Issues with 0710 RC

[agentc0re]

First off let me say that I really appreciate the effort the developers have put into this. I would recommend however that the official video be removed because it gives the average user false hope about LINUXMCE's current state of development. Things have a loooooong way to go.

LinuxMCE RC1 Failed across the board here's why...

Core Machine:
gigabyte Ep35-DS3R
Intel Dual core 2.2 ghz
Geforce 8500
Intel Nic and Onboard Realtek NIC
Samsung 17 LCD monitor (DVI)

Media Director
Gigabyte P35-DQ6
Intel Dual core 2.4 ghz
Geforce 8600
Sharp Aquos 46" 1080p native

I installed the Kubuntu CD onto the core machine with the recommended ISO in the Wiki
I then downloaded the 2 CD installer 710RC1 and MD5 checksummed both discs
*1*LinuxMCE took around 3 hours to install. This seems abnormal for a linux system.
*2* When the Core booted for the first time, the fonts and resolution were horrible. Prior to LinuxMCE, Kubuntu looked fine.
*3*I tried a diskless boot of the Media Director. It got about half way and in red letters "DISKLESS SETUP FAILED" and it halted.
*4*I did some research on the web, and found out that LINUXMCE tried diskless booting my media director as an AMD64 architecture.
*5*I corrected the architecture and rebooted the Media Director.
*6*The media Director made it to the A/V Wizard. I selected 1080p, LINUXMCE did not output 1080p (640X480)
*7*My iMON remote isn't working out of the box. Almost any media center package I've played with supports this.
*8*Everything looks ugly and nothing reliably works...looks like this needs some work before it can be taken seriously.

A couple of questions for the developers.
1)Why are the newest (check your version vs. current version on the web)  nvidia drivers not implemented supporting 8x00 series cards. the 8 series of cards are easily the most popular card used in average systems nowadays.
2)Why is LinuxMCE installing ontop of Kubuntu and not following the example of MythBuntu. (Product release in sync)

Some comments.
All of my hardware worked in VistaMCE.
All of the hardware worked in Ubuntu
All of the hardware worked in MythTV

This is an exciting product but unfortunately it's failed to leave the ground. I'll keep my eye on it, but it's not ready to impress.

If you have any questions about my hardware please don't hesitate to ask.

Sparkie, create a new thread with your issue so that it can be more focused on.

[danielk]

I'm very eager to try the RC, but... How about the DL disk for amd64? There is an MD5 checksum available, but no way to obtain the disk. Could you provide us with one?

The DL AMD64 disc is being pushed to the mirrors, and will be available there first. See http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Mirrors and check the status of each mirror, or wait for http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Mirrors_0710_RC1 to be updated as the mirrors get the files. We will also add a torrent for this disc once the other disc's are well seeded. The Dual Layer discs are not as popular and we want to get the DL i386 one well seeded first.

I would also appreciate a clear instruction on which disk will allow the several types of upgrading, preferably in a table listing the ISO name, upgrade paths, core arch and MD archs.

For upgrading 704, your best bet is the dual layer i386 disc. It will do a full upgrade preserving your media. Second best option is the dual layer AMD64 disc. It will also preserve your media and do a full upgrade, but is a we bit less stable.

For a new install on a blank hard disk or a 710 beta upgrade, the single layer i386 or amd64 discs are best (again we've fixed a number of 64-bit only bugs since beta 4, but it's still a AMD64 newly supported architecture). The will quickly install the RC and have a couple options for preserving some -- but not all of your beta settings. If you want to preserve all the settings and media, follow the backup and restore procedure documented via link from the release notes. This procedure is tedious but has been tested to work.

For a complicated install with partitions and/or another operating system on the same hard disk as LMCE, use the CD's. First you need a clean Kubuntu 710 install on a partition using the bootable kubuntu install disk from ubuntu.com, then you can use the CDs which runs a package analysis that can take several hours. This will install the needed LMCE packages, but you will probably need to do some manual configuration to get the video running well and may need to remove some incompatible ubuntu packages if it is not a clean unmodified kubuntu install.

[danielk]

I would like to know, or point me to the right place, if the mythtv package in this RC1 version or in the final release will be able to install and manage a PVR card only on the core and then see the direct TV only from the core or also from all the MD?
Or I can see direct TV from the MD where I've installed the PVR card?

You will be able to watch LiveTV on any MD. The startup is a little slower on a remote machine than a local one, but MythTV will seamlessly record and stream LiveTV to any one MD per recorder at a time. The recording hardware itself can be on the core or on any or all of the MD's.

[aaron.b]

The process for doing an upgrade is explained here: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Upgrade_to_0710

Regarding Sparkie's post, the suggestion to remove the official doesn't make sense.  For the 0710 release we had a mandate that we must following the same sequence shown in the 0704 demo video on the same hardware and get the same results.  We've done the set of steps in the 0704 demo video over 1,000 times, and we didn't release 0710 until it worked every time.  I think a lot of people find the demo video very helpful because this way you know if you have a certain set of equipment and follow a certain sequence you will get a certain result.

Sparkie, in your case, you said right from the beginning you're not using the same equipment and didn't follow the same sequence.  You used the CD's, rather than the DVD, for example.  The use of CD's shouldn't have caused the failures you described, however, it was disclosed that using the CD's is very slow because the Kubuntu install cd's don't contain the original .deb files for packages that are already installed.  LinuxMCE needs them in order to create diskless boot images for your md's and it takes a very long to rebuild them.  The failures are probably caused by hardware differences.  For example, it sounds like your video card wasn't recognized by the nVidia drivers.  Your assertion that we didn't use the current drivers is wrong.  The drivers in LinuxMCE are actually NEWER, not older, than the nVidia drivers included in the Kubuntu 0704 release.  We found the nVidia drivers in Kubuntu's 0704 didn't work with all the new motherboards with the 7xxx chipsets, so we upgraded.  Also, regarding the iMon, I too have a HTPC case with an iMon VFD+Remote.  It doesn't work at all with anything under Linux, and I called the manufacturer and they said it's not supported, and the FOSS projects that reverse engineered other iMon hardware don't work with the new iMon stuff.  So for that you need Windows at least for now.

Regardless, it's more helpful if work with us to identify the source of your problems rather than just say things don't work.  You issue #1 and #7 are normal.  #2, #6 and #8 I think are because nVidia's Linux drivers don't work with your card.  #3 sounds like a bug and if you send us the logs /var/log/pluto/*New_PnP_MD* we can see why it failed.  Re: #4/#5 I'll look into it.

[danielk]

I used the CD's because that was whats recommended by the devs to install onto the core. Prior to the dev's recommendations,I tried the DVD install onto a core machine and it didn't setup correctly.

The CD is much slower and is only recommended when the DVD install won't work.

The linux driver in LinuxMCE are newer than Kubuntu, but nvidia has newer unix drivers on their website that add better support for 8x00 series cards.

Not true, if you go to nvidia's website and use their driver matching form they will recommend the 169.12 driver for the 8500GT card you use. This is the very same driver which LinuxMCE installs.

LinuxMCE touts"flexibility"..its stiff hardware requirements proves otherwise.

LinuxMCE touts the flexibility to do a lot of things no other system on Earth can do. I will personally flame anyone who tries to say LinuxMCE  has wimpy hardware requirements. MythTV and asterisk both have tough hardware requirements on their own, add the alpha blending UI2 does and you need to spend at least $20 to $30 on a video card, and you need a to spend $15 on a second NIC for decent networking. If you also want to be able to learn IR codes a $50 USB-UIRT device is highly recommended as well.

Having this system only work with a handful of devices seems like it isn't really geared toward the public which the video seems to suggest. The public has newer equipment, especially if they discover this project. I just believe that hardware support should be the first item on the developers agenda. It will just make the project more accessible to more people. Myself, I have the time and money to buy a newer television and PC parts. I don't see the point of having to go out and spend money on older parts when the newer stuff works fine in other operating systems.

Hardware support is high on the my agenda. But the way you get support is not by complaining, but by helping. I do not have the same hardware as you, if you want your hardware supported then you should do some reading on xorg.conf make the required configuration changes and then post an article in the wiki about how you got the hardware working. Having that description available will make it possible to update the X configuration script to configure your type of card. Plus if we need something like the PCI ID of your card to automate this we will tell you how to determine this.

[gazzzman]

hi all
still having a few issues that may or may not be general for many people
here are a few of the pressing ones maybe someone can point me?
1) mythtv setup.. when I try to use the grabber (with rt uk) it drops to a terminal "somewhere" to enable you to tell it what channels to include... I have never found this terminal window.. not even when running mythtv-setup from a terminal!
2) still having problems with my wm6 phone.. (not even sure this relates to LMCE but a definitive answer would be fantastic)
when the phone is detected LMCE asks what kind of phone it is...
I tell it 2005 it sends bluetooth command to phone... phone asks for bluetooth key...
all stops at this point  as no key I try works... you know 1234 1111 0000 etc
so although treo.cab is now running on my phone there still seems to be no way to connect to it

3) when ripping a disk I am unable to use any of my windows shares??
they apear in the locations list but writing to them fails!
I can read and write to them fine in KDE however (I have given the user admin rights on the windows server 2003 box the shares reside on)

these are the main things that are bothering me... any chance someone can give me any pointers??




on the plus side..
I have set up mythtv with just iet and (for the first time ever so far) it seems to work and continue running a lot longer than the 90 seconds that it ran for before the upgrade
oh yes and the upgrade from beta4 seems flawless so far
I have been waiting for RC1 to continue adding things so I will no doubt be telling you all about the fun I have with my usbuirt's
and my new GC-100 (when it arrives)
oh yes and my cm-11 and all that goes with it lol!
thanks to everyone for all your hard work!
there is no project like this in its flexibility
and it is certainly an interesting way to spend your life
I just wish I had never seen Windows.. that way I would have known a lot more about Linux and could have contributed
but once again thanks guys (+ girls??)

[enrique.lopez]

What'is the login and password for upgrade?
Thanks.

[Zaerc]

I used the CD's because that was whats recommended by the devs to install onto the core. Prior to the dev's recommendations,I tried the DVD install onto a core machine and it didn't setup correctly.

The CD is much slower and is only recommended when the DVD install won't work.

...

Or when you want something other then the one size fits all dhcp-enabeled hybrid installation that wipes the entire disc.

[danielk]

What'is the login and password for upgrade?
Thanks.

The password depends on what you currently have installed, but if "linuxmce" does not work. I've written some instructions on resetting account passwords this morning, available here: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Resetting_Account_Passwords

[enrique.lopez]

What'is the login and password for upgrade?
Thanks.

The password depends on what you currently have installed, but if "linuxmce" does not work. I've written some instructions on resetting account passwords this morning, available here: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Resetting_Account_Passwords

The problem is when i download the gutsyupgrade in this link http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Version_0710_RC1; but in this link is OK http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Mirrors_0710_RC1
Thanks Danielk

[aaron.b]

We did find an issue.  Some of the stock Kubuntu packages needed for Bluetooth and SqueezeBox support are not in the deb cache on the 64 bit RC DVD (they are on the 32).  This is not new; it was always like this.  But we never noticed until yesterday because the system quietly pulled these handful of packages from ubuntu.com without anybody noticing.  Until yesterday when Ubuntu released 0804 and their servers were bogged down and denying connections.  Then we found that adding bluetooth and squeezebox did not work.  They will start working automatically, however, once Ubuntu's servers go back on line and the packages can be retrieved.  We are patching the RC dvd's so they include these missing packages and in the formal release.  There does seem to be a major issue that one user reported where ripping to windows shares doesn't work.  But rather than holding up the 0710 release, since so many people are waiting for it, we'll go ahead as planned and do a maintenance patch soon, unless there are other serious issues.

[schaferj]

aaron,
thanks for the update.  Will the 0710 release go out today (26 APR) or next week?
thanks again for the current status info!
joseph

[Marie.O]

Some previously (LinuxMCE-)ripped DVDs no longer play. I see the first selection screen for the language, right after choosing a language, the movie stops. Playing some others work without issues.

rgds
Oliver

[kengtay]

SMK IR Receiver/Transmitter doesn't work! This is the version come with PVR-150 MCE.

[totallymaxed]

Some previously (LinuxMCE-)ripped DVDs no longer play. I see the first selection screen for the language, right after choosing a language, the movie stops. Playing some others work without issues.

rgds
Oliver

Sounds like libdvdcss is not installed... the disc is failing when the MD tries to play the first encrypted part of the DVD.

Andrew