Topics

1

Users / Potential MD?

« on: December 10, 2007, 06:08:36 pm »

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/10/vias-artigo-pico-itx-ultra-compact-barebones/

Or too underpowered? One day I'll find a tiny kick-ass machine that costs nothing to use - and I'll buy loads of them! 

2

Users / Koolu Thin Client

« on: October 09, 2007, 02:42:32 pm »

Has anyone had any experience with this?

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2796.0

3

Users / Changing network cards

« on: October 08, 2007, 06:15:09 pm »

When I first made up my core machine I used a load of old parts, just to see if I got on with LMCE and whether it did what I wanted it to do. Consequently I used 2 god-knows-how-old network cards that I'm unsure of the speed or model of, and everything worked and life was peachy.

Now I'm getting a bit more serious. I've upgraded my internal hub to a gigabit switch, and bought 2 new D-Link DGE-528T network cards for the core machine (as well as some other goodies, like a Nokia 770 and wifi access point). I thought that it would be a simple case of swapping the old card for the new in my core, but when I did so, nothing worked. I couldn't see the core from any machine that it was supposed to be assigning IP addresses to, the core couldn't see the NAS drive, no machine on my network could access the internet etc. I concluded that the network cards didn't work (everything was lit up correctly though) and swapped them back to the old ones, which work fine again.

The question is: what do I need to do to get my shiny new cards to play nice with LMCE? I'm sure theres some easy step that I've not thought about, but what is it!?!?! 

4

Users / Ripping DVDs

« on: October 01, 2007, 04:24:06 pm »

I was just wondering what programs people were using to rip DVDs? I know that LMCE has a very nice DVD copier, but the resulting files are just so massive I don't think I can realistically use it. Its nice to have all the meta data and cover art, but 8Gb is just too much of a price to pay - so I am trying to consider other alternatives.

Obviously one solution is to create a divx avi from the DVD (my current favourite option I think), which means using another program to do so. Anybosy do this already and if so, what's a good program to use? I found this:

http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/

from a Google search, but have no idea what it would be like! I'm also open to suggestions that run on Windows as I have a machine that runs Vista too.

5

Installation issues / [SOLVED] Existing NAS Media?

« on: September 26, 2007, 10:04:30 pm »

Two problems down (ish), heres another one that I need some help with please!

I have a Maxtor NAS attached to the internal network (192.168.80.*) which LMCE picked up fine - good start! It then proceeds to pick up the 2 shares on the drive, 1 which I ignored as its full of config data and nothing else, and the other which I added as it has subdirectories containing a LOT of ripped audio (all MP3s) and video files (mainly divx AVI's). So far so good.

My problem arises when I come to actually view some of the content on the NAS. LMCE hasn't populated any of the media lists, so when I click on video I can only see the sample ripped DVD that I've been playing with during install - and theres nothing at all in the audio one! How do I get LMCE to fill these lists? I thought that it would scan the NAS and add the files automatically?

6

Installation issues / No mouse control during movie playback

« on: September 25, 2007, 01:26:12 am »

OK guys, I've got an interesting one for you! After battling with LMCE to get it installed and running, I finally get through to the lovely alpha-blended UI showing the nice fading pics. So I go ahead and stick in a DVD (I've already installed DVD CSS and the codec pack as suggested during the setup process) which plays wonderfully and automatically. Great, thinks I, as I go to check a different chapter, only to find that no matter which button I press on my mouse - nothing happens! The closest thing I get to recognition that I'm doing anything is if I right click I can see the 4-way arrowed crosshair thing for a fraction of a second before it disappears again.

I'm using an old Logitech wireless mouse, but have also tried it with a wired MX518, which did exactly the same thing. The only way (that I've found) to stop the DVD is to CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE and reboot the machine. I thought that it might be the DVD, so have tried 3 that have all done the same thing. I've also ripped one to the hard drive and tried playing that back, but have encountered the same.

Help!?! 

7

Installation issues / [SOLVED] Cannot get past the Kubuntu blue bar loading screen

« on: September 23, 2007, 05:56:23 pm »

Hi there,

I am a complete Linux beginner - this is literally the first time I have ever tried to install Linux in any guise on any machine, so I apologise if I'm being completely dense here!

Using the DVD install disc for Linux MCE, everything seemed to install correctly. However when the machine boots up I get the Kubuntu screen with the blue loading bar, which gets halfway full before the pc speaker plays a little downward scale of notes. The bar then continues to 100%, then there is briefly a console screen that says something about the "mdadm.conf" file and gives me a prompt to login to the dcerouter. Maybe a second later it changes to another console screen that says something about a helper script, then the pc speaker plays 4 notes that go low-high-low-high and the screen goes blank and I have to do a hard reset.

Any ideas? I'm using an old PC to install this on, which is a AMD Athlon 1.4 and has 512Mb RAM and a 120 Gb HDD. Its also got a Nvidia 4800 Ti SE graphics card and 2 network cards as suggested. I took any excess hardware out after the first couple of tries to install LMCE thinking that it could have been my old SCSI card that was messing things up, but I'm still getting the same problem. I know that the hardware all works as the machine was running Windows XP fine up until I installed LMCE instead.

Like I say - I have no Linux experience at all, so please make any suggestions baby-proof! Thanks very much!