Messages

1

Users / Re: HP Proliant Microserver Gen 8 as core

« on: January 18, 2015, 10:55:59 am »

Thanks, Andy. Yes... almost certain it will as well but I'm sure some focussed googlling will reveal that.

Will report back if I get one.

2

Users / HP Proliant Microserver Gen 8 as core

« on: January 16, 2015, 11:28:25 am »

http://www8.hp.com/za/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=5379860

I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this?

My core got taken out by a lightning strike recently and as I wait, hoping for a positive insurance assessment, I'm happily planning its replacement.

Since my core is headless and runs in the server closet this seems like a great little machine. The primary issue is that it has practically no expansion slots.... however I don't plan on adding any tv-tuners or other cards. I still use my system mostly for media and if I do get into the automation side I imagine I'll work via networked adapters.

What seems to be nice about this machine-

• Compact Size - basically 24cm x 24cm x 24cm
• Dual onboard network cards
• Onboard intel HD graphics - intel graphics seems to be working ok with LMCE at the moment and really it's just needed while setting up before making it headless
• Low power proc - the G1610T celeron processor has TDP of only 35w which is great for a server running 24/7
• 4 SATA bays - for your media drives
• Optical bay for blu-ray / dvd drive

Any thoughts on this would be most welcome. I'll post more if I buy the sucker.

I'd love to put an SSD in as the O/S drive to speed up boots of media directors but that's a bit of a scene apparently because the 4 SATA bays require a special adapter for 2.5" drives to align the connectors and if you plug into the ODD instead, apparently the BIOS won't let you boot from there. Some have added a PCI SATA controller to get around this.

3

Users / Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Experiences

« on: November 25, 2014, 12:46:45 pm »

I haven't got a model A yet but I was tempted to get one to see if it could run as a simple orbiter combined with the small adafruit touchscreen and placed in a wall box to control lights, set alarm status etc.

Not sure if the 256mb ram would run orbiter though but a web interface may work, I know this could be done with the model b but this a+ is quite a bit smaller now and more importantly in-wall its not as tall.

Just my ideas there so cheep you can afford to experiment:)

Don't know much about the A+ PIs but it seems to me that if you're looking for a wall-mount orbiter, you can get a cheap 7" android tablet for just a few dollars more. I guess if you particularly want it to be small and extremely low power then the PI is a good option but if it's a price-point thing, to me an existing tablet would make more sense. And it has the added advantage of being able to run Qorbiter and do other stuff if you want as well -  I have a $73 tablet that is wall mounted. It runs touch-orbiter but I use it primarily as a permanent IP camera viewer for my gate camera. It has been running for about a year and a half now as smooth as you like and the screen is on pretty much all day.

On occasion I take it off the wall (magnetic mount) and the children play games on it or I use it for the odd e-mail, to control my media, or I move it to the entertainment area if we're entertaining and expecting guests so I can keep an eye on the gate.

My only gripe is power- I have an ugly cable running to it from the power supply.

4

Users / Re: Why CEC Control Your TV?

« on: October 22, 2014, 08:09:04 am »

So, Andrew, if users just have the CEC from the RPI to power on the TV, does that mean they occupy one of the HDMI inputs on the TV just to do that? I'm presuming the RPI CEC can't "pass through" the signal from another device?

Pretty poor show that TVs with IP control don't implement WOL. So much for SMART.

5

Users / Re: Why Do Media Directors Exist?

« on: September 29, 2014, 10:23:47 am »

Might sound shallow and insignificant,  but in addition to the previously mentioned reasons, the look on visitors faces when they walk in and I pickup my gyration remote and bring up the floor plan on UI2 alpha blending while watching live tv....priceless....

Agreed. The overlay is pretty awesome and that's where LMCE as an integrating option is fantastic. It also means that even the least smart TV can be "smart" because the media-director provides the smarts... and it provides consistent smarts across any brand of TV / display.

I personally love the concept of a media director - it is very scalable - can be very small and low power (Rpi) or heavy duty for doing bigger work if that is your requirement.

My only gripe, and Andrew hinted at it earlier, is the video/ hardware support issue - but I'm going to post about that in a separate thread as I have some thoughts on how we as a community might be able to address that.

James

6

Installation issues / Re: 1004: Nvidia GT240 black screen after update

« on: May 09, 2014, 09:20:26 am »

You can also try to go through the av-wizard again. Shift key during startup, right?

Have never used this myself - I always ssh into the MD and just run /usr/pluto/bin/RebootwithAvwizard.sh (or similar).

7

Installation issues / 1204 snapshot 28804 - so far so good

« on: March 14, 2014, 08:53:34 am »

 

Have installed on my core/hybrid very smoothly and fast. Slowest part was all the user/room setup admin.

Have setup my z-box (Zotac AD04) media director with only minor issues. A few hiccups but I'm at UI2 medium and it seems to be going ok.

Will report on any further oddities and, at some stage, see how my Intel GPU HP Notebook MD works....

8

Installation issues / Re: 12.04 - video config (AVWizard)

« on: March 05, 2014, 09:35:41 am »

Sure:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (primary) (rev 0c)

Incidentally, my Radeon ATI works.... sort of... it has its own issues...will get back to that. But the point is that I think this particular issue is GPU dependent.

Unfortunately I can't test 12.04 further until next week as I'm dropping back to 10.04 for the weekend to impress visitors ;-)

9

Installation issues / Re: 12.04 - video config (AVWizard)

« on: March 03, 2014, 09:16:37 pm »

No, it's hosed.

Relevant line in xorg.conf.log

15009 Mon, 03 Mar 2014 11:16:54 +0200 Empty display driver. Will not continue. This shouldn't happen

10

Installation issues / Re: 12.04 - video config (AVWizard)

« on: March 03, 2014, 01:32:05 pm »

OK... working with snap 28788.

Hybrid/Core install went, MD Has come up fine but took ages to get to AVwiz.... on 3rd reboot kept blanking the screen and a mouse pointer appearing for a moment before going back to text. I left it for about 1/2 hour and when I came back it was at AVWiz but couldn't get anything better than 1024x768 UI1. As before, in 10.04 I can do 1280x1024 UI2 with this rig so something wrong there....

Just finishing Sarah and I'll snoop a bit more.

11

Users / Re: Best Approach to Controlling a Network Device

« on: February 25, 2014, 08:03:23 pm »

CentralMedia - get hold of Thom in IRC if you can. He's still super busy at work but if I'm not mistaken the forums aren't notifying everyone (at least not notifying me) of posts on threads they've contributed to at the moment so he may not be watching this.

It would be sad to see this one die when it seems so close and I'm pretty sure Thom is the one who can help.

James

12

Installation issues / Re: 12.04 Snapshot 28755: As far as I got

« on: February 25, 2014, 05:54:59 pm »

Whoops - I've just found out the "no internet connection" during the installer is how it is supposed to be.

So no-one panic or follow my hastily added fix above please.

13

Installation issues / 12.04 Snapshot 28755: As far as I got

« on: February 25, 2014, 05:47:34 pm »

Afraid my core has finally given up its motherboard or PSU.... sadly in the middle of testing the latest snapshot of 1204. so until I get those sorted, I can't be of further help.

However, just to report back--

It may be just me, but I had the issue again of no internet during install. Right at the beginning when the system checks if there is sufficient hard drive space and internet. Again, I quit the installation and allowed the desktop to come up and then checked for the problem.

This time it wasn't DNS (like last time) but was rather that the interfaces (NICs) weren't configured at all. ifconfig only showed l0 interface.

ifconfig -a showed all 3 so I edit /etc/network/interfaces and added a line for eth0 and then brought eth0 up. Thereafter I was able to run the install from the desktop and, as far as I got, things all looked good.

Code: [Select]

lines added to /etc/network/interfaces:
iface eth0
auto eth0 inet dhcp

bring eth0 up:
ifup eth0

Hope this helps someone if it wasn't a problem restricted to my hardware.

14

Installation issues / How to put the snapshot onto a USB thumb drive (flash drive) rather than DVD

« on: February 24, 2014, 10:42:49 am »

Going through DVDs at a rate of knots with my 12.04 attempts so I finally bit the bullet and found out how to install from thumb drive (usb flash drive).

This may be old hat to everyone else but I couldn't easily find info in the forum or wiki so I wikified how I did it below in the hope someone else will benefit.

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/USB%2BThumb%2BDrive%2BInstallation

Yay, no more DVDs... which are a real PITA.

15

Installation issues / Re: 12.04 Media director really slow to ssh and almost impossible to login at tty

« on: February 23, 2014, 07:14:03 pm »

PS - phenigma

Don't beat yourself up over the testing... there should be more of us doing it and this stuff would be picked up earlier. Sorry I took so long to get my 12.04 test station up. And you guys have been working really hard at it. Thank you.