High Hopes....dashed to bits...lol

[hollywood]

I myself have been tryin get a decent MMedia OS put in the house here for months, every one's a stinkin failure..
(talkin bout the MS line of micro-crap stuff) Server 2003...man whatta pain...Windows MC OS.....another pain, and a joke...

I was stoked after reading about kubuntu-MCE, sounds like everything i've been trying to achieve. Well I can't even get it installed to see what all the xcitements about. Lil history bout me here quickly..computer savvy since '90, forced early into M-$ofts platforms(i know..lol), am NT guy @ school system here. as far as linux experience...tried red hat once....lol

Ok, heres my paltry dilemma, I have successfully d/l the kubuntu7.10 2-cd set, the single cd set for KubuntuMCE, then the DVD single iso for kubuntumce710rc2.(combined,slipstreamed w/ MCE??) Well my first attempts to install (barebones intel 1gHz 512ddr w/ older agp ati 3d rage pro..{it works})
not saying this was gonna be my core just yet, just want to install and familiarize myself w/ the GUI and OS, and other features. first attempt was w/ the 2 cd set....man it went smooth, OS setup, reset vid parameters, and away it goes....great. So all day friday, pretty much got around the OS w/ out incident. Nice...time to install the next part.... MCE710.
CD install
Heres where it goes all wrong....from what I've read, cd should autostart and MCE should get installed. Well no auto start, cd folder shows a deb folder and a MCE deb install package, maybe klik on the installer package???...gets me nothing but a box w/ description, info, etc. something about "all requirements met"... It does have a tick box there to "Install package"...ok, do that then.....then hard drive light and rom drive lights goe to flashing...lookin like its gettin put on...but then it stops, and that descrip box shows up again.....let it sit over nite and still nothing

DVD install
OK, this not doing it, fine, I have the DVD full install. So reboot w/ dvd in, it all goes fine, select drive, put in a password, warned about erasing drive..(no biggy)....it proceeds, go's thru a bunch of things, finally saying "copying files to hard drive" everything looks good, then start to get a lot of I/O errors, specifically around the language pack deflates.. get this in RED, "I/O Failure while copying from DVD"
ok, bad burn i say,...nope tried 3 different blank media's, different burn speeds, different burn progs (even tried the one in kubuntu710) even various combinations of dvd rom's & burners, all w/ same effect. OK, maybe bad iso d/l???....nope...found 2 different types (sizes varied) both do the same.

so in a nutshell, i CAN get the core OS installed via 2-cd's, CANNOT get MCE installed via cd add-on nor full dvd setup...

[pigdog]

Hi,

When you install via CD's...

First you install Kubuntu.

Then when it's installed and restrted you put in the MCE CD disk 1 and install the LMCE installer program.

When the disk is initially started you get the deb window click install int installer it says 100% and then you close the window.  You now have an icon on the desktop called MCE installer.  Then click that and follow instructions.  Did you read the install howto?  http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Installation_Guide

Hope this helps.

[hollywood]

think i've tried this w/ same results, get that deb window...see a scale goto 100%, then its does nothing
I am going to try this again tho. Have to install 710 again 1st, will post results, and thank you very much pigdog 

[Marie.O]

Hello hollywood,

could you verify the MD5SUM of your burned DVD before trying to install it? Maybe even three or four burns did have problems.

rgds
posde

[hollywood]

checksums are fine.....well after tryin this on current setup (Mo-Bo on desk..lol) 3 more times,n after reading pigdog's reply I decided to see if it was maybe lack of HorsePower??, crappy Mo-Bo or RAM/Processor, so I setout the board I intend to use (A7V8X, P4 2.20gHz,2 gig DDR, 2-160gig drives, 9-in-1 MMC/SD card USB, ATI Radeon 9250 (256ram) 8X AGP) Well I could tell right off the bat, this was gonna be different somehow, because of the sudden speed increase overall in responses and install time. And after repeating what I had previously tried, and w/ what pigdog said, it now is on second cd, installing MCE...woot woot!!!!
So in general, I CANNOT tell ye what made the difference except a total harware swap...lmao
I only wish I would have tried the Full DVD install first on this new setup.
Thank you to all who replied w/ helpful tips, and don't worry, I am sure this won't be my only bug...lol, but am savvy enough between years of computers, being a supermod @ a couple sites, a network admin, and electronics repair tech, I can usually figure things out after tons of helpful forum thread reading and many hours of hands on..

~Hwood 

[pigdog]

Hi,

If you run into problems, like MySql errors due to choosing a bad mirror, one thing to do is copy the MCE CD1, CD2 and Kubuntu .iso's to your hard drive, restart the MCE installer icon and select the got the iso files path.  Here's help if needed.  http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=5318.0

Another problem you might experience is "black screen".  Here's another thing to read.  http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3931.0

These are a couple of the beginners quirks that can get you.

Hope these aren't needed.

Cheers.

[hollywood]

thanx for the heads up PigDog...hey...why didn't somebody warn me this was gonna take a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time to install...lol
Still doin its magic here (been bout an hour and 15 mins so far, will report success or ...yikes...failure

[colinjones]

hollywood - sorry to hear about your problems! Just a few tips in case they are helpful....

1. Don't use the mirrors, always use the bit torrents - its almost unheard of to get a corrupted download as every "piece" (usually about 0.5MB) is checksummed as it comes down, discarded and redownloaded transparently if there is an issue. Have seen many posts from people who ended up with corrupted downloads from the mirrors.

2. Really try to get the DVD install working, it is highly likely that you will end up reinstalling lots of times and the DVD is infinitely more convenient! This isn't so much to say that the installs are unstable, but more that once you start playing and see how much it can do, it gets far to easy to be "overly adventurous" and break things

3. Start with i386 rather than AMD64, there is some suspicion that AMD64 is a little unstable in the release version of 0710 (RC2).

4. I have read many posts from people with the IO errors during the expansion of the TAR file from the DVD - other than download corruption, the only other issues I have ever seen as the cause have been burning too fast or on one occasion a dodgy IDE cable on the DVD drive of the LMCE system. Seriously, I have built at least 35-40 times with many different versions, and on several occasions got that error - reburning at the slowest speed has always fixed it. But you should consider the other corruption options like cheap media, possibly using DVD+R instead of -R, vibration during the burn, try swapping out your LMCE DVD drive - remember it is expanding a very large tar file, even a tiny error will screw it. It is just an untar command so there really isn't any software compatibility issue involved, just simple data corruption, so focus on eliminating that. Unfortunately, that it is a single large tar statistically increases the likelihood of a failure (but increases the chances of a good install if it gets through it!)

5. Do yourself a favour and get an nVidia video chipset.... currently far better supported, far less compatibility issues

6. If you have onboard and card graphics, try to disable the onboard chipset completely - otherwise you will likely get the black screen problem pigdog mentions. Can be worked around, but is inconvenient (one way is to allow it to get the black screen, reboot, and go to recovery mode in the GRUB menu, then edit the xorg.conf file to choose the right PCI BusID and driver, then reboot again)

7. Be familiar with the keyboard shortcuts (keys 1 through 0) used to choose the video connector out and resolution during the AVWizard in case you have one of the other problems that cause "black screen".

8. Look up fine tuning options for the xorg.conf file to get the best possible experience (particularly EDID, DPI, Modeline)

[colinjones]

thanx for the heads up PigDog...hey...why didn't somebody warn me this was gonna take a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time to install...lol
Still doin its magic here (been bout an hour and 15 mins so far, will report success or ...yikes...failure

As I say, use the DVD - the CD installation method will take upto 3 hours!! You can do the DVD installation in about 40 mins... CD is more compatible (but you haven't had those issues yet, just data corruption) I have found DVD to be more than adequate for the vast majority of my installs....

[hollywood]

hollywood - sorry to hear about your problems! Just a few tips in case they are helpful....

1. Don't use the mirrors, always use the bit torrents - its almost unheard of to get a corrupted download as every "piece" (usually about 0.5MB) is checksummed as it comes down, discarded and redownloaded transparently if there is an issue. Have seen many posts from people who ended up with corrupted downloads from the mirrors.

2. Really try to get the DVD install working, it is highly likely that you will end up reinstalling lots of times and the DVD is infinitely more convenient! This isn't so much to say that the installs are unstable, but more that once you start playing and see how much it can do, it gets far to easy to be "overly adventurous" and break things

3. Start with i386 rather than AMD64, there is some suspicion that AMD64 is a little unstable in the release version of 0710 (RC2).

4. I have read many posts from people with the IO errors during the expansion of the TAR file from the DVD - other than download corruption, the only other issues I have ever seen as the cause have been burning too fast or on one occasion a dodgy IDE cable on the DVD drive of the LMCE system. Seriously, I have built at least 35-40 times with many different versions, and on several occasions got that error - reburning at the slowest speed has always fixed it. But you should consider the other corruption options like cheap media, possibly using DVD+R instead of -R, vibration during the burn, try swapping out your LMCE DVD drive - remember it is expanding a very large tar file, even a tiny error will screw it. It is just an untar command so there really isn't any software compatibility issue involved, just simple data corruption, so focus on eliminating that. Unfortunately, that it is a single large tar statistically increases the likelihood of a failure (but increases the chances of a good install if it gets through it!)

5. Do yourself a favour and get an nVidia video chipset.... currently far better supported, far less compatibility issues

6. If you have onboard and card graphics, try to disable the onboard chipset completely - otherwise you will likely get the black screen problem pigdog mentions. Can be worked around, but is inconvenient (one way is to allow it to get the black screen, reboot, and go to recovery mode in the GRUB menu, then edit the xorg.conf file to choose the right PCI BusID and driver, then reboot again)

7. Be familiar with the keyboard shortcuts (keys 1 through 0) used to choose the video connector out and resolution during the AVWizard in case you have one of the other problems that cause "black screen".

8. Look up fine tuning options for the xorg.conf file to get the best possible experience (particularly EDID, DPI, Modeline)

1. concur w/ bt's, been a BT fan for years

2. Curses....already setup now w/ MCE intact, haven't played yet

3. i386 architecture, check

4.the cd/dvd burns turned out to be ok, i like to burn my media slow for less error correction anyways, suspect previous crappy Mo-Bo

5. Have a PCI-E vid card w/ Dual DDR(512mg), am seeing what this ati can handle (has HPDMI, S-vid, & VGA outs)

6. No onboard video-mess here, never had it....never will!!

7. thanks for keyboard tips...have run AV Wizard successfully apparently...lol(writing this post on it)

8. You know I will, and want to say BIG-ASS Thank you and the others here for the advice and help....stay tuned...lol

PS: Gonna drop Tuner card in next, and yes, 2 lan's there already (1 add-on, 1 built-in)

[tschak909]

hollywood: I'm one of the devs, and I want to seriously point out a few things about the ATI cards under LinuxMCE:

(1) ATI drivers currently do not properly support Composite and OpenGL running simultaneously. AMD has mentioned that this will be fixed at some magical point in the future, but as of yet, the drivers don't work.

(2) The PnP code for detecting the cards is currently broken. The drivers are not installed correctly, almost certainly forcing you to force install the drivers, which will cause problems later when you try to install other media directors.

Again, when we recommend NVIDIA, we have very specific reasons for doing so, bordering on outright forcing you to do it.


Also, have you set up your network configuration as recommended? You need two Network (NIC) cards. One connected to your modem, the other connected to your internal LAN switch.

-Thom

[hollywood]

yes yes, have read about nothing but Nvidea & linux. Duly noted and will replace
but so far this ati works ok, even running mce ok, but have only gotten bareboard, peripherals, P-supply on desk currently. Yes have read about best w/ 2 nic's, and thats covered. I got Nvidea here for it when it goes in case, as well as IR's, TvTuner-FM and such. Still need to shop for remote, lookin@ that gyro one (name escapes me), and still need to figure out layout overall, I'm not going to get extensive w/ this (don't care about voip or lighting controls.....yet...lol I'm just glad to see I got all this going so far w/ just a minimum of hassle. Thank you for the help, and thanks to all the peeps here, very good site for knowledge here, and am glad u guy's let me in....lol

 

[totallymaxed]

(1) ATI drivers currently do not properly support Composite and OpenGL running simultaneously. AMD has mentioned that this will be fixed at some magical point in the future, but as of yet, the drivers don't work.

(2) The PnP code for detecting the cards is currently broken. The drivers are not installed correctly, almost certainly forcing you to force install the drivers, which will cause problems later when you try to install other media directors.

Again, when we recommend NVIDIA, we have very specific reasons for doing so, bordering on outright forcing you to do it. :

Re (1) Well as long as you only want to use UI2 + Overlay the the fglrx driver (the official ATI driver) will work almost faultlessly with the ATI X1250 graphics chipset (the current standard onboard chipset in the ATI World) See the Wiki here for my instructions on getting this working http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers#Installing_The_ATI_Driver

Re (2) Well yes kind of... but if you choose a 6100/6150/6200/7200 Nvidia then you will have few if any problems.

All the best

Andrew