LinuxMCE 0704 RC1 Released

[DTS]

Download here: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3752495

Info here: http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php?title=Version_1_1&curid=1939&diff=4235&oldid=4228

[Zaerc]

That's great, now if only the sources would surface as well...

And not to be a negative nancy, but is that version jump really necessary?  What's the point in trailing the ubuntu versions when the goal is to run on other distro's as well?  This way we'll end up with version 21.38 even before the bugs are properly ironed out.  Please take a hint from the Linux kernel and Debian, there is absolutely no point in artifically bumping up version numbers.  Or do we have a marketting department as well now? 

[sandos]

Ok, now seeding. Will have to try install this tomorrow.

I really don't care about the version number. If it tracks Ubuntu thats fine with me. I assume/hope 7.10 adaptations will be fairly simple so that were not getting a huge delay when that comes out.

[cckrobinson]

Can anyone tell me what's different between the 1.1 Beta2 and 0704 RC1?  It would be really nice to see release memo detailing the bugs that were fixed.

I've been looking forward to this release.  I assume I can't "upgrade" but instead I need to do a complete reinstall? 

[bulek]

Hi,

I'm also curious if RC1 includes update mechanism, so further updates would be much easier than clean reinstallation as it is now ?

Regards,

Bulek.

[Pastor]

Hi Guys

This is great news, thanks to the LinuxMCE team for this release. Just to be sure do we have to reinstall both Kbuntu 7.04 and the RC1 of Linux MCE? Or do you just reinstall over the previous version of LinuxMCE?

Thanks again.


Paul

Hi

Can the above question be answered I will be installing RC1 tonight.

Thanks


Paul

[DTS]

Digg it: http://digg.com/linux_unix/LinuxMCE_0704_RC1_Released

[Zaerc]

Digg it: http://digg.com/linux_unix/LinuxMCE_0704_RC1_Released

If that's all the info we second rate community members are going to get then I'll just wait until the 1.1 final, provided that somebody can actually be bothered to update the SVN for a change.

[DTS]

Has anyone installed it yet? I am also curious about the changes from beta 2.

[teedge77]

i installed it today. worked ok so far. its actually has videos during the setup now. i dont actually have any devices to setup except a zcu000, that i am supposing i have to do manually as it wasnt detected. i did have trouble getting the admin page to open. theyve cut out updates through kubuntu and suppsedly linuxmce handles updates for both kubuntu and linuxmce. i have yet to find a way to update manually or anything about updates at all. i tried changing the resolution also....it said that it had to restart and that when it did the audio video wizard would start but it didnt. so...guess i will work on that some. it uses the kubuntu live cd during the install also. i used isos for linuxmce packages and for the cahce cd and then just put the kubuntu dvd in. it cahced the kubuntu dvd to the hard drive and went throught the install. i didnt check any logs or anything and only spent a couple hours on it. much smoother than 1.0 i can tell you that much. well...anyway....hope to see more soon about what peoplke like/dislike and how its all going. once i get it going nicely then ill ghost it and start getting additional hardware to try and add on.

[Zaerc]

Has anyone installed it yet? I am also curious about the changes from beta 2.

Me too, so... where's the changelog?

[Pastor]

Hi guys

I installed it to last night instalation went very smootly as per teedge77 post. The caching of the Kubuntu cd seemed to take forever, I thought initially that the installation had stopped. There was an  option to install a piece of software called "Lame" with the software to paly encrypted dvd's. I chose to install both. I set it up and played with it for a few hours. I like the new videos I think that they add a professional touch to the install. There have been a number of changes to the LM Launcher just extra options.

I have noticed some small changes such as the interface seems far better designed and integrated there is now a red outline when you choose an option which makes it easer if you are using a Wii or gyro remote.

 There have been a number of fixes for problems that I had been having with 1.1b2 mainly that I was able to setup my spare dell pc as a MD (not via network booting) and it worked first time and looks great. My Microsoft remote issues seem to be fixed as well. Still having problems with my Squeezebox it was recognised and the software installed but will still not show my music collection.

It also seems faster at cataloging, the media on my external drives was catalogued very quickly within around ten minutes of the install and all my content was then available. Some DIVX videos that had refused to play previously now play without issue.

The compting option has some new entries for You Tube, Google video, Weather and Traffic. There are also new progress bars which include more info and these are very useful.

My initial thoughts are that this release seems much more integrated than the previous ones and there seems to have been some work done on the interface it also seems to load faster than previously. My first experience is very promising and I am very impresed. Thanks to the team for this release.

Thanks

Paul

[cckrobinson]

I just installed RC1 today as well.  I initially tried to remove\purge the beta2 installation and install RC1 over the top.  That proved to be a mistake.  I won't go into the details, but I don't recommend trying it.  I quickly decided to do a clean install of Kubuntu instead.  The initial install aborted because it failed to install Lame.  I haven't dug into why yet, but I'll be sending in the logs.  On the 2nd attempt I choose not to install Lame and the install went smootly.  The install was faster than the Beta2 but it still takes a while.  It takes about as long for LMCE to cache the Kubuntu disk as it took to install Kubuntu from scratch.

Impressions:
I'm very very very pleased.  All of my show stopper issues have been resolved.

1. The Xine aspect ratio playback is problem is completely fixed.  It automatically detects the correct aspect ratio for any source material.  They also added a nice menu to change the zoom and aspect ratio manually.
2. The MythTV integration seems to be improved.  With the Beta2 I was constantly having difficulty connecting to the backend.  That problem is now gone.
3. MythTV would continually flicker when navigating through the screens.  That seems to be resolved.
4. There are a few subtle UI improvements that make for a much cleaner presentation.  The screens seem to render more quickly and the red highlighting around a selection is a nice touch.

Things that worked out of the box:
1. MCE2005 remote was detected and installed.  The key mappings are spot on.
2. HDHomeRun - Detected the device on the internal network, scanned for OTA channels, and allowed me to enter my zap2it provider.  Both tuners worked perfectly.
3. PVR-150 - Detected the card and allowed me to enter my zap2it provider.  This is by far the easiest mythTV integration I have ever been involved with. So far I have not needed to run myth-setup manually.
4. 5.1 and PCM audio work perfectly in Xine.
5. Dual Network card configuration was detected.  I have an internal gigabit network up and running, and my Laptop was detected by the orbiter.

Things that didn't work out of the box:
1. No audio inside MythTV.  I had to manually configure the ALSA settings to make it work.
2. LMCE didn't detect my eSATA drive or my secondary IDE drive.  They were detected by the Beta2 so I'm not sure what's going on.  Kubuntu sees them fine.
3. I wasn't prompted to run the AVWizard.  It wasn't a big deal because I'm using a custom Xorg.conf for my display.  Not sure how it would have gone if I didn't already have a known good config.

So far I'm very pleased.  Thanks so much to everyone involved in the project!

[webpaul1]

>> but is that version jump really necessary?  What's the point in trailing the ubuntu versions when the goal is to run on other distro's as well?  ...  Or do we have a marketting department as well now?

No marketing   The most common problem with the beta 1/2 was that people were installing it on the wrong Ubuntu version.  So I figured syncing the versions would be better and make it clearer that this only works with 0704, and the next release for Kubuntu will be 0710, etc.  As far as other distros, what I was thinking of doing was making all the versions trail the respective distros.  So the Kubuntu version could be KU-0704 and KU-0710.  If, in June, there's a release for, say SuSe 20, then the LinuxMCE that goes with it would be LinuxMCE SU-20.

This isn't ideal.  But since LinuxMCE is an add-on and not yet included in the distros, I was trying to find a way to prevent people from using the wrong version of LinuxMCE for their distro, or using the LinuxMCE for Kubuntu on Fedora, etc.  Any other suggestions are welcome.

You're right, though, that 1.0 shouldn't have been 1.0, and should have been a 0.9 or something.

[webpaul1]

I'm going to do a change-log and post the sources next week when the final one is released.  There is a new update mechanism.  And also a backup/restore.  The beta 1/2 and RC1 won't likely cleanly upgrade because all upgrades will assume you're starting with the final release as a base.  the beta 1/2 and rc1 are for tests to confirm it's all ok.  but once the release is out, it will keep updating itself.  This has been tested a lot.