If you don't mind investing in a new motherboard (everything built in -- video/audio etc) then it might be worth trying a proven motherboard. It does work, at least as much as shown in the video!

I do, greatly appreciate your input.  However, in regards to this, I ask you:  What if the whole system works, as a standalone MC?  At least, other than the buggy Nvidia driver (Yup, 100.14.19) and crap tv-capture card, and even they mostly work...  I don't see this having anything to do with my mbd, because all worx as it should.  Simply, at this point, the PXE of MD's fails just after the announce step, and attempting to run Diskless_Setup.sh...  I and my fellow geek have even edited the script on the server, to echo that it IS running, but we've never seen the message...  Something IN THE SOFTWARE IS BROKEN, whether by a bad load, bad update, bad default config's (or my own normal config edits broke something), or whatever else, I cannot say.  I'm investigating file permissions, hunting for a way to verify that everything that is SUPPOSED to be installed IS, and trying to verify installed file integrity if there's any way to do so.  Again, the cd iso's md5 sums match, and I installed by directing the installer to those iso's, rather than burning cd's.  I've reinstalled this thing from scratch 7 times in the last 2 weeks, and I'm NOT going to do it again, until I absolutely must.  It is working better now than it ever had in the previous attempts.  Again, though, my hardware is fine.

As well, I DID add a second NIC, and reconfigured the system to use both correctly.  So far, all's the same as it was with just the one...

By the way, if it matters, creating a MD via the admin page, and setting up diskless image, still leaves the /usr/pluto/diskless directory EMPTY, just as attempting autodetection does.  So now, I MUST assume that either the documentation that told me the images would be stored there is inaccurate, or that my own installation is broken, and is not creating them?  And again, how might this be the fault of my mbd?  I've tried running scripts in the /usr/pluto/* sub-dir's that sounded like they might help (Verify_Installation.sh, Verify_Dependencies.sh, Create_DefaultDisklessImage.sh, etc., but don't quote me on the names), to no avail...  What else might I do, without spending any money?  No further $$-investment will be permitted by the wife, until I can show her a working system, so that idea's out...

Oh, please, help me, LMCE-Gods???

I am sorry you've had such difficulties, but there really are people who are using this system (and its ancestor, PlutoHome) on a day to day basis, in homes with multiple media directors and storage hanging all over the place, with home control etc.. it does work, honest.

I know, and for this very reason, it's killing me that I cannot make it work here...

* Video Card... this is currently very touchy, because the NVIDIA drivers that ship with the current Kubuntu are old, the NVIDIA 6150 and 6200 cards work best with UI2-AlphaBlending and the 5xxx cards work great with UI2-Masking. Other cards will work in either UI1, or UI2-Masking, you might have to fiddle a bit.... I hope the developers find a solution to allow download/install of the vendor drivers, this would solve so many problems... or at least try to track the latest NVIDIA drivers into deb packages...

Again, I do understand.  My Geforce 7300 GT was a  PITA to install, tried and failed a dozen times before it suddenly just worked, glxgears reporting steady 3850-4200 fps on the svideo all day long...  On my Go 6150, it never even shows me the video wizard, for to set up the UI selection, and the drivers are the newest already (on the install).  On the PXE-boot, I don't get past Diskless_Setup.sh, EVER.

* SATA... very strange indeed.. some SATA chips are not supported well with the DVD image, and the CD image seems to have better luck here...

The dv6423om and l2105ca have onboard SATA, but this should have no bearing on the PXE-boot, should it?  My wife's off-brand notebook and the server both have standard EIDE, so I'm confident that this issue should have no bearing on me, at this point.  Even my NAT (just an old tower with a bunch of HDD's), which at this point has remained unused, is all EIDE...

* Network... Make sure you have TWO network cards... one for internal, one for external.. if you have to, DOUBLE NAT.. but run the DHCP and network services.. otherwise you will be fighting tooth and nail for nothing, really.

OK, here is where I've received conflicting information...  So far, I've only had one NIC installed.  Thought this might be the problem, and read up on it.  The most common answer seems to be simply that it will work, as long as I DO NOT have DHCP served from another device, and I do not.  All addresses issued are in the 192.168.80.* net, as should be...  I'll have to give it a try with a second NIC, and see what happens.

I hope you'll try again soon, it really is an amazing system. I've been running mine for a while now, and I can't live without it.

Well sir, although my wife would like me to, I've not given up just yet.  I want to be able to install systems such as this for others, for profit, and this will please her, in the long run (I hope).  As well, when it's making me money, I'll be passing a portion back to the developers, to encourage and support the continued improvement of the system!!  My system, once working, will simply be the first of many, I'm sure!!

Thank you, Thom, for your reply.  I'm still kicking it around, don't worry.  I just can't give up...  Can't let it beat me...

OK, so I couldn't help myself...  Brought over another geek, who's vastly interested in what this is supposed to be able to do, and we went thru the diskless / PXE boot process, him on my server, I on my notebook (the dv6423om, if it matters).  He waited for any word that interaction was needed, as it states in the Wiki that it should be, I waited to see the familiar Diskless Setup failed.  He DID receive an announcement that the connection had been detected, and that the notebook was being added, but that went away quickly, no interaction requested, and I got EXACTLY what I expected...  Did I download bad CD-images?  The MD5 sums are good...  I just can't let this go, as this seems like it might be EXACTLY what I want (although I thought I'd need multiple servers with multiple OS's to do it all...), and I'm not one to give up easily, for which, I'm sure, my Wife will make DARN SURE I end up DEAD, one day (unless I can actually get it WORKING, in which case she'll love me to the ends of the Earth!!!).

PLEASE, if ANYBODY's got ANY thoughts on this, I'd GREATLY appreciate it.  I REALLY love it when my wife loves me...  And, I'd really hate to end up dead at her hand...

p.s.:  She wouldn't actually kill me, but she's pretty good at making me WISH I were dead, when she wants to be...  PLEASE HELP...

Mine is exactly the same, when it happens.  At this point, I've still not run into the problem of shrinking windows and the like, but nearly everything else you could imagine.

I have, at this point, been forced to give up on this effort for now.  My wife is on me about all the time I've spent on this.  Anyway, here's my post, describing some of the other issues I've had, that make it less than workable for me, at this point:

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2764.0

I wish you all the luck in the world, sir...  Hopefully your attempts will be more fruitful than mine, and I'll see the stories of your success!!!

I love the idea of this project, and look forward to seeing it actually capable of doing it.  However, after nearly 2 weeks of hassles trying to get it to work as advertised, I've not yet gotten close.

My experiences are as follow:

Hybrid = 1.3G Duron / 768MB DDR / 4 internal HDD's, totalling over 100Gigs (400 more on NAS) / AGP Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT with 512MB DDR2 / 1 Pinnacle tv-capture card, more would have been added when it worked...

I struggled for the first several days with the DVD-install, which in the end, was just plain useless to me.  It would not allow for ANY installation of proprietary drivers for my video-card, and there were HUGE stability issues.

I did get the video drivers (Nvidia 100.14.19) installed after the fourth attempt by use of the CD's on a clean Kubuntu load, and finally had a working standalone media-box, until I actually tried to use it for ANYTHING.  I could only start ANY video playback ONCE, as with all subsequent attempts, all video was garbled and mis-colored horribly (from capture, from stored vid-file, anything), until I rebooted the hybrid.  This went on for a couple of days, and then seemed to ALMOST fix itself (but NOT due to updates, they came in immediately), as I can now start video of any format around 8-12 times before this happens...  I've since become aware of the bugs in this version of the driver, but it's working for now, so I will wait until they've fixed it...

I then, began attempts to build out MD's...  I started with my own HP Pav dv6423om (notebook) / 1.8G Turion 64 X2 / 2GB DDR2 / 160GB HDD / Ubuntu 7.04 w/ KDE...  Cannot get it to network-boot, as each attempt results in "Diskless Setup failed" error after just 30 seconds (yes, the hybrid is the ONLY DHCP server).  Installed the LMCE MD software, and it cannot make use of my local Nvidia drivers (Go 6150), nor does it attach the network-drives, most times...  I cannot get it to do much of anything...

Next was an older HP L2105CA / Turion 64 / 1GB DDR / 80GB HDD / ATI Xpress 200M / missing LCD-panel, uses external flat-panel 19"...  In the end, same error as the last...  Nothing recognizable in the logs, no other signs of what might have gone wrong.  Several other attempts have come to just as bad a situation, so I attempted to install Kubuntu and the MD software.  Didn't even try to install the video drivers, yet.  It actually worked!!!  Until it didn't...  Lasted about 10 minutes, X crashed, and a string of repeated errors about CIFS share error -6.    It seems quite similar, if not identical to this:  http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2706.0

All the way around, the install media, hardware, and such are all good.  I've researched each and every problem I come upon, until there's no more info to research...  I've done everything exactly as it is to be done (at least per the documentation available...), and it still will not work.  Still wrestling with it...

What I get is either a totally pink screen, or a random mixture of green and yellow pixels. You can sometimes make out shapes, like the info bar on mythtv, but only because there is a definite block of randomness in that shape.
Sometimes, but not often, the window in which it's playing shrinks to the top left corner, and displays a pink block. This usually causes the machine to totally lock up, and I have to power down.

I've just moments ago, finally gotten all the video drivers and configs working (after a week fighting with it...), and I'm having the same issue, of pink, green and yellow scrambled video on DVD.  I cannot, as yet, be sure that my issue is as your's, however, as I've not seen window-shrinking or lockups.  I did leave the TV-capture running (no audio input yet) all night long, because that has locked up the whole machine after 3-30 minutes viewing (realtime, haven't recorded anything yet...).

I'll be looking for other errors, and report what I find...