Messages

61

Users / Re: MDs don't play media

« on: December 18, 2008, 07:59:33 pm »

The MDs in this installation don't play media that is stored on the core. When I hit "Audio", for example, the files list and thumbnails (covers) are shown, but if I pick a song from a CD and select "Play", an error message pops up saying:

File not found:
/home/public/data/audio/<CD title>/<song title>

I'm thinking you didn't set things up the way you were supposed to.

By default, if you netboot a media director, all the drive mappings are done for you, automatically, and you can view media on the core or wherever it has been cataloged from.

Since you have such an obvious gap in things, I suspect there's a lot more going on here than you've indicated.

Do you have a core with dual network cards?

Do your media director's network boot?

62

Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Dedicated networking

« on: December 15, 2008, 06:46:18 pm »

I think it's a great idea as far as it goes, but the number of complaint about it demonstrate that it's an issue for many users.  I'm not sure why it is the dhcp server, because IIRC, the image server does not need to be on the same IP as the DCHP server, it just needs to be on the the same subnet.

Um, well, let me see... since LinuxMCE is much more than just a "media center" and offers Plug 'n Play and Home Automation control, the requirements to use it are a little bit different than most other plain 'ole Media Centers.

If you read the answers to those posts that complained about this, you would have read why this is necessary. I don't think too many experienced users in the forums will even bother to respond to your post since this has been hashed about many times and is well documented as to the how's and why's.

As for wireless, you can't netboot a wireless media director (well, it *can* be done but you're wasting your time) so you've already cut off one major benefit of LMCE. At best you could set up a core but that'll give you only one media station, and if you set up with one network card then you've already invited trouble.

As I've learned (the hard way) if you don't follow the suggested setup and configuration you're not going to have a very good experience with LMCE. Don't blame the crew or the software, the requirements are laid out and are very clear. Follow them and you will most likely enjoy LMCE. Ignore them and you'll pay the price.

I do agree that some people cannot make use of LinuxMCE because they don't want to or can't follow the proper network configuration, for the reasons you've cited. I would have to say to that group that LMCE isn't for you then... go use MythBuntu, XBMC, or some of those awful windoze based Media Centers.

63

Developers / Re: Annoucement: Getting cover art and attributes from IMDB

« on: December 14, 2008, 03:58:20 pm »

Is there a link to the code that we can download and try?

64

Installation issues / Re: Need HELP badly!!!

« on: December 13, 2008, 02:40:29 pm »

To the poster that has an MSI motherboard, when i went to install it it booted up to a prompt and then nadda, is that what you got as well, or did yours install normally?

and says nada? at what point in the boot process is it doing this?

You never described what video and network hardware you are using. You also never said if you were using two network cards. These items are very important.

65

Users / Re: a list of possible Media Directors

« on: December 13, 2008, 04:19:54 am »

http://kortlink.dk/63vd

Do anyone knows if there is a possibility that some of those mini-pcs will work as media directors?

i think i will try to buy one if anyone got a chance to work, but witch one to you think it is?

-gram

The only one I know of is the Asus Eee Box.

However, why not have a look through the wiki for suitable known to work media directors?

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Category:Media_Directors

66

Users / Re: Can i use my HP pavillion m9168 as a core?

« on: December 13, 2008, 12:48:45 am »

I always find it somewhat daunting when people say "will this work?" as unless somebody here has actually used it in the same configuration you are planning to, there is no real magic answer.

I have a HP Pavaillion a1730n.. it's just an AMD 4600+ Dual Core, 2GB Ram, 320GB Sata HD and SATA DVD, with onboard Nvidia GeForce 6150 LE Video and onboard 100Meg Network.

Works perfectly fine as a media director and ubuntu in general.

Mind you, I haven't used this as my core because I bought a barebones AMD 4600+ to do that (see my page in my signature). When I bought the HP it was $990 CDN just for the box (and guts), keyboard and mouse. About a year later when I went to buy the generic  barebones box with the same CPU? It was around $300 (can't remember the exact price). I like the HP... it's super quiet too.

Quad Core is way more CPU than you'd need. 3 GB's of RAM is more than enough. Your main concern should be what video card and what network connections on that box.

As they say, your mileage may vary (but I think you have a good box there!)

67

Installation issues / Re: Need HELP badly!!!

« on: December 13, 2008, 12:41:32 am »

Have you considered it could be something else?  Bad memory/cpu?  If all you're doing is changing the motherboard but keeping the rest the same, maybe the motherboard is not the issue.

I'm with jimmejames. It's time to look at what you're putting those motherboards into..

Check your power supply.. CPU, RAM and are you using on-board video and network?

Are you setting this up with two network cards??

I know where you're coming from, believe me!

68

Users / Re: MD works, but MythTV fails to auto launch, then exits after 30-45 seconds

« on: December 12, 2008, 05:19:36 pm »

Sorry, resurrecting an old thread...

Now that my MSI Wind PC is here and I have it working at UI2 without alpha blending and no screensaver, the issue that I have here with MythTV not loading is bugging me again.

If MythTV would load and run I'd gladly put this machine into our master-bedroom right away (replacing the VIA box running mythbuntu).

Zaerc had commented that this error message:

/usr/lib/mythtv/plugins/liblibmythfrontend.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

may be the problem.

Is that a typo?

liblibmythfrontend.so

two lib libs?

I'm running an AMD64 core but the problem of no mythtv exists on AMD64 or i386 MD's..

Is this something worth investigating or should I just wait for the next release? at that time I plan to install the i386 version on the core and forget about the AMD64 version.

69

Users / Re: MSI WIND PC, has anybody tried this yet??

« on: December 12, 2008, 02:35:44 am »

I would be glad to post the module for you to try to download, you would have to follow the steps I added to the wiki here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Realtek_8168#Asus_M3A78-EM

Seth saved my day! With his copy of the driver and after following some of the instructions on the MD directory layout, my new machine is now sitting at UI1!

Next up!? Let's make full use of that video card, which I assume (cough) I have to follow the instructions here?

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers

for Intel chips?

Again, thanks seth and the rest of you for documenting and talking about this neat machine!

70

Users / Re: MSI WIND PC, has anybody tried this yet??

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:27:41 pm »

When you see the PXE client banner, when you first turn on the MD, before it fails to boot, what does it say the card is:
For example, mine says "Realtek 8111B/8111C"

 Yes, that looks familiar.

 I do get past the initial boot now, to the point where it announced itself to the core and the core went ahead and created the diskless directory. When I looked in pluto-admin it said it was a AMD64, so I changed it to i386 and rebuilt the MD image.

 Now when it boots, I get past the part where the screen font changes and it bombs at the eth0- part.

I have this built for i386, for version 710. I would be glad to post the module for you to try to download, you would have to follow the steps I added to the wiki here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Realtek_8168#Asus_M3A78-EM
You just let me know , and when I get home this evening, I can send you the file, or post a download link in this thread.

 Well thanks Seth, yes that would be awesome! You can PM me for my email address or just post a link.

71

Users / Re: MSI WIND PC, has anybody tried this yet??

« on: December 11, 2008, 08:04:51 pm »

No you can definitely not use amd64 kernel modules with an i386 kernel.  Following the same instructions in a chroot might be worth a try though.

 Hi Zaerc. I did try to do that in a chroot environment, but it failed on the very first step of compiling the new driver!

 Starts off with:

Code: [Select]

root@dcerouter:~/r8168-8.008.00# make
make -C src/ clean
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/r8168-8.008.00/src'
rm -rf *.o *.ko *~ core* .dep* .*.d .*.cmd *.mod.c *.a *.s .*.flags .tmp_versions Module.symvers Modules.symvers *.order
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/r8168-8.008.00/src'
make -C src/ modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/r8168-8.008.00/src'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/build SUBDIRS=/root/r8168-8.008.00/src modules
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic'
  CC [M]  /root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.o
In file included from include/linux/cpumask.h:84,
                 from include/asm/paravirt.h:18,
                 from include/asm/msr.h:78,
                 from include/asm/processor.h:17,
                 from include/asm/thread_info.h:16,
                 from include/linux/thread_info.h:21,
                 from include/linux/preempt.h:9,
                 from include/linux/spinlock.h:49,
                 from include/linux/module.h:9,
                 from /root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.c:30:
include/linux/kernel.h:126: warning: conflicting types for built-in function 'snprintf'
include/linux/kernel.h:128: warning: conflicting types for built-in function 'vsnprintf'

and eventually craps out with:

Code: [Select]

from /root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.c:33:
include/asm/irq.h:15:25: error: irq_vectors.h: No such file or directory
In file included from include/asm/hardirq.h:5,
                 from include/linux/hardirq.h:7,
                 from include/linux/interrupt.h:11,
                 from include/linux/netdevice.h:576,
                 from /root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.c:33:
include/linux/irq.h: At top level:
include/linux/irq.h:178: error: 'NR_IRQS' undeclared here (not in a function)
In file included from include/linux/interrupt.h:11,
                 from include/linux/netdevice.h:576,
                 from /root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.c:33:
include/linux/hardirq.h:40:27: warning: "NR_IRQS" is not defined
/root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.c: In function 'rtl8168_poll':
/root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.c:4467: warning: cast from pointer to integer of different size
make[3]: *** [/root/r8168-8.008.00/src/r8168_n.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [_module_/root/r8168-8.008.00/src] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic'
make[1]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/r8168-8.008.00/src'
make: *** [modules] Error 2

 I'm kinda lost with this one. I expect if I even managed to get it to boot my next problem would be the video drivers, and if that goes anything like this I dunno.

 I can boot XMBC off a USB stick (a current version) and it has no issues with the video or network card... so I guess if I can wait for the next release of LMCE things may 'just work'?

72

Users / Re: MSI WIND PC, has anybody tried this yet??

« on: December 11, 2008, 05:29:07 am »

I did make some progress with my box tonight...

I think the "clue" was the post about confusing r8168 and r8169...

I can't remember everything I fiddled with either, but I did get it to announce itself to the router but on the reboot after all the diskless building it hangs.

I checked the Media Directors in the pluto-admin web... the architecture was AMD64, so I changed it to i386 and said rebuild image.

But I'm thinking... when I created the new r8168.ko module, that was done on the core, which is AMD64. Can I copy that over to the i386 diskless image for device 208? If not, can I just follow the same instructions while in a chroot environment?

73

Users / Re: MSI WIND PC, has anybody tried this yet??

« on: December 10, 2008, 07:37:30 pm »

I ordered one of these and it arrived today. Got 2GB of Ram at the same time... from newegg.ca.

I followed the instructions on this page:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/R8168

The file I got today was "r8168-8.009.00.tar.bz2"

I couldn't get the patch to run without it complaining it couldn't figure out what file to edit, so I edited "drivers/net/r8169.c" manually and commented out the "{ PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_REALTEK,   0x8168), 0, 0, RTL_CFG_1 }," line.

and this page:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Unrecognized_NIC

I edited "/etc/initramfs-tools-interactor/modules" and added r8169 and saved.

And used this command "mkinitramfs -d /etc/initramfs-tools-interactor/ -o /tftpboot/default/initrd" to recreate the initial ramdisk.

and when I do a network boot, it stops at:

request_module: runaway loop modprobe binfmt-464c

I get five lines of that and then nothing.

I don't see any new directories under /usr/pluto/diskless/ nor did I see any errors while following the step by step instructions.

Any suggestions?

74

Installation issues / Re: Screen jumble up and to wide at setup

« on: December 10, 2008, 06:25:00 pm »

I do not see why you would say

I'm trying very hard to be nice here...

as I mentioned I an new to Linux and was only seeking help.

 Thom is telling you that you won't have success running LMCE in the virtual environment.

 You can try to fiddle and goof around all you want but you won't have success.

 There, now I've said it twice in this message.

 That means STOP what you're doing. It ain't gonna work!

75

Installation issues / Re: Screen jumble up and to wide at setup

« on: December 09, 2008, 05:54:34 pm »

Yea that could be the problem but I am unable to set the UI as I am still at the first option to select the video card in the setup phase. 

Right, so perhaps you should try running LMCE in a standalone environment...