVD playback work;

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

Then do a reload router in the Orbiter.

The bootup problem after initial install has been reported to the LMCE guys by the way. Its an artifact of the way the DVD iso was created.

Hope this helps. If not let me know

Andrew

I keep getting a black screen after the reboot with installing mce. I see the bios and the kubuntu scrolling bar but after the ascending beeps it goes black. I've tried both the dvd and the cds. Both do the same thing. I've tried leaveing it at the same spot over night too. Any ideas whats going on?

UI1 or UI2? What Video card have you got installed? Did the AVwizard run the first time you booted this system after install? If the AVwizard did not run and you get a black screen its very likely that your video cards driver is not loaded and X is not starting up properly.

Ok, well is the gyration remote at all compatable with linux mce? (aside from the follow me bit) It acts just like a mouse right?
Is it listed as a remote on the LMCE admin page?

I assumed that a gyration remote would work ok if the gyration air mouse was so good.

From what I understand the Gyration remote will work ok... but it lacks the 'Follow-me' feature of the Fiire remote.

[NOT]

Both vdr and vlc are not currently integrated properly. Vdr will be integrated properly in a future release of lmce so that it can be used as an alternative to mythtv and it will have tight integration with lmce. Be patient... ;-)

Being patient is very nice and all, but that won't fix my broken system.  At the moment I can't go forward to fix this (no indication of what the actual problem is) nor backwards since switching the options off again doesn't seem to actually do anything.  If these things can't be fixed at the moment then at the very least I would like the system NOT to try to start them (and fail) on every reload.

I agree that both vlc & vdr should really be removed from Web Admin. The current packages for both are broken and will always fail.

I guess my curiosity got the better of me again and I enabeled "VideoLan Client" and "VDR" under webadmin > Wizard > Media Directors > Software modules

Now after every reload of the router, the system tells me that "there are some devices on this Media Director that failed to start", and I find this in the DCERouter's screen session: "Starting Linux Video Disk Recorder: vdr - aborted (to enable the daemon, edit /etc/default/vdr)".

Being the good sport that I am I opened this file and found the following contents:

Code:

# /etc/default/vdr
#
# See also /usr/share/doc/README.Debian
#

# Change to 1 to enable vdr's init-script
ENABLED=0

# Change this to 1 if you want vdr to be able to shutdown the
# computer
ENABLE_SHUTDOWN=0

# Options that will be passed to vdr's commandline
# for example: OPTIONS="-w 15"
OPTIONS="-w 60"

If only I had a clue what would need changing, supposing that indeed that is the problem (the /usr/share/doc/README.Debian does not exist, not that I would expect it to contain anything useful anyway).

The screen session for VDR, doesn't tell me anything either:

Code:

+ /usr/pluto/bin/Spawn_Wrapper.sh ./VDR -d 58 -r 127.0.0.1 -l /var/log/pluto/58_VDR.log
VDR, v.2.0.0.44.0708032200
Visit www.plutohome.com for source code and license information

Now I have tried disabeling VDR and VLC again, but the system keep trying to start them and keeps telling me that devices failed to start.  So any hints on either fixing this or removing them from the system again would be greatly appreciated.

Both vdr and vlc are not currently integrated properly. Vdr will be integrated properly in a future release of lmce so that it can be used as an alternative to mythtv and it will have tight integration with lmce. Be patient... ;-)

Thanks for the information guys.
I was thinking about the Zonbu mostly for music in the "non entertainment sections" of the house, with only a very small screen. Or a webpad remote.
For the other areas I am considering Fiire units.

For music playback I would say that 'on paper' they look to be fine as all the similar Via MB's we've tested have been ok. For good video performance you need to install the openchrome drivers... there are Kubuntu compatible binaries on the Via Arena site or you can build them from sources.

Bluetooth wouldn't work so well for stuff like follow-me.  With these remote when you hit 'follow-me' I know they start with a low-power signal and increase it until it finds the first 'hit', then locks on with it at full power.  Fiire said this was part of the stuff they did custom for their remote to let you carry it around the house.  You can't do that kind of low-level signal control with Bluetooth, so you'ld have no way of reliably pairing to the closest device.

I can confirm that bluetooth is a no-go as far as follw-me is concerned. As long standing Pluto users we have never found a bluetooth dongle with a range limited enough to work properly for follw-me.... it one of those weird situations where manufacturers really are delivering far more range than they say the devices will deliver. And in this situation less range is preferable!!!

Paul (webpaul1) mentioned the WinMCE controller looks identical because it uses the same molds. But the inside is different.
thread

Its only the firmware that is different... and of course the brownish plastics chosen :-(

The MB in that box is too limited to really work. You can get the box without software here http://ewayco.com/ and the prices is cheap, but its not got the video processor or memory to support the needs of media.

Well I can confirm that we have EPIA C3/CLe266 motherboards working fine under lmce here that have exactly the same spec as  the boards on the ewayco site. I agree that UI2 will not be possible on these boards due to the Openchrome drivers not supporting all the modes required... but they play mpeg2 streams fine and DVD's. 720p looks ok too. All under UI1 of course.

Just wondering if the Fiire remote used in the demo video is exactly the same, with same 3 button functionality etc.. as the gyration go remote as pictured here:

http://www.gyration.com/en-US/ProductDetail.html?modelnum=GYR3101US&accshow=3

This remote is more available, and cheaper.

I want to get it, but only if it is the same as the fiire equivalent (plug and play with same ir codes etc..)

As far as I know they are not compatible as the Fiire remotes/usb dongles have special firmware that is non-standard.

If I build an LMCE box, I will have to connect it to my network via a Wireless Nic. My router has a speed of 54MB while wireless (I havent tried it before though)

If I get a 54MB wireless nic, will that be fast enough to watch movies that are stored on my main computer on a windows shared drive?

Well I have not tried that exact configuration but my home lmce box has a Linksys Wifi router/AP and I regulary use my Laptop booted into Windows XP or Kubuntu 7.04 to watch both live TV and recorded TV at standard PAL quality over a 54g wifi connection. This works fin with only the very occasional dropout. However as ever with Wifi your mileage, interms of dropouts etc, may vary dependent on your location.

Good luck.

Andrew

hi there anyone i've watched the last video demo of linux MCE runing on an Kubuntu 7.04 and i was really impressed by the job done here !

i've started downloading the dvd and would really like to give it a try.

my question here will be what would be the minimum pc requirement to run and enjoy Linux MCE ... i've got an old computer sitting away (waiting maybe :-) )

its quite old but here are the specs :

CPU Intel Pentium III 650 MHz
192 MB Ram
6 Gbytes HDD


would it be enough ?

That machine   sounds a little underpowered for Linuxmce. I think you will find that 6gig will be too small... might be wrong though on that. The Ram looks very low too... but might be ok for a headless linuxmce install where the machine was only acting as a server and not a hybrid client (also i assume this machine has no graphics card... or nothing very modern anyway). Good luck!