New System

[Kasper]

During the holidays when I have extra time, I will be building my first Linuxmce system. Does anyone have advice for a newbie? Do/Don'ts for my new system? Any advice helps tons!

[davegravy]

Research, and a healthy dose of it.

I recommend looking through a lot of other users' profiles to find out what hardware is popular in the community. If you have something that everyone else has, chances are better that it's going to get software support, and that it's going to work without much hacking.

If you have a significant other that will be depending on the system, setup the system on the side first (in "non-production" mode) until you learn the ins/outs. Learn from my (and many others') mistake! 

Though the system and documentation is intended to be usable by the nearly-computer-illiterate, it's definitely not achieved that yet. If people in the forum aren't answering your questions, there's a decent chance your question isn't specific enough, or your answer is easily found in the wiki/forums... This crowd isn't overly tolerant of those who are not resourceful.

Good luck!

[Marie.O]

Or think about getting a pre-configured system. For Europe, the best choice is probably Dianemo, for the US it is lmcecompatible.com

[dcubox1]

I am also installing a new system during the hols.....What would be a good MD to purchase....must have surround sound output!
Also looking at buying a new tv any opinions on the new LED type vs Plasma?

[Roman]

You can try with LMCE 8.10 which is quite stable but due to the old kernel there is not much HW support (axternal devices like DVB Receivers).
I played with 8.10 a while and now I am setting up a 10.04 system. in 10.04 you can upgrade the Kernel to at least 2.6.38 which already helps a lot.

Important is an NVIDIA GPU. Downloading the NVIDIA Firmware from the NVIDIA Website to install it on LMCE works straight forward. If you get to a blue consiole screen with "X error" ever mind, just (re)install the NVIDIA driver and it will work again.

Buy 2 intel NICs. I struggeled a while with my internal ones.... the intel NICs work from scratch.

Install LMCE with a screen plugged to DVI port. It saves you from strange behaviours and it works. Afterwards you can change to HDMI or leave it on DVI

Last but not least write down every step in troubleshooting to get a solution. It helps a lot in doing and saving time. I am nearly sure that you will install the system more than once from sratch ;-) Like I did ;-)

cheers
Roman