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1

Users / Finally started my install, but can't install kubuntu....

« on: April 11, 2010, 04:44:25 pm »

Okay.  I have custom built what I hope to be my LinuxMCE core and media directors.  I have four motherboards mounted in a case, with four power supplies, four power switches, fans and 6TB of storage.  Each motherboard can be turned on or off independently. The bottom motherboard in my stack is the core. Based on a Tyan S3115GM2N motherboard (no nvidia graphics, but dual nic, and an atom server board) it has a 64GB flash drive connected for the system files and three 1TB hard drives in a backplane arrangement for storage.  The other three motherboards, for media directors, are Asus AT3N7A-I's.  The next motherboard up from the Tyan board has another three 1TB hard drives connected via SATA backplane.  This motherboard is for the media director in the lounge.  The other two motherboards have no attached storage.  I have on order four DVB-S2 C 2104D usb tuners on order for my satellite feeds which I hope to connect to the core and to the lounge media director (two to each).  The intention is to leave the core and the lounge media director on at all times, and turn on the others as required (one will feed to my dining room, and the other will provide a central audio source and/or act as a media director for the kitchen).  All of the places that screens wiil be located are within a 5m cable run of the rack installation.  Currently none are connected via HDMI, rather they are all connected to an old KVM switch in the rack via VGA and ps/2 to usb converters.

Ultimately I will connect a cd/dvd drive via usb to the lounge media director.  I also hope to connect usb soundcards in various configurations (I have ten lying around and like the idea of moving the soundcard away from electrical noise from the server rack). As a result I'm trying to use a bootable usb drive to install Linuxmce.

Switching only the core on and booting (successfully) from usb flash drive (using the snapshot published on the 8th of this month) I get the following. It asks for my language and then reaches the install menu. I select install kubuntu. The sliding blue bar indicating progress runs for a few minutes, and then freezes. No progress.

Any thoughts?

2

Users / Atom core, media directors, and remote control.

« on: January 31, 2010, 03:44:29 pm »

I'm intending buying these next week:

Core:  Tyan S3115GM2N, Intel 945GC, Intel Atom N330 CPU (dual gigabit ethernet)
Media directors:  Asus AT3N7A-I, Nvidia ION, Atom N330 CPU

The intention is to locate them in an electrical cabinet and cable directly to wall mounted LCD's.  I will have a couple of nokia n800's as orbiters.  Will I be able to control everything about the media directors from these (if I leave the media director on)?  Will I be able to pair them with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse?  Do I need to connect a IR receiver (USB-IRT) to be able to use a remote control with them (they will be in a cabinet and not in direct line of site to the rooms)?

Any helpful suggestion on the best way to handle media director control would be appreciated as this will be my first hands on use of the system.  Also any comments on the motherboards would be appreciated.

Thanks.

3

Users / How to setup for DVB-S2 reception in the UK?

« on: December 02, 2009, 12:45:33 am »

I have a problem in understanding what it is viable to do with recording from multiple feeds. I'm based in the UK, and have built a house with various elements suitable for home automation, with the intention of using Linuxmce to tie them together.  I need to determine the core hardware.

I will have access to the following feeds:

4 Digital television feeds, intended to directly feed the two main freeview LCD televisions (LG LH3000's) and the two standalone pvr's (topfield 5800's).

4 Fixed satellite feeds, pointing at the freesat satellite - intended for freesat reception.

4 feeds from a motorised satellite dish.

Ideally I would like to integrate as many of these as is possible/reasonable into a Linuxmce setup.  Without having a feel for it, I don't know what processing is required, nor do I know how successful a Linuxmce setup would be at organising programming  for a motorised dish.  

How many tuners can a reasonable powered core handle? Any board recommendations would be appreciated.  How can I get enough tuners given the number of available slots on modern boards.  Would it be possible to move tuners out to media directors, possibly using usb sticks (media directors will be nvidia ion based boards)?

Am I better keeping one source (the fixed freesat feeds) for the Linuxmce setup, and using the others for other things (television aerial feeds for the televisions direct, and the motorised dish for satellite settop boxes that can drive the motor but don't attempt any recoring).

Any advice would be gratefully accepted, including anything regarding developments on DVD-S2 tuners - particularly, if available, twin tuners.

4

Users / Multiple external soundcards for multi-room audio?

« on: March 05, 2009, 08:27:57 pm »

I have a Toshiba Multimedia Center Audio/USB hub and remote control.  The SB0500 and RM1500 remote appear to be slight variations on the Creative SB Live24! External.  It's supported through a recent patch to ALSA (sometime in late January) in latest kernals.  I seems to work in Intrepid, but not in Hardy.

A couple of questions.

Would this be too problematic to get it working under LinuxMCE?

How many of these external soundcards could I reasonably run under LinuxMCE bearing in mind the need to connect them through the USB controller?

I have one of these, but they are currently stupidly cheap (10 UKP), and would like to get more to use them for multi-room audio.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice that you can offer.

5

Installation issues / RS232 interface on an onkyo sr706...

« on: January 09, 2009, 02:04:40 pm »

...does anyone know what this does, or is capable of doing? Even better does anyone know how?

I've been looking at the manual, and tried searching for information, but not found anything.  Any help with this receiver, or more specifically controlling it, would be greatly appreciated.

6

Installation issues / KNX, EEE Top touchscreen, Tuners in MD rather than core?

« on: December 18, 2008, 06:41:54 pm »

Hello all. Just a quick introduction.  I have a long standing interest in this project (interested in it initially when LinuxMCE didn't exist, and I followed the meagre information available on Pluto) as the automation solution for a housebuild project that I have been engaged in (for seven long years - don't ask, long story - my "grand design").  The project is reaching a physical conclusion of the build and I'm approaching the final specifications that I build in as the AV and controller equipment.  Just a short description of what I currently have: Fully Cat6 wired house. KNX Automated lighting, sockets, and upstairs temperature controller for the radiators. Downstairs underfloor heating with programmable zone temperature controllers and an ip interface. Two satellite dishes with quad LNB's - one fixed, one motorised. The Comfort alarm with KNX interface, and comprehensive PIRs to detect presence in rooms, will be used to turn on certain room lights under set circumstances.  A KNX weather station for temperature, pressure, rainfall, and ambient light will help with the light measurement.

The core will sit in a rack in the central electrical cabinet, and each media director will sit in a recessed panel in the walls of the living room and dining room driving large full HD (1080p) screens mounted on the walls.  The KNX system will be programmed and have well located distributed switches capable of controlling the lights.  It would be nice if LinuxMCE could override this for more sophisticated scene setting control, and to allow for switching the relays controlling the power sockets (to switch off things for energy saving, and to control lamps plugged into 'ordinary' power sockets). I have some mono-speakers mounted in certain rooms, driven by t-amps.  I would be interested in the best way of piping music/announcements through these mono-speakers - 6 in total (in addiition I have a nice stereo+surround setup for the living room)  I also I have a nice portable 1080p LCD widescreen monitor, on which I intend to mount an eee Box on it's VESA mounting, and use as a portable machine to be plugged into the Cat6 outlets in whichever room it currently resides.  I have what I intend as the core system in a dual opteron 2U server - because of its size it is ill suited to take tuners, and I also will need something like 4 Freeview, and 8 Satellite (primary target freesat HD compatible) - the intention being to supply 2 televisions with direct freeview aerial connections, to have two ordinary dual tuner satellite boxes for the two primary televisions, and to have 2 freeview, 2 motorised dish tuners (HD?), and 2 fixed dish HD tuners (to Astra for freesat - Sky a possibility?) connected to the LinuxMCE system for view/record.  It strikes me that the new eee Top would make a lovely portable TV/controller for this system - anyone using it?

I apologise if this post offends anyone.  I have read at length over many years, and some of these issues remain unresolved in my mind.  So just to recap, the questions:

What is the current state of integration with KNX? What is the best interface to connect it to LinuxMCE, and how?
Anyone using the new eee Top with LinuxMCE? How does it perform? Are touchscreen drivers available?  Is 1080 (p or i) a non-starter using the eee Box as a MD for the full HD screen?
Can I have no tuners in the core, but add them all to the MD's for the primary screens, or am I better getting the tuners in the core, and using my 2U server (with huge storage) as a storage server? Is network/remote storage supported (at all) by LinuxMCE?

If nobody has anything to offer on these, or considers them inappropriate questions, I will proceed on the basis I currently understand, and see how I progress. These are valuable questions to me, however, and I will appreciate any efforts you might make to set me on a better course.  Ultimately as I progress with my install and setup I will be happy to put the knowledge gained into helping others.

Thank you all, and major kudos to the developers. I feel LinuxMCE offers a unique opportunity in Home Automation and AV distribution.  I'm such a geek that I'm building my house around a series of related broad hunches, in the hope of proving them.  Your help in that appreciated.

Paul.