Messages

16

Installation issues / Re: How does one set up a core from DVD?

« on: August 21, 2008, 02:38:52 am »

Now I'll have to turn my second computer into a media station. I plan to install from the same DVD then uncheck "autostart core."

You might want to try changing your MD's BIOS to net boot...

Have fun,
Roy

17

Users / Re: Using the Core as a fileserver for the family

« on: August 19, 2008, 06:05:41 am »

Actually my system has been extremely stable (I haven't done an install since RC2 came out).  Most of multiple installing was during the last beta period.  It is good to have your hardware ready for the next release cycle

Have fun,
Roy

18

Users / Re: Using the Core as a fileserver for the family

« on: August 18, 2008, 11:56:46 pm »

Finally, you might want to keep your media and files on another machine anyway, so that you can rebuild your LMCE machine whenever you want without messing around moving all your data off again....

Or at least on a separate drive in your core.  This let's you use the DVD installer (which reformats the target drive) to upgrade or reinstall without erasing your data.  I also suggest that your media drive be a different size or brand from your system drive so you can easily recognize the system drive when running the DVD installer.  Example, system drive = 40GB, media drive = 1TB.  Also if you are the really cautious type, you can unplug the media drive, boot to make sure you unplugged the correct one, then install...

19

Users / Re: Is this a good graphics card?

« on: August 18, 2008, 12:20:03 am »

This is what recently happened to my eVGA 7600GS 256MB P/N 256-P2-N541-T2 card:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/royw2/2745659538/

It is a no-name generic cheap card made in China.  eVGA didn't even bother to put their name on a sticker much less the board...

The original fan on it was a screamer that I had replaced with a Zalman passive cooler.

Prior to the caps blowing, the issue I had was with the framerate slowing down after a few movies.  Plenty of threads where this is being discussed.  The current work-around is to quick reload the dcerouter.

Currently using a 9800GT which has a quiet stock fan.  I manually updated the drivers using the how to on the wiki.  The only issue is that the AVWizard gives a black screen and is suppose to beep (but my media case does not have a speaker) as a prompt.  Follow the directions on the wiki and blindly, deafly press the appropriate key.  Note, if it appears that AVWizard is not working, try pluging the video into the other connector on the board.  My 7600GS used the top connector while my 9800GT defaults to the bottom connector.

Note, there are known issues with nVidia drivers for 8xxx and 9xxx series boards.  In a nutshell, 2d is no longer supported in hardware and the drivers are remapping 2d operations to 3d, which does not mix well with how KDE4/QT is using 2d.  For details and and lots of complaints, see  http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115916

Good Luck,
Roy

20

Users / Re: VOIP infrastructure questions

« on: August 15, 2008, 12:34:12 am »

Thank you.  It's really nice to have confirmation that #1 works.  I've spent too many hours online trying to find that answer.  Once I've switched the house, then I can play with VOIP on my nokia n800.

Completely OT, but Thank You to whoever manages this forum.  I looked at asterisk's forum but it is 99% ads for sexual aids.

21

Users / VOIP infrastructure questions

« on: August 12, 2008, 02:35:49 am »

Howdy,

I'm ready to take the plunge and switch the house from POTS to VOIP.  After searching the wiki and forums I still have a couple of questions.  Any pointers, advice, opinions would be appreciated.

First the house is partially wired for 1GB ethernet and has partial wireless coverage, but three rooms don't have either.  I'm not adverse to running more ethernet wire.  I currently have 5 phones (2 phones have 2 wireless headsets for a total of 7 headsets).  Where my core/hybrid is, I currently do not have a POTS drop.

The three wiring scenarios I see are:

1) What I think would be easiest, if it's doable, would be to disconnect the POTS from the external phone line, then put a ATA (IAXy S101I?) where I have both a LAN drop and a POTS drop.  That would allow the existing phones to continue to be used as is.  Then over time I could migrate to VOIP phones.

2) The next scenario is the same as #1 except would use an ATA/PCI adaptor and require adding a POTS drop near the core/hybrid.

3) The last scenario would be replacing the POTS drops with ethernet drops, then either switching to VOIP phones or ATA adaptors at each drop.

What I'd really like to know is if one or more of the above scenarios is a NO-GO before I try.

My next area of confusion is in looking at VOIP services.  If I understand correctly, all I really need is a bare bones service that provides a sip id/gateway and a phone number (and a low cost  ).  All of the frills like call waiting/forwarding/...  will be handled locally in the LinuxMCE core/hybrid.

Is there a larger list of known compatible VOIP services than what is listed at:  http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/VOIP_Service_Providers?  Any recommendations for Texas?

Thank you,
Roy

22

Installation issues / Re: Replaced video card, now weird problem

« on: August 10, 2008, 06:49:56 am »

Sorry, wrong model number.  The card is an eVGA 7600GS 256MB P/N 256-P2-N541-T2 (I had to remove the after market passive heat sink to read the sticker). 

What's weird is that eVGA was not proud enough to put their name on the board, so the board is probably just a generic.  A sticker says "MADE IN CHINA".

I've played one movie with the new board (9800 GS) and did not notice any artefacts.

23

Installation issues / Replaced video card, now weird problem

« on: August 09, 2008, 03:13:06 am »

Howdy,

My nVidia 7300 blew some capacitors the other day (photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/royw2/2745659538/), so replaced it with an nVidia 9800 GT.  No X on first boot, then couldn't even get AVWizard to run.  So upgraded to the latest nVidia drivers (NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.12-pkg1.run) per wiki directions and had X working but the onscreen orbiter showing in a little bitty box centered on the display.  More hassles with AVWizard before I hit the winning combination of using the bottom DVI connector to my HDMI TV, followed by entering '1' on the blank screen AVWizard (no case speaker so no beeps).  UI2 without alpha blending.

Well and good.  Got Onscreen orbiter, screen saver working.  But when I use the onscreen orbiter to try to select Media, Videos nothing happens.  I can select all of the other Media sub-items (TV, Audio,...).  OK, I had one of my NFS systems off line, got it back on-line, problem still exists.  OK, try using my nokia n800 and the videos show up fine there (UI-1).  Rooting around in the logs and the only possibility I see is a comment that device 19 has not registered.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas, suggestions?

TIA,
Roy

24

Users / Re: Anyone using DVDProfiler?

« on: July 29, 2008, 03:13:08 am »

That is a good question and I don't have a good answer yet.  Here's the issues.

The first option is simply what I'm currently doing, saying boxed sets and multi-packs are not synced from DVD Profiler.

I've thought of allowing multiple DVDs to have the same ISBN then provide a shadow title that if defined would be synced to the LinuxMCE Title attribute.  I just don't see how to get the shadow title from DVD Profiler so would have to provide UI for manually setting.  Same for images.  This is a limitation of DVD Profiler, i.e., one ISBN, one title, one pair of cover images. 

I've thought of using DVD Profiler's Discs fields, but their usage just doesn't seem to fit.

Here's some examples:

The Adventures of Indiana Jones
* contains:
** Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
** Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
** Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
* Only the collection box has an ISBN, the individual disks do not
* The three titles are only listed in the Overview
* There are no entries in the Discs section (I know, correctable)

Back to the Future, Ma & Pa Kettle, all have the same style

In Broken Trail, the feature is on two discs and the Discs sections is:
# Description
1 Main Feature: Part 1
2 Main Feature - Part 2

A lot of single titles will have Discs sections like:
# Description
1 Main Feature
2 Bonus Materials

TV series usually will fill in the Discs section like:
# Description
1 Episodes 1-7
2 Episodes 8-15
...

The only other option I can think of is to replace the box sets entries in my DVD Profiler database with individual entries.  In other words force my DVD Profiler database to only contain one title per ISBN.  That still doesn't work on epic movies that take two DVDs.

While I'm leaning on the first option, I'm open to any ideas here.

Thank you,
Roy

25

Developers / Re: Maximum # of Performer attributes?

« on: July 28, 2008, 12:22:39 pm »

Really good idea.  I know some titles have non-standard characters (ex: AEon Flux, Deva Vu).  I'll write a query tomorrow to check performers for non-standard characters.

Thank you,
Roy

26

Installation issues / Re: Two Nics

« on: July 27, 2008, 08:45:17 am »

Nothing says you can't put your core behind another firewall.  I run:

wireless broadband router -> wired linksys(1) -> core -> home lan (including a wireless linksys(2) bridge)

Have fun,
Roy

27

Users / Re: Amazon Search = SLOW

« on: July 27, 2008, 05:15:08 am »

Ah, so it's Windows Media Services I should be blaming for mis-identifying a disk as part of a multi-pack or furnishing an incorrect title. 

I knew the images were coming from WMS, just didn't catch that the meta-data was too.

Thank you for the clarification.

Have fun,
Roy

28

Users / Re: Window Shares Keep Dropping ( Possible Bug !! )

« on: July 27, 2008, 01:28:23 am »

Please don't give advice on things you don't understand.  The addresses 192.168.80.2-128 have been reserved for MDs, and as such should NEVER be configured manually, unless you have at least changed some of the settings shown below.

I think we just found a bug then.  Take a look at:



So what I'm seeing in the above is everywhere it says "Device" should be changed to "non-MD-Device", or "Almost a Device", or "Not really a device Device".   

Seriously, the bug is that when static devices are added, their IPs are not being added to /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf.  It's an easy enough one to fix.  Here is a sample script that will add static machines in the database to dhcpd.conf:

  http://roy.wright.org/linuxmce/dhcpd-update.rb

The real solution would need to be integrated into pluto-admin and handle the delete case.  That's going to take someone who knows a little more php than myself.

Have fun,
Roy

29

Users / Re: Amazon Search = SLOW

« on: July 26, 2008, 09:33:38 pm »

Is the Amazon a hard coded thing or a scraper of some kind. How hard or wha would be the issue with using IMDB. What would have to be done to use imdb I guess is what I am asking, DEVS! now be nice this is just a question. 

Checkout the source, then grep for amazon.  You will notice there are quit a few php files that match.  Looking in them you will notice that they are using amazon's web API (basically exchanging xml fragments over http).  In my quick scan, I didn't see where the search is called on disk insertion, but seem to recall it using the local web server to use the php scripts.

HTH,
Roy

30

Users / Re: Anyone using DVDProfiler?

« on: July 26, 2008, 07:14:37 am »

I'm very interested in the error messages, if you can capture them that would be great.  I've done a couple of dozen pushes of Collection.xml without issue so it's probably some config issue I overlooked.

DVD Profiler does not included chapter info.  If you add the LinuxMCE meta data, either by using LinuxMCE's rip or pluto-admin FAMS, search Amazon, then the media file should have chapter info.  The dvdprofiler sync should not erase it.  It only replaces a few of the attribute types like genre, title, performer, studios that it has in common.

I did find a problem last night, the lmce:db:backup task doesn't work.  This was mostly a dev task for letting me grab the db from my linuxmce and copy it to my dev system.  Let me know if you need that task, otherwise I'll include the correction in the next release.

Thank you,
Roy