Seriously..

[Clint07]

I've been reading the forums for the past week and Linux MCE has seriously interested me and I've decided to start building LinuxMCE core with 4 or so thin clients.

Quick Questions:

Can this do Skype?
Can you use a Bluetooth headset for when answering calls?
How do diskless thin clients work (I've been wanting to do something like this for a while and I can't figure it out!)
How should my set up be? (I want a cheap set-up but I also want it to do it flawlessly. I also have a ton of media. Should I put it all on the Hard drive of the core or should I use NAS?)
Can two or more thin clients access the core without interfering with each other? (i.e. one thin client is watching a recorded tv show another is watching a DVD from the Jukebox)
and One of the most important question is, can I access this through the internet (A la Slingbox or so?) If so I have a great project in mind .

Thanks for reading and responding  ,
Clint

[richardj]

Clint Im in the same boat as you, need all of your questions answered as well with a few more ...

can a pc running windows connect the the core as a media director  ?  ie. stream tv to your windows pc while you are working on it ?

[Clint07]

From what I've read, All you can do on Windows is control the remote. Nothing else =/..

[teedge77]

theres no media director support for windows....saying it only controls the remote isnt exactly right either....its an orbiter.....it does whatever you would normaly do minus playing the media on it. you can control the lights, make phone calls and start media and stuff on media directors.

[Clint07]

Eh sorry about that ^^. I was also wanting to know if this would work as a media director.

It's has a 1Ghz processor (Or maybe a 1.3 Ghz Processor.. What would be the minimum for good viewing and no lag?), S3 Graphics UniChrome Pro IGP (I saw that Fiire used a Unichrome video card and I was wondering if this one could alpha blend), Video out, 1  GB Ram and 1 PCI slot (Possibly for a video card or a wireless card).

That brings me to my next question, in order to connect to the core, does the computer have to be connected with wires (computer - ethernet - modem - etc) or can I use a USB wireless N adapter or a PCI card?

Thanks a bunch,
Clint

[fibres]

Hi Clint

I will try and answer most of your questions to the best of my knowledge.

It could probably do skype with some work. This will deffinaly not work out of the box and would need some extra software and some work configuring this. However it coudl be done.

As for the bluetooth headset I am  sure. I dont believe it is possible at present but might be in the pipe line.

Diskless thin clients is a standard way to have remote media directors. This is all plug and play. Once the core is up and running plug in a machine to the internal network aoot it over the network and it will set itself up.

You can store media either on the hard drive or on an external nas. This is upto you and I cannot comment on which would be better as I hav not used this with a nas. My setup whe I go live is gonna have a large raid array in the core for storage.

Each media director(thin client) can be used independently and each can perform a different task.

This cannot be accessed over the internet like clingbox.

Hope this answer most of your queries

Regards

[Clint07]

Thanks Fibres, you really helped a lot!

I got a few projects in mind right now..

[teedge77]

the fiire media director uses a proprietary driver that they have licensed. i believe it will do alpha blending; but the regular driver will not AFAIK.....if you can find a wireless N card that is supported in linux that may be enough, if you do 720p video. i dont really know if that would be enough for 1080 anything.i dont know much about the compatibility of N cards with linux. sorry...i reread it...are you asking if the core can use wireless or if the media directors can?

[Clint07]

Sorry for mixing you up.

The Wireless N card question was for Media Director.. As I still don't understand how diskless boot works, I was wondering if my computer would recognize my Wireless N Card or USB N adapter without loading the OS..


*Edit* Also, Do I really need Cat5? Or can I use my wireless router?

[teedge77]

diskless boot its PXE. the network card sends out a request for a boot image file which it loads into ram and uses most of the resources from the server. similar to some thin clients althought some thin clients have embedded OSs or even small hard drives. this allows a small OS to reside on the media director and request things from linuxmce once its loaded. most of the hard work is done on the core itself and then the video or audio is sent to the media director. anyone that can correct any of this please do...but this is how i understand it works. as far as pre n cards that will pxe boot...i dont know of any wireless cards that will pxe boot. that doesnt mean there arent...i know there are motherboards with on board wi-fi now. its possible that they can. id google that one though.

[Clint07]

Hm Wow.. Thank you for helping me!! So for Diskless MD, I have to use a Ethernet to connect to the network?

Hm.. If I have to connect it via Ethernet, I'd rather buy a cheap Hard Drive, Install LinuxMCE, and use a compatible Wireless adapter.. I want this to be wire free as possible =/ or find a mother board with Wifi built in.

Or.. any other suggestions?

Thanks to everyone who helped me out! I think thats all the questions I have for now.. But I will have more 

[GoManutd]

The underlying PBX software is asterisk which means you can use it with any VOIP provider that allows you to connect your asterisk PBX to their system.

I believe Skype is one of them - you'll just have to check with Skype to figure out the info you need when you configure asterisk...

asterisk.org has plenty of info on how to configure things.

[Clint07]

Thanks GoMantud. I'll try that and see what happens =).

One last question (Hopefully), I was looking through the forums and saw this

Instead of using that shitty router, throw in a Gigabit network card in your LinuxMCE Core. Connect the old network card to your modem and use the Gigabit card for LAN. Get yourself a Gigabit switch for your lan. The Core is a Firewall/Router/DHCP server, and if you use it like this, everything will be a lot easier

For this I need:
A router
LAN switcher
Gigabit Network card

I connect the modem to my router, my router to the LAN switch, and the LAN switch to my Core? Sorry I got confused with this guy's the instructions..

Thanks =).

[teedge77]

another option....if you want wireless....it may take up some more space...but....put in a regular network card....then get an adapter that would send that wirelessly to whatever you have....

something like this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124126

as long as you have a pxe boot enabled network card that should work for you and youd still be wireless....hope this helps some.

[Zaerc]

Thanks GoMantud. I'll try that and see what happens =).

One last question (Hopefully), I was looking through the forums and saw this

Instead of using that shitty router, throw in a Gigabit network card in your LinuxMCE Core. Connect the old network card to your modem and use the Gigabit card for LAN. Get yourself a Gigabit switch for your lan. The Core is a Firewall/Router/DHCP server, and if you use it like this, everything will be a lot easier

For this I need:
A router
LAN switcher
Gigabit Network card

I connect the modem to my router, my router to the LAN switch, and the LAN switch to my Core? Sorry I got confused with this guy's the instructions..

Thanks =).

I think, in his own charming way, he meant this:

modem <---> [router] <---> (old nic) CORE (gb nic) <---> gb switch <===> rest of your network

the [router] is optional (some modems have them built in as well) they can avoid hassle with ppp etc.