Installation of a Media Director PC

[The Dawg Fadder]

I have installed the media CORE on a standalone server with Kubuntu. Network and DHCP are working fine on the other XP computers in the house. I have set up a test PC on a wired LAN with boot to network settings and configured it the device settings as much as I could.

The server cannot see the PC. Do I have to enter a MAC address for it to find it. I would of thought that the server would have been able to identify all MAC addresses on a network and then for the user to simply identify the correct one. If I do have to get the MAC address, where can I find it. It is not on the initial boot-up screen.

I am getting quite frustrated with this and could really use some help. Is there a good beginners guide for a home setup? I need to know exactly what to do to get a computer to boot from LAN from start to end, without missing any "ovbious" steps. Then I can get the other computers in the house to follow.

Thanks in advance.

Dawg.

[PeteK]

There is a problem in the design of Pluto/LinuxMCE in that while you can install a CORE, you need an orbiter in order to add diskless MDs.  The best way to do this is to install it as a Hybrid initially.  That being said, you should see your diskless MD successfully boot from your core and print a message on its monitor saying it has announced itself to the core.  Do you have a dual network card configuration? You said DHCP is working with the other xp machines.  Are they connected to your secondary network port on your core?

[totallymaxed]

There is a problem in the design of Pluto/LinuxMCE in that while you can install a CORE, you need an orbiter in order to add diskless MDs.  The best way to do this is to install it as a Hybrid initially.  That being said, you should see your diskless MD successfully boot from your core and print a message on its monitor saying it has announced itself to the core.  Do you have a dual network card configuration? You said DHCP is working with the other xp machines.  Are they connected to your secondary network port on your core?

This is a problem I agree. We always install our Core's as Hybrid/Cores so that we avoid this problem. There really is not much overhead at all and it gives you a lot of additional flexibility down the line.

[The Dawg Fadder]

There is a problem in the design of Pluto/LinuxMCE in that while you can install a CORE, you need an orbiter in order to add diskless MDs.  The best way to do this is to install it as a Hybrid initially.  That being said, you should see your diskless MD successfully boot from your core and print a message on its monitor saying it has announced itself to the core.  Do you have a dual network card configuration? You said DHCP is working with the other xp machines.  Are they connected to your secondary network port on your core?

Thank you I will try to re-install as a hybrid. And yes, DHCP was working with the secondary controller as recommended during the installation. What I dont understand is that it recommends that you should install the CORE if you have a dedicated server and not the Hybrid as you will loose functionality later on.

Also, I dont have an orbitor, and Im not sure exactly what an Oribitor is.  Is this a problem?

[tirili]

An Orbiter IMHO is nothing else than a GUI for the MD. So you also could use the weborbiter as described in http://www.linux-mce.de/howto/weborbiter-als-alternative-steuerung-verwenden

Hope this helps.