My LinuxMCE 7.10 experience (so far)

[Pastor]

Hi guys

I have been lurking in the forums for over 6 months now I did successfully have a 7.04 system up and running without too many issues. Went back to Vista and windows Home Server. I recently decided to try out 7.10. The system that I installed it on is as follows:

Case: Antec P180 Silver and black
PSU: Tagan modular 430W
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 320MB - replaced with an NVDIA 720 128mb card
Harddrive 1: WD Raptor 74GB 10000rpm
Harddrive 2: Samsung T133 400GB 7200rpm
RAM: 4GB (4 * 1GB) OCZ-EL-XTC Platinum 4-5-4-15 PC6400
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965-DQ6
Cooling, 3 * 120mm case fans, fan controller
CPU Cooling: Zalman 9500 copper cooler with fan controller
Optical One: Samsung 18X DVD /-RW/RAM (SH-183A)
Optical Two: LG 18X DVD /-RW/Ram (GSA-H42L)
CPU: Intel E2160 Dual Core Pentium

I used the DVD (RC1) installer and ran into problems with the Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 320MB, I tried all the suggestions on the forum but gave up in the end. I went to PC World and bought a cheap NVDIA GEFORCE 7200 with 128mb RAM and this works great. AVWizard ran first time and I was able to use UI2 with alpha blending and it looks superb. I went through the set-up without any problems (wish I had all the cool plug and play gear). I still need to setup my receiver, TV and Sky Digital box - another days work!.

My biggest problem initially was how to set the networking side of the system, it took a bit of work and some messing with my cable configuration (I can provide more info if needed) but it is now working correctly and the CORE pc is acting as my DHCP server . I have been able to diskless boot my spare pc and laptop to act as media directors. It is a very powerful system and I love the flickr art (great W.A.F).

I have got a lot of help and inspiration from this forum so thanks to everyone here for the great advice. If you are struggling a bit then keep trying it will be worth it in the end. This is a great system I just need to convice the wife and daughter to use it. The wife is happy with Sky + and gets mad at me when something isnt working because I am tinkering!!!

Paul

[freymann]

I went to PC World and bought a cheap NVDIA GEFORCE 7200 with 128mb RAM and this works great. AVWizard ran first time and I was able to use UI2 with alpha blending and it looks superb. I went through the set-up without any problems (wish I had all the cool plug and play gear). I still need to setup my receiver, TV and Sky Digital box - another days work!.

 Congrats on your new toy! 7.10 Release seems to be doing a good job.

 I have the nVidia GeForce 7200 (with 256MB Ram) in two of my machines and they are working great.

This is a great system I just need to convince the wife and daughter to use it. The wife is happy with Sky + and gets mad at me when something isn't working because I am tinkering!!!

 I was politely reminded the other day by my better half that I'm getting away with a lot more than other households with all my HTPC and X10 Home Automation wants! She prefers "easy" and the same controls in each viewing area. I do believe I'll be needing a couple more gyro mouses ;-)

 I'm revisiting LinuxMCE myself and I'm happy to report I'm having terrific success! I'm running a 3 station MythBuntu system but I'm able to boot media directors over the network by moving a few network cables to a different switch and playing while nobody is around, to be able to test the LinuxMCE core. When I'm done, I put the network cables back in the other switch and everything runs off the MythBuntu system. This is a good time to tinker as most of the regular TV Series we watch are over so nothing will be missed when I'm playing around.

 That being said, today I just ordered another hard drive, a DLink 1Gig NIC and two USB UIRTS. All my testing has been successful and I've been unable to 'break' the thing. Hopefully I can reinstall on the larger drive later when I'm ready and rebuild again with the same luck. The good thing is I can still tinker all I want with the new core while the rest of the house runs as is, and when I'm ready I can swap out the mythbuntu core with the LinuxMCE core and carry on.

 It's good to hear success stories. It's unfortunate that some of us have struggled and gave up. I think the publicity of LinuxMCE is bringing in more newbies which is great, but that also means some not so good experiences too. Since I was in that category a few months ago, I'm a little more sympathetic to those with problems. ;-)

 Cheers!

[totallymaxed]

Hi guys

I have been lurking in the forums for over 6 months now I did successfully have a 7.04 system up and running without too many issues. Went back to Vista and windows Home Server. I recently decided to try out 7.10. The system that I installed it on is as follows:

Case: Antec P180 Silver and black
PSU: Tagan modular 430W
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 320MB - replaced with an NVDIA 720 128mb card
Harddrive 1: WD Raptor 74GB 10000rpm
Harddrive 2: Samsung T133 400GB 7200rpm
RAM: 4GB (4 * 1GB) OCZ-EL-XTC Platinum 4-5-4-15 PC6400
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965-DQ6
Cooling, 3 * 120mm case fans, fan controller
CPU Cooling: Zalman 9500 copper cooler with fan controller
Optical One: Samsung 18X DVD /-RW/RAM (SH-183A)
Optical Two: LG 18X DVD /-RW/Ram (GSA-H42L)
CPU: Intel E2160 Dual Core Pentium

I used the DVD (RC1) installer and ran into problems with the Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 320MB, I tried all the suggestions on the forum but gave up in the end. I went to PC World and bought a cheap NVDIA GEFORCE 7200 with 128mb RAM and this works great. AVWizard ran first time and I was able to use UI2 with alpha blending and it looks superb. I went through the set-up without any problems (wish I had all the cool plug and play gear). I still need to setup my receiver, TV and Sky Digital box - another days work!.

My biggest problem initially was how to set the networking side of the system, it took a bit of work and some messing with my cable configuration (I can provide more info if needed) but it is now working correctly and the CORE pc is acting as my DHCP server . I have been able to diskless boot my spare pc and laptop to act as media directors. It is a very powerful system and I love the flickr art (great W.A.F).

I have got a lot of help and inspiration from this forum so thanks to everyone here for the great advice. If you are struggling a bit then keep trying it will be worth it in the end. This is a great system I just need to convice the wife and daughter to use it. The wife is happy with Sky + and gets mad at me when something isnt working because I am tinkering!!!

Paul

Well... we have some nice vdr enhancements coming which might  make your wife like LinuxMCE a bit better ;-)

Welcome!

Andrew

[colinjones]

Andrew - sorry to badger you, but you know I'm keen to see VDR get there!

Will we ever get to the point with the UI were either the VDR OSD or LMCE Orbiter menus control VDR exclusively? At the moment under RC2 it seems to be a mix and gets very confusing and difficult to go back and forth between the different menus.

Esp for the OSD menu "colour" buttons - they don't work with the Fiire remote - they still operate as shortcuts to Audio/Video/TV/Pics

It seems easy to kick off an instant record, but getting back to stop it or play it are difficult. The LMCE UI menu for EPG and scheduling recordings is very erratic, and the OSD schedule doesn't seem to work properly because of the colour buttons issue again.

And the remote's DVD up/down buttons change channels but the actual main up/down/+/- buttons don't do anything...

Don't suppose you could outline what your guys are working on for the VDR integration and what the end-game might be? Just really want to switch over to TV under VDR as opposed to the crappy DVB tuner in my TV