Messages

16

Compatible Products & Services / Re: LinuxMCE Hardware packs for newbies

« on: December 10, 2007, 06:09:17 pm »

Sorry, I was modifying my post when a message ("Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.") came up, as you can see above my update was exactly about Fiire, and even Fiire shows their products like Mc Donalds shows their combos on their website.

I respect your opinion, I don't like Mc Donalds food much either, but I think you're missing the point there, I guess most of the people who get to linuxmce.com are computer geeks (or computer geek wannabes) and I think they would not buy fiire, they would want to build it on their own, but not every computer geek is a linuxMCE hardware specialist, that's the point I'm trying to make

17

Compatible Products & Services / LinuxMCE Hardware packs for newbies

« on: December 10, 2007, 05:26:22 pm »

Choosing your hardware is the very first thing you need to do to build your HTPC box (the second really if you count having to choose between LinuxMCE, Mythbuntu, Mythdora, Freevo and so on...) , is it really an easy task? What I think is really easy is to get overwhelmed with all those options you find. Update: Fiire is not really an option, because then you wouldn't really be building anything, would you? 

What I really think LinuxMCE lacks (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is a very basic, affordable and specific hardware configuration recommendation (2 or 3 kits, combos, packs or whatever you want to call them, with brands and models, stores with best prices or something like that) maybe in the form of a step-by-step installation guide, put whit a link on the very first page of it's website, and I don't mean a Minimum Requirements sheet or a Compatible Products forum full of interesting threads which I know it already has, but a very basic known-working unexpensive list of hardware that wouldn't lead us (newbies) to confusion or frustration, if you are like me you don't want to read a lot of pages about working hardware.

I think that's why Mc Donald Combos do exist, too many options bring you to confusion, you go to a place like that just because you want to eat, you don't want to know about all their products on their list before you choose your meal, then you wonder "Combo 1, 2 or 3? ...Yeah, 3 is the one for me", if you want something extra like a sundae you order it, but the very basic was already picked, that's something that I think we IT people generally don't see, that's why Microsoft and Apple have such a big market shares, because they have whole departments that care about those topics.

But don't believe me, that's just my opinion, I would like to know yours

18

Compatible Products & Services / Re: LinuxMCE on Wal-mart's $200 gPC, is it possible??? it really is affordable

« on: December 10, 2007, 05:20:34 pm »

any news about this topic?

19

Compatible Products & Services / Re: LinuxMCE gPC?, trying to build the cheapest quality-acceptable HTPC

« on: November 27, 2007, 04:01:22 pm »

Thank you for your replies, I'll be expecting impatiently for your test results.

For those of you who haven't read about gPC I leave you some links here to articles written about the topic

"gOS PC Sells Out: People Like A Google Focused PC"
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/12/gos-pc-sells-out-people-like-a-google-focused-pc/

"gPC $199 C7 powered PC at Wal-Mart":
http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/11/gpc-199-c7-powered-pc-at-wal-mart.html

"Is Wal-Mart's gPC The Linux Version Of The Mac Mini?":
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/11/is_walmarts_gpc.html

"La gPC se agota en poco tiempo" (spanish):
http://www.orlandoalonzo.com.mx/tecnologia/la-gpc-se-agota-en-poco-tiempo/

"El Google PC es factible: el gPC se agota en las tiendas, fotos y vídeo del gOS" (spanish):
http://google.dirson.com/post/3740-google-pc-video-gos/

Thanks a lot for reading and I would love more replies from you all.

20

Compatible Products & Services / LinuxMCE on Wal-mart's $200 gPC, is it possible??? it really is affordable

« on: November 26, 2007, 09:54:38 pm »

Hi, as most of you may already know, there is a new $200 PC that a few weeks ago sold out on Wallmart called gPC (gPC Specs: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=7754614, Reviews: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/allReviews.do?product_id=7754614),  that comes with g0S (http://www.thinkgos.com, an Ubuntu based linux distro) installed, and the first thing that came to my mind was that maybe (and forgive me for being so optimist, that's exactly why I'm writing this post, because I'd like to know your opinion about it), and just maybe there could be a way to build a $300 or $400 HTPC with only essential cheap but quality-acceptable hardware (excluding the front-end of course) that could be attractive to masses (as gPC is trying), and increase LinuxMCE popularity vs. Windows MCE.

Searching on this forum I found this thread: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3204.0  (I was about to reply to this thread with this post you're reading but I didn't think the name of the original post "Possible thin client?" would get to the point I'm trying to make) that talks about the $60 all-in-one motherboard (http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001) that is used to build the gPC as an option to build a LMCE PC. Maybe with a Hauppauge PVR-150 tuner or even a cheaper Linux-compatible one cost wouldn't go so high.

The thing is that I would like to know if someone has already tested this gPC or at least it's motherboard with LinuxMCE indeed or if somebody knows or has a better idea for a low-cost HTPC and would like to post it here. The problem is that reading some reviews on clubit's motherboard page I found something I already expected but I don't take it for granted before I get to know some LinuxMCE specific stories about this hardware or test it on my own:

Buy this for its economy and low power consumption. This is a 5 rating for my needs. wouldn't rate higher than a three for multimedia or games. There are better options (I wonder how much those options would get to cost).

Some other reviewer wrote this:

Strengths: Low power. Using PicoPSU and Maxtor 160GB EIDE, LiteOn DVD writer the system runs 24-40Watts. The DVD kicks it up to 40. Idles at 24.
Weaknesses: Display sucks and no upgrade slot for AGP or PCIe.
Summary: Using a Dell 1905FP LCD display there are blurry areas splattered around the screen. Other MBs with better built in GPUs do not have this problem. The GeForce 6100M and AMD 690G work excellent. Using the same hardware on a GeForce 6100M the power usage is 30-55 Watts with a BE2300 CPU.