Will this setup work?

[fenderocker]

LinuxMCE looks really interesting, and I really want to install it in my house. I just had a few questions. I drew up how I would like my media directors/core:

1. I was wondering if having that one media director hooked up over wi-fi would allow it to stream movies/tv from the core, or if it wouldn't have a fast enough connection.
2. Can I have the core hooked up to the switch, or does it NEED two network cards. I saw that you had a diagram of a hybrid hooked up to a switch in the wiki, but I didn't know if it would work with a core.
3. Seeing as I wouldn't be using all the features that linux MCE has to offer, would using linux MCE be overkill?
4. Can I hook up a usb webcam (I know it works with linux, I have it installed on my ubuntu box) to the core and be able to look at it from the other two computers? If not the core, can I hook it up to a media director, and look at it on both media directors?
5. I've already got a good amount of movies ripped as .avi, can I put them on the core and use them with linux mce? if not, can I do that with any file types?

[1audio]

With 1.0 you need to boot the MD's over the network. WiFi pretty much precludes that. With 1.1 you have the option of a local boot for an MD. I have not tested it and don't know if it will work or manage the WiFi. But I'm very interested and are others. An Ideal situation would be a USB stick boot on the MD (no hard disk). But its all uncharted territory.

[fenderocker]

so you're telling me that wifi wouldn't allow for network boot? I would be willing to install what's necessary to boot on the HD of that box, or on a usb stick/cd.

Still, does anyone have answers to my other questions?

[1audio]

2. Can I have the core hooked up to the switch, or does it NEED two network cards. I saw that you had a diagram of a hybrid hooked up to a switch in the wiki, but I didn't know if it would work with a core.
    You can use the core into the switch. It doesn't need to be a hybrid, but it come for free so why not? Boot it as a desktop PC. You don't need two NIC's.
3. Seeing as I wouldn't be using all the features that linux MCE has to offer, would using linux MCE be overkill?
     Depends on how many features you need or want to explore. Again its free so why not try it?
4. Can I hook up a usb webcam (I know it works with linux, I have it installed on my ubuntu box) to the core and be able to look at it from the other two computers? If not the core, can I hook it up to a media director, and look at it on both media directors?
     I don't know enough. I have only use the IP security cameras.
5. I've already got a good amount of movies ripped as .avi, can I put them on the core and use them with linux mce? if not, can I do that with any file types?
      You should be able to if you have the codec's installed. Getting the ID my disk to catalog them is an unknown to me. Perhaps someone else has been down that road.

[fenderocker]

Thanks for the help 1audio.

[totallymaxed]

so you're telling me that wifi wouldn't allow for network boot? I would be willing to install what's necessary to boot on the HD of that box, or on a usb stick/cd.

Still, does anyone have answers to my other questions?

Hi,

Most WiFi adapters do not have the PXE boot code in them to handle the network boot. However even if they did I doubt whether you would enjoy the performance much.

We are testing the new 1.1 ability to boot up from a local hard drive and so far it looks to work really nicely. So it might be possible to get acceptable performance via WiFi if only the media was sent across the network connection... we have not tested that though yet.

Hope this helps

Andrew