Messages

Wow man.. did you even read my post?


I have read that Wiki, and I also stated I saw where it claims as long as it works with Linux, it'll work with LMCE... I understand that.  I was simply asking if anyone knew of a more definitive list of compatible cards.  Or people with working DVB-C cards could give me the model they are using.  The reasoning behind asking this, is I have found thousands of HCL lists for compatible hardware with Linux, and none of them are consistent.  I refuse to trust my wallet to a "guess" as which DVB card I should buy.  Why do I feel like i'm repeating myself?

Serge,

In all honesty, unless somewhere else has a miracle fix, I have run into those identical problems.  They only happened when I tried to upgrade my bt-tv based tv tuner with a better PVR-150 MCE.  Also I when I tried changing out the sound card.  The sad truth is, during the installation process, lmce detects and installs appropiate drivers for your current hardware, ignoring everything else.  You basically have the same two options I had.

1. Wrestle, fight, and research how to get the proper kernel modules loaded, change all the assoicated configuration files manually to reflect your new hardware, then somewhere coax the LMCE interface into using the new equipment.

2. Use the DVD installer and just re-install(30mins on my piece of crap slow computer) and breath a huge hmm of relief.

Suffice to say, when I added new hardware after the installation, I experienced some un-preditictable results.  It took me over 20 plus installs on the same machine to get it the way I wanted it.

Trust me, life is easier if you just re-install.  It's probably too late, but I didn't bother adding anything important to my installations until I fully tested all the features I wanted to work, because I knew I would end up re-installing again if I found something that didn't work quite right.

I concur 100% with the previous 2 analysis.

Might I suggest using bittorrent to download the DVD installer and use the link to the official torrents located here.
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Mirrors

If you need a bittorrent client, I suggest uTorrent, for it leaves a small footprint and does not require a genius to operate.
http://www.utorrent.com/

This is the same identical method(except I have a torrentflux box and not uTorrent) and location I downloaded my DVD installer.  I have used this same image accross 7 different computers, more then 50 plus installations, and have not seen the behavior you mention.

Anyone,

Does anyone have a link, or some information about a more definitive list of compatible HD tuner cards under LMCE?  I looked on the Wiki, and most are analog tuners, the 2 digital tuners they mention are beyond the scope of ebay and I refuse to buy anything for this project brand new or special order.  I also saw one guide that mentions as long as the card is supported by the linux kernel.  So I did some searching for compatible HD tuners support by the kernel, and again, the information i'm being presented with just seems unreliable.  All the lists I find are in-consistent to the next one I find.  Some cards are listed on one HCL (hardware compatibility list) while those same cards are missing from the next HCL i find.

Anyways... my question, is there a list of known working HD cards with LMCE other than the list of analog cards in the Wiki?  Or has anyone a working DVB-C card they can vouch is an easy setup?

I am currently using a PVR-150 MCE I purchased from Ebay, but to my dismay, I purchased a LCD HDTV tv shortly after purchasing the  PVR-150 MCE, and my cable company actually broadcasts clear QAM signal (and my generic ass lcd tv doesn't have a built-in QAM tuner, only the airwave HD tuner.) Which wasn't really an issue for me since all my media is coming from the LMCE box and nothing else is connected to the TV.

1st
When I install Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon everything works fine, on the fresh installation I start the first LinuxMCE install, let the PC to use the proprietary nVidia driver when prompt and get the system without graphic once restarted

I assume you are installed Kubuntu OS first and not using the 0710Beta3 DVD "all-in-one" install?  I also assume this is probably because you need to dual-boot on the harddrive? If not, I highly suggest using the DVD method.

2nd
Fresh Kubuntu installation, new start for LMCE which now works but at VGA res, once installed it asks me to change to the right driver and I say yes, the system works until when prompts me to the login page, I cannot get through of it.

Again, it sounds like you are install Kubuntu first?  Is this correct?  The reason I ask, is because i've installed LMCE probably 50 times now using the DVD 0710B3, and i've never seen it ask me which video driver I want to use, it just "detects" it and installs the appropiate driver.

3rd
Fresh Kubuntu installation, enable nvidia driver, select proprietary driver, installed LinuxMCE and screen goes blank after reboot, number keys have no effect

Ok, now this one sounds like your getting somewhere.  I would normally suggest to try and re-create this, then follow the instructions to set your outputs and resolution using the number keys as outlined here...  http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/AVWizard#How_A.2FV_Wizard_Starts except you claim the number keys have no effect.  Maybe my experience with one of my LMCE boxes can help you.  I have this one box, that does the exact thing you are talking about, after it copies the dvd to the hard drive, reboots, and get past all the text based booting notification, the screen goes blank.  I tried using the number method also and it didn't work for me.  But, I thought to myself, if the wizard is up, I can remeber the keystrokes used to accept the default output of VGA, at the default resolution of 640x480 at the default refresh rate of 60hz.  When the screen goes blank, I hit enter once to take me to the output selection screen, then I hit enter one more time to accept the default of VGA-640X480@60HZ.  Of course make sure you have a monitor connected to the VGA output, and viola my screen appeared.  So it's at the ugly 640x480, but at least I know it has something to do with the video selection and not LMCE locking up or anything.  I never found out why it did that, but it's an NVIDIA 6800 PCI-E card, and when it starts, it does not display the wizard on the default VGA port, in fact it doesn't output on any of my video card ports, VGA, DVI or S-VIDEO, but as I said, using the method I mentioned worked so it at least pointed me in the right direction.  I am still not able to select the correct output, because i've never gotten the number thing working.  I may be too dumb, not sure.   I ended up just using another box and re-purposing that one.

I have one question though, on this last scenario you mentioned, do you at least hear the system beeping (from your pc speaker not your soundcard)  made by the booting/wizard process? If you are, then the wizard is starting up fine, it just isn't outputting on the correct port of your video card.  Exactly like my problem.

I quote myself for the reason that I need somebody´s help, I thought that forums like this one were intended to, even if one asks the most stupid question.
Let me remind you that this may be stupid for you but it´s a problem for me, if anybody has a minute to waste and will answer me I will appreciate it.

This is totally un-called for.  You have no reason or right to make any such comments.  First, no-one in this community gets paid for their information and assistance they provide, this community is made of volunteers.  Second, not everyone in the world is going to have any idea what to tell you, so they may skip your post because they have no input or suggestions. Third, to be completely honest with you, your original post is not very clear as to their symptoms.  For example, you said "and get the system without graphic once installed"  what do you mean without graphic?  black screen?  vesa mode? low colors? Then you said "new start for LMCE which now works but at VGA res" what is VGA res?  640x480? 800x600? 1024x768? Did you get UI2 or UI3 modes working in that scenario?  The 3rd explanation however was short, concise and to the point, bravo.

Yes, I plan on it.  Thanks..

guys - I will do that... thanks...

I've run into this before and after a little googling usually don't have a problem fixing it. I think things have to be done in a specific order is the hardest part. Hope this helps. -Ruben

Yep, I did a little googling and managed to figure it out, it was exactly as you said...



Otherwise, all issues I had are now solved, thank you everyone... awesome community...

Just FYI: since i mentioned having problems with my raid...

The superblocks on the drive still had existing raid info in it.  I did a mdadm -examine and found out it thought it was still part of /dev/md4 so I did a mdadm manage /dev/m4 --stop then i did a mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/hd## on each device... solved the problem.

stevanbt,

I'm curious if you tried installing 0710b3 yet and if your issues went away?

Ok, it works now... this is what happened.

I recieved my capture card and remote in the mail yesterday, so I was ready to go into production with the box.  I added the hardware, and re-ran the wizard.  It picked everything up, I chose to use MythTV as my PVR software... then when I tried to watch TV, it said "Cannot play this media"... so I said screw it, and decided to do one more re-install now that i've collected the last bit of hardware I plan on using in this box...

Now, with that said, I re-installed and accidentally chose the UI mode 1 with no 3d effects.  No big deal, i'll change it on next reboot right?  Ok, so the AV wizard finished, the core/md start up and present me with the second wizard that configured all my devices for me...  As I begin to go through this wizard, LinuxMCE detects my windows box as usual... and I proceed as usual.  Except there is something different here...

Previously... when I chose UI mode 3... and the second wizard fires up... and it see's my windows box... and it asks me for the username/password for the windows box... then the subsequent shares it detects after that never ask me for a username and password... I assume this is because I supplied it for the main device (windows box)...

Currently when I chose UI mode 1... and the second wizard fires up.... and it see's my windows box... it DOES NOT ask me for a username/password for the main device (windows box) instead... when it starts to see the subsequent shares, it asks me a username/password for each individual share on the windows box.  This is different than when I chose UI mode 3.

Now at this point I ask myself... "Is choosing the different UI mode really affecting the way it's detecting my shares and asking for input?" I was very skeptical, it had to be something else I did different.  So, I decided to re-install AGAIN this time choosing UI mode 3, and I recorded every single step all the way to getting a drink, and using the bathroom.... Guess what... it asks me for username/password for the file server/main device/windows box and not the subsequent shares it detects... I allow the wizard to finish and check the shares, and they are NOT mounting...

Now.. again, I re-install AGAIN... this time choosing UI mode 1... and sure enough, it DOES NOT ask me for username/password when configuring the file server/main device/windows box but instead asks me for a username/password for each subesquent share detected thereafter.

Ok, so I allow everything to finish, the shares are mounted properly and all my media is there.  So at this point I am not looking to see what is different than before.  This is what was different.

In the Admin Website...

On the top menu bar...
Advanced -> Configuration -> Devices

On the left device list.
CORE -> Windows Box
at the bottom where the two fields are labeled username/password.  My previous installation where I was choosing UI mode 3... these boxes were filled out with my username/password.  Obviously because the wizard asked me for the username/password when it detected the windows box(parent device)...

On the installation where I chose UI mode 1... these fields were blank.  Obviously because it did not ask me for a username/password when detecting the parent device (windows box).

CORE -> Windows Box -> Shares
at the bottom where the two fields are labaled username/password.  My previous installation where I was choosing UI mode 3... these boxes were blank. Obviously because it is supposed to retrieve the username/password for mounting from the parent device.

On the installation where I chose UI mode 1... these fields were filled out with my username/password. Obviously because it asked me for a username/password for each individual share it detected.

So... to sum it up... place username/password in the individual child devices (shares) instead of the parent device.  This seems to only be true for windows vista boxes, as when I connect my wife's laptop running windows XP, it works with both methods...

After properly mounting my shares and cataloging all the information, I was able to switch back to UI mode 3 and everything is fine.  It was simply a mis-configuration of the parent/child devices.  I attribute this bug to Microslop Winblowz...

But, as we all know, things are always too good to be true.  Since I made it past this milestone, I went to set my raid up again.  When I drop to command prompt to partition and format my 3 250gb drives for the raid, it gives me an error about /dev/hdb and /dev/hdc being in use and I cannot format them.  But I can most definately partition them, and write the table, just no format.  I checked to see if they are mounted, they are not.  Now when I partition and format my /dev/hdd, it works freaking great... wtf man... anyways, my solution to this is probably remove the drives, boot completely up, shut back down, add the drives, and try again.

but when I am worried about, is that I previously had these drives in a raid... but now i'm prepared to wipe them and start over.. I suspect the previous raid has written some kind of information to the boot record, or tables, and when I attemp a format, it sees this and halts.  The reason I suspect this, is when I try to run fsck on them, to check for errors, it says this...

fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
fsck: fsck.mdraid: not found
fsck: Error 2 while executing fsck.mdraid for /dev/hdb1

But I just deleted, and recreated a partition... wtf is it talking about fsck.mdraid?! Well, like I said, it must still think it's in a raid... the admin web panel does not show any raids detected.  So I guess i'll be playing with the command line raid utility...  only problem is i've never used the mdadm utilities, i've already used the raidtools utilities... so looks like i'm doing some more research..


Thanks everyone for all the suggestions... you guys are freaking awesome...

as if it matters, since everyone else has scaled you samb..whatever..

but you whine and complain about the authors of linuxmce not being good developers or professional.... you are a hipacrit... you know what? simple...

you didn't install linuxmce in a test environment first, which everyone in the development community knows is "best practice".  even I myself, my first time, used an old ass pc i had lying around before installing it on my main pc, and i'm an amateur... what an idiot...

besides... everytime i've installed any kind of operating system, i've played with the jasOS (macos X for intel/amd), all sorts of flavors of linux, and of course windows xp, and windows vista....

each time I proceed with the installation, i stop and ask myself "how is this going to partition my drive... is it going to make assumptions, or will it ask me... hmm maybe i should read the instructions first, maybe do a few searches in the forums... yeah i'll do my research first"

I understand... about installing non-full releases, but honestly, it solved all sorts of issues for me.  And yeah, downloading it without a torrent client sux...

Wow, thats sounds crazy.  I have a 1 question and 1 suggestion.  What kind of video card are you using?
and
I think you should try 0710 Beta 3, from what I understand, they have fixed ALOT of bugs since 0704.  Honestly, it's what I did, I started off by isntalled 0704, ran into all sorts of issues and as I was researching those issues on the forums, 80% of the time the solution was implemented in the latest release, so I just downloaded the latest and installed it.  Most of my issues dissapeared.  I am stuck with only 1 issue left now, and thats not even LinuxMCE's fault, it's Windows Vista's incompatibilty with the way linux handles smb/cifs shares.

Coolinjones,

It's funny I am wondering the same exact thing.  As I was navigating through vista's plethora of security policies, I found in the network sharing control panel that "Password Protected File Sharing" was turned off.  In essence, making it an open share as you said.  With that in mind, I wonder is because linuxmce is specifying a username and password that vista is rejecting it.  I went to turn "Password Protected File Sharing" on, and test it again... but I had already broken my LinuxMCE box, so I have to re-install again tonite to test this.  I really need to just install vmware for all this testing and keep a copy of the image with a clean install.

BTW: I had previously enabled LM, NTLM and NTLM2 to get windows working with a different linux box so I know that wasn't an issue.  It's funny how microsoft shipped vista with ONLY NTLM2 enabled and LM, NTLM rejected by default.  As if they are imposing their so called wanna-be standards on us.  LOL on mr gates....

Royw,

I am going to try that too, I would never have thought of that, i've used linux products for over 13 years and never had to do that with previous version of windows.  Leave it to mr gates to screw all of us up...  It seems from all this troubleshooting... that my problem is all mr gates fault.  Why do I suddenly have an urge to strangle someone with the name Bill.

BTW: I changed the workgroup of all my windows boxes to "LinuxMCE" for consistancy.



Again, thanx guys, I think we are getting close... I can't wait to get home and try this, especially considering my video capture card AND my gryo mouse came in the mail today.  Woohoo....