Messages

1

Users / Nice but early days for the software

« on: October 08, 2007, 12:21:07 am »

OK well I have now spent a couple of weeks on mce and have come to the conclusion its a product too early in development for me.  When I 1st looked at the video of it working it looked nice but the video only showed the bits that work

Some of the problems I have encounted.

Cannot install nVidia drivers.  Loads of posts but no conclusive responses to get them working.

TV card installation.  This not working.  got the Nova-T searched loads of posts and nothing resolved to get it working.

Blue installing hardware boxes constantly popping up in top left corner.

Whilst playing movie / music volumn & search icons on screen not responsive.  You select volumn button and the icons appear but you cannot control it correctly to select volumn up or down because they keep flashing and mouse keeps resetting to center of icons.

No music images for albums.  Search everywhere nothing that solves problem.

OK here is just a few things and I know its early days for the software but I was using meedio before and ever though mce looks nicer it does not touch meedio for ease or use and installation.

MCE is horrid for browsing media something I hope the developers look into.  Maybe look at meedio working on a well configured system to see how a nice user interface for a media solution should be.

Hardware installation is definatly something that should be looked into because there are a lot of people going to be put of by this.  Ok I am not a complete computer guru but my 22 years as a games programmer and the time I spent writting software for microsoft taught me a bit about computers and even with my level I could not get the hardware ( as pointed out above ) installed.

Good luck with development guys and I hope you get there as so far it looks nice.

2

Installation issues / NVidia Driver Update

« on: October 06, 2007, 07:21:40 am »

OK I know there has been many posts about this and I have read through, probably, most of them.  I cannot find the solution to my problem though.

I install Kubuntu and then LMCE.

Now I wish to install the latest video drivers for the card I have in the media box.

Goto nVidia website.  Download the drivers it says I need for my card.

Now I folow the driver wiki that has been pointed to before in many posts.

- goto command line.

- Shut down x with telinit 1

- install the nVidia drivers

- Restart machine

Now I seem to get back into mce but I have flickering gfx.  So I goto advanced options to select AVWizard.  Machine reboots and just before loading up linux it gets stuck in a constant look declairing an image file canot be found and goes around and around in a loop.

I can however just reboot machine and get into linux & mce but I cannot run avwizard because on reboot it will get stuck in this loop.

WHAT am I doing wrong...

3

Developers / Re: All Developers, please read.

« on: October 05, 2007, 12:21:04 pm »

With a bit of luck and time I will be spending some time looking through the code.  There are a few ideas for plugins I would like to write which came from modules I used on meedio.

When I have got to grips with the code base I would love to help in any way I can with anything that needs attention.

4

Installation issues / Re: Display issue after install

« on: October 05, 2007, 12:09:39 pm »

I do not know if this is the same thing or not but there is something I found during the setup stages.

When you go into the video , sound setup of mce it will rely on vga output and not dvi.

If you then select dvi -> hdmi from the menu it will then set to dvi.

But when ever you go into the 1st option page on the setup it will always be vga regardless if you had it on dvi before and no signal will be sent via dvi.

5

Installation issues / Re: Install LMCE and connect to TV,...

« on: October 04, 2007, 10:59:16 pm »

Sorry but that is not clear.  It should be specified that existing partions will be destroyed.

In that description it refers to hard drive will be cleared, formatted etc.  The simple point is when refering to hard drives people sometimes do not realise that a partion is not the entire hard drive.

It should be explicitly pointed out that all partitions will be removed.

I don't think it's our task to educate people on the misconceptions they have about drives and partitions.  The warning is clear and accurate, that you are unable to understand what it exactly means is an entirely different problem. 

Well coming from the software development industry myself I suppose I am very picky about things like that as we always try to cover for those with less knoledge than ourselves.   And in all honesty something slighty reworded which could avoid any missunderstanding could save someone a big headache.  But hey from your replies it seems that you dont really care about things like that.

6

Installation issues / Re: setup

« on: October 04, 2007, 06:22:40 pm »

One other options I cannot seem to find anywhere in forums is..What is the quickest and easiest way to remove the shared drives that have been allocated in LMCE.  After reading through threads and thinking for a while I have decided to use the LMCE file sharing method. 

If I have read correctly when LMCE finds one of my shared hard drives it gives me the option to just share all media as is on drive or use it in the LMCE method.  If I select the LMCE method it will create the directories on the HD for LMCE sharing.  Then I can just copy my media into these directories in the correct directory for..pictures...video...audio..etc.

At the moment I selected all my shared drives as just shared and not the LMCE method.  So I want to remove all these shares from LMCE...restart the wizard to connect all these shared drives and then copy all my media accross.

Another benifit of this is that at the moment I have like 40,000 albums in mp3 and about 2-3,000 movies stored in dvd image, dvd rip & hd files.  They are all messy so by copying them into the new directories created by LMCE I can gradually copy them and tidy them up with art work etc at same time

So in short...what is the best way to remove all the shares form LMCE and rerun the wizard to add them again.

Thanks

7

Installation issues / Re: setup

« on: October 04, 2007, 05:22:17 pm »

Hey, Rancid_elf!

In the LinuxMCE admin web browser page, at the top under Files and Media then Media Browser, you have several Check boxes related to the media itself. 

Hope that help!

Yes iv been playing around with that.  What I am looking for is a detailed description of teh stuff in there. Also maybe descriptions on how it works....as in if I wanted to do certain stuff how it can be accomplished etc.

8

Installation issues / Re: Install LMCE and connect to TV,...

« on: October 04, 2007, 04:17:37 pm »

It was not clear on the dvd download section about this. 

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Download_Instructions#Quick_Install_DVD

Note: this installer will erase all existing data from the selected hard drive.

Seems pretty clear to me.

Sorry but that is not clear.  It should be specified that existing partions will be destroyed.

In that description it refers to hard drive will be cleared, formatted etc.  The simple point is when refering to hard drives people sometimes do not realise that a partion is not the entire hard drive.

It should be explicitly pointed out that all partitions will be removed.

9

Installation issues / Re: Install LMCE and connect to TV,...

« on: October 04, 2007, 03:57:01 pm »

The dvd install will corrupt your main partition and not give you the option to select which partition you wish to install on.

This is not entirely true, the DVD installer will not corrupt your main partition but remove it entirely as the whole disc is wiped.  This is clearly indicated on the download- as well as the installation-instructions in the wiki.  If you want the option to (re-)partition the drive, use the CD installer instead.

Yes I found this out.  It was not clear on the dvd download section about this.  It is however possible to use the dvd as long as you modify the image to make sure the Kubunu install enters the option to select a partition for install.

10

Installation issues / Re: Install LMCE and connect to TV,...

« on: October 04, 2007, 03:46:57 pm »

Be careful which install you use and on what.  If you are going for a stand alone install ( use full hd ) then the dvd is fine.  If however you are intending on using dual boot and installing LMCE on a seperate partition be very carefull and make sure you use the cd's.  The dvd install will corrupt your main partition and not give you the option to select which partition you wish to install on.

So basically if you already have windows on your main partition and wish to install LMCE on teh second..DO NOT use the install dvd as it will corrupt the windows install.

11

Installation issues / setup

« on: October 04, 2007, 03:35:44 pm »

Hi,  I am new to LMCE been playign about with it for a few days now and need a bit of advice.  I have browsed and searched through the forums and also for the Wiki and found some stuff I need to know but there is some stuff I have had to work out or not found at all.

Before I ask my questions I wish to give a description of how I got my system setup.  The reason I am going to do this is because a lot of the information I needed for setting up my system was hard to find or trial and error.  I have also noticed others asking for similar information with no results.

Solution :

Right I have a home network.  Netgear router running DHCP connected to my 24 meg adsl2 internet.  Attached to the router is a netgear gig 4 port switch.

Attached to the switch is -

game / develop rig...Windows Vista

10 Terabyte file server....Windows Xp...contains 40,000 albums ( mp3 ), dvd images, HD movies h264 xvid.

Media box...Windows Xp...Previously running Meedio.  This is attached to my LCD tv.


When 1st installing LMCE ( DVD install ) on my media box I ran into the problems of it wanted its own DHCP server to handle attached devices.  I initially went with this and turned off my router's dhcp.  I forgot a simple fact that if the media box is off I lose net on all other machines.  This was not a good option for me.

After a lot of messing about I finally got the system running how I wanted it.  I have noticed other people asking in here how to setup LMCE without the dhcp server running etc and the threads never seem to get very far or never give a definative solution.  Well this is mine.

I downloaded Kubuntu 7.04 live cd and installed it.
Downloaded LMCE 2 cd and installed it.

When installing I specified not to enable the dhcp server.

Enabled routers dhcp server with ip ranges of 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.200.  Router is 192.168.0.1
Subnet masks setup for entire range. 192.168.0.*   255.255.255.0

In Kubuntu networking I set it to obtain ip from router.
In LMCE I set the dhcp off.  I set the internal network ip address to static and gave it the ip address of 192.168.0.201.  This is still inside the subnet range of the network but outside the dhcp range so the ip will never be used by the dhcp server.

LMCE set itself to teh workgroup Linuxmce so I set my file server and games rig also to this workgroup.


This setup has allowed me to keep my existing home network as is and add LMCE as a meedia box attached to that network.  I know it will make life harder when I come to add additional home devices to the system but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.  If possible I will just add the devices from ip range 202 upwards with static ip addresses and do the setup myself.

At this stage of use though I am mainly doing testing on the software to see if it will actually do the job I require.  If I decide to stick with LMCE then my end result will result in my file server being installed with Kubuntu / LMCE and used as the core and my media box used as a portal.  This will mean I can run the dhcp server in teh core as my file server is never turned off.


Right this is where I am at.  LMCE has detected all my shares form my windows boxes and things seem to be connecting nicely.  My problem is this.  So far only certain files form file server are appearing in LMCE and everything is messy.  I need to find some documentation on how to setup and configure all my media in the manager web page.  I have fiddled around with the file options in the manager but it is not clear what is what and how to control all aspects of it.  I have searched forums and hunted through the Wiki but cannot actually find any definitive guide to what everything is...what options are to do what and how to group, arrange things etc.

Could someone direct me to this information please.

Thanks in advance and I hope my setup information becomes usefull to a few.

Paul