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Hi Andrew

I tried this first thing when I had problems as it should work just as you say. For some reason it didn't. I only got joy once I had updated with a blank sources file and then updated again with my original sources list back in place. I've no idea why this should be, but its the only way I got apt-get back in operation.

Joe

Don't know if this was happening to anyone else. I kept having this problem when I would apt-get install <package> and go the error either saying <package> was not found or that there was no installation candidate. No amount of tinkering with sources.list seemed to solve this. However, following found in the Ubuntu forums fixed the problem ...

Code Select Expand


cd /etc/apt
sudo mv sources.list sources.list.bak
sudo vi sources.list # then save and quit (:wq) to create a blank file
sudo apt-get update
sudo rm sources.list
sudo cp sources.list.bak sources.list
sudo apt-get update

After this I was able to apt-get to my heart's content.

All sounds quite familiar. I've been at this a couple of weeks now and mostly things are working. A lot of this comes down to hardware and I realised something which I'm sure is familiar to linux developers:

Microsoft don't need to worry about hardware compatibility. They expect everyone to make sure their hardware is compatible and the manufacturers either comply or don't sell their stuff.

Apple don't need to worry about hardware compatibility. They make all the hardware and software, if you buy everything from Apple it all works together (and that's the market they aim at).

Linux has neither of these advantages, plus a user base that just loves hooking all kinds of weird hardware up. Generally this is okay, because the problem (the adventurous users) is also the solution. However it does seem to be an endless task for the LMCE team to deliver more hardware compatibility and give that 'works out of the box' experience [success recently on the Hauppauge Nova-T 500, now working immediately with Beta4  ].

I don't have an answer. I guess users could just buy all their hardware through Fiire, or maybe the project could restrict support to certain hardware. Neither good options if you are aiming at a market of 'traditional' linux users. I did think it worthwhile to identify the (very generic) problem.

BTW, I think LMCE is an awesome product and I have had a great couple of weeks getting it up and running and I will certainly enjoy many further evenings 'tinkering' with my setup. 

Joe

First off, thanks to those who have helped me along in my first installation by posting here. I'm two weeks in and have met / overcome various obstacles through searching previous threads (I'm happy to post the full details if this would help anyone - if so, where's the best place to do this?)

However I've now hit an issue that I can't seem to google my way out of. I have everything working on 7.10 B4 with VDR and a Gyration MCE remote and wireless keyboard. All I'm missing now is the 'wife interface'. I want to set up all screens / packages to operate from the remote and with no use of the gyro mouse (wife's words - I hate it, just hate it).

I have two options, that I can see:
1) Use xmodmap and evrouter to map the remote keys in their native USB keyboard mode.
2) I can hack about to get the remote loaded as a standard LIRC remote.

Advantage with (1) is that I'm already half way down that route and I have got a simple xmodmap working based on ...
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Using_the_Gyration_Remote_GYR3101US_%28Non-Fiire_Chief%29

Disadvantage with (1) is that I need to know the keyboard shortcuts for all applications / plugins / UIs concerned and this information seems hard to come by so, first questions:
- Apart from trial and error, how can I find out which keys do what in an application? By way of example ...
- In the VDR documentation it relates all controls to 'generic' IR remote buttons. I have no keys on my keyboard that generate these codes, so my enjoyment of VDR is limited. I'm hoping I can fix this with evrouter.
- Using the LMCE UI is my fall back. Also here I'm using trial and error to find keystrokes. I also fall foul of the 'no mouse' rule. For example page up / down seem to scroll through pictures / music lists but don't work with the tv schedules.

So far I haven't started on option 2. My question here was whether I'd find things either easier or more flexible if I did?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Joe