Thanks, pigdog... I don't think it is a snap / version issue because one of my MDs works. I think it is something to do with the particular image on each so I'll probably do a rebuild image and then, if that fails delete and recreate the MD from scratch. Will reportback.

Well, it's a newish TV, but the box itself is pretty old, so I dunno.

Hmmm, maybe that's not the problem then... it's just that some of the forum posts seemed to indicate if a card/monitor wasn't being detected correctly it could cause the problem.

And isn't 10.04 still pre-alpha? I think I'd rather wait until it goes beta, really.

Technically, yes, but in my experience, unless you're using hardware which is all *known to work* with LinuxMCE, there's a fair chance you're going to have to do a few handsprings in your installation so, in that case, you may as well go 10.04 because that it is where the action is at the moment so the devs seem to be keen to assist when you hit a wall.. provided, that is, you are prepared to take some time assisting them with the testing of it.
What is nice about going 10.04, is that if you do have to put in a newer card or something down the track, it is more likely to be supported (drivers available).

Anyway, I'd say have another go with the old monitor but perhaps jump in after the Kubuntu install and prior to running the "install linux mce" script and try to sort out those font issues using the wiki and forum posts and get the TV working with Kubuntu. Then run the install script.

It looks to me (checking out other similar posts on kubuntu forums) as if this is related to newer hardware and old distrubtion (8.10). Are you hooked up to a newish high-def monitor / TV by any chance?

Couldn't find a solution on the web, most people seemed to use an older monitor to do the install and then hack the DPI settings afterwards. Is that an option for you?

Otherwise, have you thought of trying 10.04 if your hardware is newer? It's nice ;-)

Sorry I can't be of more help...

Have you looked at this post? There has been discussion on this before and I think it was resolved- search the forums (top level) for "small fonts" and you will probably find it.

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php/topic,11979.0.html

As I don't really need all the features of a router for the external interface

True, but if you're thinking of using your MODEM/ROUTER/AP combo for your internal router/switch you might want to consider the fact that you really don't want to compromise on speed in your internal network. Not sure of the specs of the above but in most cases it will not perform nearly as well as a half-decent switch so rather than buy a dedicated cable modem and use the above as your internal router/hub/switch, keep the above and buy yourself a switch. Gigabit networking is a wonderful thing on your internal if you can do it.... ESP with your first LMCE setups because you will do plenty of rebuilds of MDs, reboots etc and you'll be tearing your hair out if your internal network is slow.

The other comment I have is that you *can* communicate between the internal and external networks... it is not recommended but can be done and can work fine in certain scenarios. Currently my security IP camera is actually on my external network but is still a device on the internal (I've just given it a fixed IP). I will move it to the internal at some stage but I had it externally while I was setting up and still wanted to be able to access the camera when my CORE was down.

In addition, My Web Orbiter is accessible from my combo MODEM/ROUTER/AP - I use the Wireless from this to connect from my mobile phone and browse to the web-orbiter running on the CORE. Likewise with Webadmin. Works nicely.

Me too. Please share... was about to re-mortgage the house for a usb-uirt.

I'd vote for putting it in ;-) but I also don't mind working through a well documented wiki solution. My opinion is that sound over HDMI is going to become the standard way of doing things so it would be cool if we could go this way but provided it's do-able, if it is a problem in the installer at the moment, wiki-workaround is fine. (Not that I've used either... I'm must looking to the future). Can always wait for 12.04 ;-)

Yes, will ultimately leave most of my MDs running and/or suspend as suggested by Karel. However at the moment things are experimental and my MDs are also rather power hungry beasts (old workstations and the like) so I do regularly power them off. Electricity is getting expensive in this part of the world ;-)

There is nothing wrong with the build process...

L3, have you seen uplink's comments on the sticky thread at the top regarding the build process... your thoughts on that? Is he on the wrong track there?

A cop, a priest, and a programmer walk into a bar... stop me if you have heard this before...

I haven't, please post the rest ;-)

Yes. I want your money.

Pity the original poster seems to have bailed from the discussion. I do think it's a very interesting discussion and the points you (L3mce) raise are equally valid. Financial considerations have a way of focussing things that can misdirect and apply all the wrong incentives... but surely there is potential for it to be a positive thing just in terms of assisting with resourcing. Would like to see more discussion on it.

Before anything like this was setup, there would have to be an approval panel, indicating when milestones were reached, or if it is an all or nothing scenario... when it was "done"... how many bugs can be expected... and someone would have to deal with the complaints and varying levels of dissatisfaction etc. If people are incentivized to do projects, they will not upload their code until it is finished, or there will be squabbling if someone corrects/adds to it... If it is milestone based, people will not ever complete the end result... It sounds like a nightmare to me...

But yes... I want your money.

Please shoot down in flames... I'm very very new to linuxmce, the community etc so I'm sure I will have the culture all wrong... but would it be so bad if there were a mechanism by which someone could "buy" a dev's time to work on a particular feature that would assist them and the agreement/arrangement could be purely between the dev(s) involved and the user. There could be some basic principles, for example, that any code generated is free and open to all when done and that the user who paid cannot object if it is later modified or changed as part of LMCE (they can always fork their own bit if they don't like that or whatever). Then the agreement is really just between the individual parties and only the dev(s) and users involved worry about whether the end result meets the requirement.
Could something like that not allow some devs to potentially set aside more time than they currently do because now they could be remunerated for that extra time? And hopefully the very simple and basic rules like I suggested would mean that the things that get done are not *bad* for the project.... they're just things that might not have been at the top of the priority list otherwise... so they actually contribute to the project overall AND allow for extra resourcing because devs are able to commit more time overall due to the remuneration possibility. Maybe, it would even incentivise more people to get involved in development, realising if they skilled up appropriately, they could potentially be compensated for their time?

Just thoughts ;-)

Big thanks to all the devs for their awesome contribution of time. Certainly the last thing I would like to see is the open nature of this amazing project being compromised. But it is possibly something that coudl be discussed.

No dice on the apt-get update/upgrade. Although I had to use rule#1 there and go to bed it took so long. Still power off does same thing. Next step - rebuild image. Last step delete, recreate MD.... reluctant, though, because weekend approaches and inevitably people visit and you want to show off your snazzy system.... wife suggests you put on some tunes and you have to say...ahem.... just rebuilding that media director again darling....

OK, I tried booting 10.04 live disk on one of the MDs and then went to command prompt and issued the "poweroff" command as root. Worked like a charm. So there does seem to be something odd about my MD image/setup. Another notable possible symptom is that when I press the "power off md" button, they pretty much stop dead (before rebooting) whereas I notice my one working MD goes through a small splash screen shutdown (the pic of tux in the chair and the yellow progress bar). So definitely something wrong...

I'm trying an apt-get update; upgrade on the one now... see if that helps. Otherwise rebuild image? delete MD and recreate?

Installed from snapshot... 5964.

Incidentally, it appears to be working now, at least on audio cds. I can't remember the behaviour with DVDs... usually picks it up quite quickly when you pop in a disc, doesn't it? I seem to get unknown disc on all dvds I put into the drives.

Do a man page on the shutdown command to make sure there's no weirdness in Kubuntu's implementation of the shutdown command,... like a lowercase p instead of an uppercase P...

Else, it's either a weirdness of the particular system, or there's potentially some missing or changed library responsible. Also, try a Kubuntu 10.04 live CD to see if it shuts down normally with that.

Have been doing some reading.... had a look at the ACPI bios settings... nothing spectactular to report. Noted that my newer HP6710b notebook MD shuts down sweetly. I'm still not 100% sure what the "power off md" button on the onscreen orbiter actually runs but I guess until I can, from terminal, find a command that does what I want, I can't expect LMCE to do it either ;-)

Will try the live cd option to see if that works... good idea, JaseP.

crikey...

Code:

shutdown -h now
shutdown -P now
shutdown -h -P now
shutdown -H -P now

Tried the lot and all of them reboot. The only way to power off at the moment seems to be to run one of those and then hit the power button before the darned thing boots up again. Will try with my other media directors and see if the same problem exists...

Code:

You'll still want to go with the setup in the diagram shown. Just think of your Netgear unit as the broadband router in the diagram. You will plug one of your LMCE machine's NICs into one of the ports in the Netgear, and the other NIC into a port on a nice shiny Gigabit switch ;-)

This gives you the added advantage of being able to use the spare ports on the Netgear to connect other PCs or devices you don't want to be part of Linux MCE "directly" to the internet. You can also use the wireless access point as you normally would. However, for devices like media directors that you want to netboot off your LMCE core/hybrid machine, you will want to plug them into the other ports on your new switch. Then your core machine can be in control of their IP addresses and everything else it wants to.

I really would advise that setup... I use it and it works very well. But you don't need to go buying the switch until you're up and running with your first machine and know what other devices you want to start adding.

Hope that helps

James