Messages

nite_man,
Can you forward the information once you locate it?  I have been meaning to work on this for a while but have been fighting other issues with my integration and am very interested in this solution.

From  nite_man:
Generally LinuxMCE allows to create many diskless media clients - Media Directors (MD). They shouldn't have HDD and they are boot from the core. That approach lets you possibility to have non powerful PC as Media Director. But if you don't satisfy a boot speed or by some other reason would like to have MD with HDD it's also possible. Just install Kubuntu 0704 on that PC and run there LinuxMCE installator. It'll detect the core and offer you install just MD. Be sure that your core and MD are in the same network!

http://www.redhat.com/magazine/007may05/features/mac-mini/

Install Kbuntu 710 instead of fedora.

RonInSD,
Just make sure the 320 or 520 has enough power to handle LMCE.  I have worked some with the dsm-510 and returned it because it way underpowered.  The GUI that comes with it is slow as hell to the point I looked no further.  LMCE is not the lightest application out there....  The Appletv is the direction I have been looking at because I think it has alot more power at about the same price point (not positive on the specs of those 2 boxes).
Ebay you can get a an appletv for low 200s, dlink 320 is $99 at Frys in Cal.  and the 520 is $169 the last time I looked.

Maxed,
If we could get a good developer involved in the project to port it to the appletv we would be set (hint, hint)

Besides the cost, form factor, power usage, HDMI interface, Intel CPU and ram.  I cannot think of a single reason =)

Fanless is $899, wall mount is $499.  Still not a good comparison though.

From:
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV

Hardware Support

Much of the AppleTV's hardware is supported natively under the Linux kernel. In this section, we will be expanding on the Linux driver details.

Intel CPU Core

    * Speedstep functionality - WORKING

GeForce 7300 Go (NV40) Note: framebuffer fixes in SVN as of April 6, 2007 - please recompile

    * Official NVidia binary driver works without modification. Full 3D and framebuffer acceleration.
    * OSS NVidia driver works without modification (also provides acceleration)

(==) NV(0): Write-combining range (0x10000000,0x4000000)
(II) NV(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA)
   Screen to screen bit blits
   Solid filled rectangles
   8x8 mono pattern filled rectangles
   Indirect CPU to Screen color expansion
   Solid Lines
   Scanline Image Writes
   Offscreen Pixmaps
   Setting up tile and stipple cache:
   32 128x128 slots
   32 256x256 slots
   16 512x512 slots

    * HDMI - WORKING (DVI tested)
    * Component working using a single cable (chinch cable at the green video output connected to the yellow video input of my old 4:3 CRT-TV). Colors are fine and so you don't need a video converter box (as suggested in many forums). Tested using the binary nvidia driver and this config:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "Quadro NVS 110M / GeForce Go 7300"
#    Option         "MetaModes" "1680x1050"
#    Option         "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP,TV"
    Option         "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
    Option         "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
EndSection


Intel HD Audio

    * HDA-Intel driver recognized by default
    * Analog RCA - WORKING (see http://forum.awkwardtv.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=167&hilit=&start=70)
    * Optical SPDIF - WORKING
    * HDMI - apparently NOT WORKING

irDA interface

    * mactel-linux driver recognizes it - untested otherwise
    * first signal from apple remote is somewhat recognized. Any following signals are not reported. After reloading usbhid module another signal is reported (using cat with /dev/input/by-id/usb-Apple_Computer,_Inc._IR_Receiver-event-ir)

patch appleir.c to include the AppleTV IR USB id (#define USB_DEVICE_ID_APPLE_TV_IR 0x8241) in the same way as USB_DEVICE_ID_APPLE_IR and it will work.

    * Apple_TV_Linux_IR_Howto details the userspace method.

Broadcom BCM94321MC wireless

    * NDISWrapper Windows drivers - WORKING with a Dell Driver and ndiswrapper 1.41


USB

    * USB booting works when you disable ehci-hcd in kernel
    * possible to boot Linux from USB Flash memory?
    * USB HID working (keyboard, mouse), but not with ehci-hcd
    * USB Storage working (tested with usb memory stick), but not with ehci-hcd

ch0de,
You can get this working pretty easily.  LMCE does not need to take everything over, just give out DHCP addresses to MDs.  Like the previous post just stated put the address as 192.168.1.2 with a gateway of 192.168.1.1.  The 192.168.1.1 is your gateway and turn off DHCP on that device.  You can easily assign statics to the rest of the machines on your lan or use the DHCP on MCE to assign them.  Just manually set them up using the DHCP servers.  It works fine with a single NIC.  A lot of people on this board like to flame instead of help.  Sorry about it.  I frequent this board a lot less because of a lack of maturity.  Good luck on whatever MCE you choose.  You will find that a lot of people have done great work on this project.  They tend to get overshadowed by the flamers in a lot of cases.  Besides Paul, totallymaxed is a great resource that is quite helpful.  Thanks guys for your work here.

if these can be modded like the Linksys wrt then it would be a very cheap extender for Linux MCE.  So competition will hopefully bring opportunity for this community to grow.  As this market grows it will further bring prices down and we will have more choices for hardware for Linux MCE as well.

@ frys in CA for $99 for the gyration remote.  Cheaper online.

Links so you do not need to go to the other thread


Linux install not Kubuntu but should be doable
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV

Myth on Mac (should be doable to get LMCE on it)
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_MythFrontend_on_an_AppleTV

Link from 1audio on resources to get Linux on ATV
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/resources/appletv/

Darren,
Yes I agree the goal is full LMCE on it.  Right now to do so you have to install linux on the ATV and then get all of the drivers working.  Check the links on the other thread for more information on the install process and what is and isn't working.   I am pretty sure in a short amount of time the Linux install will be good enough to directly install LMCE on it with no major issues.  Until those are resolved is you want basic functionality you may want to go with the the Myth for apple install.  The best solution IMO be a LMCE that would natively install on OSx similar to the myth install I have linked to.  I will be trying both the linux and native myth installs and report back on how I do.   

Rdac,
We have been talking about this in this thread.
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2358.0

Getting linux on there can be done, but the best solution seems to be adding myth tv on the OS natively.  If we can get the distro to work natively with OSx it would allow both apple tv and the mac mini to be media directors.  I will be testing apple tv in a couple of weeks when I get the other functionality working.  Disadvantage is you lose the non myth functionality.  Links to get it in OSx are included in the thread above.

http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?/html/modding/usb_ir_receiver/solder_usb_ir_receiver.html


DO it yourself link =)  I have not tested yet.  Will in a few weeks.