PC as Media Director (PXE)

[brononius]

Hey,

Is there somewhere a good manual/wiki that describe how to setup a media director?
Just bought a small and silent motherboard (MSI-E350I1-E45) for my livingroom.  No harddisk, only the motherboard and a DVD reader.

In LinuxMCE, i've added a Media Director, inserted the IP and MAC.
And waiting till the compilation is done.

When i now boot it PXEboot, everything boots well (in my eyes).
But it ends with a login prompt? With the 'hostname': Moon352.
I suspected a nice LinuxMCE orbiter screen or simular.

Did i do anything wrong? Or am I missing something?  


ps for testing, i'm using a VGA connection instead of the HDMI output. But i suppose that this won't be an issue?

[Marie.O]

Remove your MD device that you have created, quick reload your router, and just plug the board in. LinuxMCE automatically sets up everything for you, i.e. you do not need to add anything manually beforehand.

[brononius]

I've done this, but then the MD (pc) doesn't boot cause missing image.
And LinuxMCE doesn't seem to pick up machine to do something with it...

[l3mce]

I am assuming you did a network install. This is all embedded in the DVD install.

You need to undo whatever you have done and run sudo /usr/pluto/bin/Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh    then when you plug your media director in it will create the specific image for that device all automagic like.

[brononius]

I've installed it from the DVD.

And when i run /usr/pluto/bin/Di...., it results in an error after a while:

Processing triggers for cracklib-runtime ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Can not write log, openpty() failed (/dev/pts not mounted?)
Setting up lmce-windowutils (2.0.0.45.12081326353) ...

Setting up lmce-mythtv-scripts (2.0.0.45.12081326353) ...
Setting up pluto-mythtv-player (2.0.0.45.12081326353) ...
ssh: connect to host dcerouter port 22: Connection timed out
ERROR 2005 (HY000): Unknown MySQL server host 'pluto_main' (1)
ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'dcerouter' (110)
Waiting 3 seconds so that myth backed is able to actually create the schema
ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'dcerouter' (110)
ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'dcerouter' (110)
ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'dcerouter' (110)

[l3mce]

* l3mce sniffs

Smells like a networking problem.

[brononius]

The script and database are running local (core)...
Not sure where i need to look for a network issue.

For the moment i`ve recreated manually the MD.
The core is building the image,  i'll try it once more that way...

[l3mce]

Stop creating the MD manually. That isn't gonna work.

The reason I said that it seemed related to networking was "ssh: connect to host dcerouter port 22: Connection timed out" then a bunch of failures to connect to the db on the core. It is not sshing to itself... so I am confused what you are saying is happening.

Please run, as root, /usr/pluto/bin/Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh | tee > /var/log/dctbz.log
and get me that log please.

[phenigma]

I've installed it from the DVD.

And when i run /usr/pluto/bin/Di...., it results in an error after a while:

brononius: Is diskless_createtbz.sh finishing or stopping at this error?

This error will not prevent MD creation afaik.  This is an error at the time of creation of the mythtv_player within the diskless image chroot creation process.  The diskless image in the chroot is trying to contact the mysql server on the dcerouter, it cannot resolve the address.  afaik this is normal behaviour during the image creation, at least that is what is has been doing for me and I have no issues.  Again, this indicated error should not prevent the MD creation at all.  I've added raspbian image generation to this script and I have tested it *many* times here for ubuntu i386 diskless image creation and I have had no issues.

If you add an MD manually it will not have it's /usr/pluto/diskless/XX directory structure created for you automatically.  You can manually cause it to be created by selecting the MD in the webadmin and choosing "Rebuild Image".  But this should not be necessary, the system should be detecting it automatically.

Side note to L3, diskless_createtbz.sh already creates it's own log file of it's activity and displays the name of the log file when the script starts.  log_file=/var/log/pluto/Diskless_MD_Creation_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).log

J.

[l3mce]

Yeah... don't know what I was thinking... thanks phenigma.


By the way bronius... do not upgrade until a new build can happen. A lot of things are broken atm with regard to display that will be resolved just as soon as a build can happen.

[brononius]

brononius: Is diskless_createtbz.sh finishing or stopping at this error?

I was a bit impatient i think.   

The error 'ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'dcerouter' (110)' needed to be about 20 times on my screen, and took about 15 minutes. After that, the installation went one without errors .

The end lines of the Diskless_CreateTBZ.sh:

Code: [Select]

Setting up lmce-plymouth-theme (2.0.0.45.12081326353) ...
update-alternatives: using /lib/plymouth/themes/LinuxMCE/LinuxMCE.plymouth to provide /lib/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth (default.plymouth) in auto mode.

Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-42-generic
Fri Sep 14 07:42:21 CEST 2012 - Cleaning up from package installations...
Fri Sep 14 07:42:24 CEST 2012 - Creating the compressed tar image file, this will take up to 1 hour depending on your system...
Fri Sep 14 08:02:48 CEST 2012 - Building the initial initramfs and vmlinuz files for PXE booting
Fri Sep 14 08:03:00 CEST 2012 - Diskless media director image setup completed without a detected issue!



When i now start my pc, it takes a long time to load. About 20 minutes?
When the status bar is at the end i had following results:

• One time i hit a key on my keyboard, and my screen went black
• One time i had a mouse cursor, but that was it

Now trying again...I'll not give up...

ps i hope that this boot procedure will be faster once completed. Else i'll see to insert a HD. The media director needs to be fast!
Else my girlfriend won't be motivated to use it... 

[JaseP]

I don't know if this helps,... but that CPU (E-350) features an integrated Radeon HD 6310 GPU,...

PS: I found this;
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=116996

Seems the XBMC folks have got this going as good as anyone...

[l3mce]

There is a new snapshot. Please install from that. It is your best shot at 0/little config.

http://linuxmce.iptp.org/snapshots/LMCE-1004-20120914161926484.iso

[phenigma]

I was a bit impatient i think.  

The error 'ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'dcerouter' (110)' needed to be about 20 times on my screen, and took about 15 minutes. After that, the installation went one without errors .

I will look at this.  It doesn't take that long to fail connecting and continue on my systems but I'll see what its doing and determine if it needs to make the connection or not.

Also, your MD *should* boot at reasonable speed.  Install from the snapshot as L3mce suggests.

J.

[l3mce]

You will not need to run the TBZ file... and chances are everything will "just work". I would put those chances pretty high at the moment.