LinuxMCE and Thin Clients

[daballiemo]

Hello,

ive just worked my way into installing LinuxMCE. It finally runs :-) as domu on xen. Mainly I did this to save power. No my question is regarding the same: is it possible to use thin clients as MD's? I've had a go with a HP T5525 (Via 800 Mhz, 128 Mb) but the system is slow as ..... Only music will play but video hangs the system. Now I am not sure if bad performance is caused by putting the core on xen, or a Via 800 Mhz proc not doing the job. Anybody any experience?

rgds

[Misogynist]

Hello everyone, and especially you daballiemo

Can't help you with anything, I'm afraid, since I'm new to all of this, and especially to LMCE - but I'm thrilled at you setting it up in xen, since I planned to do that.
Did you document that somewhere, or are you going to write some kind of tutorial or somethign ? That would be awesome.

[daballiemo]

Well the part about Xen wasn't rocket science. Basically build a new virtual machine through the GUI of xen. After installation make sure you add another bridged network card. Copy over the iso for Kubuntu 7.04, CD1 and CD2 of LinuxMCE and the installer and.... install. Do not forget to disable DHCP on your home network router and all will work like a charm. Do not expect anything else but the basic GUI of LMCE but it will do on a server. BTW I used the dedicated LCME setup, I had loads of problems just running the core without the GUI

[tkmedia]

daballiemo

Thats awesome!

What are you running as dom0 (Kubntu)?

I too would like to run under xen.

I think I had problems getting xen to run under kubuntu.


Can we get a how-to and get the procedure in the wiki.


Will try again tonight

[tkmedia]

I think the performance may be based on the MD hardware.

for I have run a similar setup where the core was running under vmware and it ran a media director fine .

[daballiemo]

I'am running xen under Fedora 7. Setup is easy compared to ubuntu (my favo distro).

[Misogynist]

Alright ... downloading Fedora right now.. let's see if I can set that up

[daballiemo]

I wrecked it, so I have to do the setup again :-) Want to try adding another NIC (eth1) before installing LCME, lets see how it works

[Hagen]

I have used a normal PIII 500MHz 768MB RAM as an MD, but performance with SD video is choppy at best

[daballiemo]

I have used a normal PIII 500MHz 768MB RAM as an MD, but performance with SD video is choppy at best

The config I now have is an AMD Athlon 2400 /512 Mb/MX4000 which is as far as I can see perfect. One disadvantage it's huge compared to what I want. I am not fully up to speed on sleep stuff and that but leaving it on 24/365 is not working towards a greener enviroment I guess.

[daballiemo]

BTW do not forget to pick no sound in the AV wizard. Otherwise it will fail :-0

[desmarch]

Interesting discussion.
As a matter of fact, I am still not clear where CPU resources are needed: in the Core or in the MD?
Is this influenced by graphic cards with hardware encoding and/or digital tuner card? 
My guess is that these two should limit the loads on the core and/or MD CPUs.

Can one bring me up to speed on this matter?
Thanks

[Misogynist]

Hi there again.

daballiemo - are you using paravirtualisation or the other option ?
My server doesnt support the other option, because it doesnt have the vanderpool thing.

And in paravirtualisation I can't get it to install .. but maybe I'm the mistake .. maybe you could give me a little more info on how you installed it exactly. For instance - you said, you set up a new virtual machine and installed then ?
What did you use as install source in the xen ui ?

Thanks for your help.

[daballiemo]

Hi there again.

daballiemo - are you using paravirtualisation or the other option ?
My server doesnt support the other option, because it doesnt have the vanderpool thing.

And in paravirtualisation I can't get it to install .. but maybe I'm the mistake .. maybe you could give me a little more info on how you installed it exactly. For instance - you said, you set up a new virtual machine and installed then ?
What did you use as install source in the xen ui ?

Thanks for your help.

I'm using full virt. Define the machine with the Kubuntu iso as a cdrom. Fire up and install kubuntu. Copy over Kubuntu, LCME 1&2 and the extracted installer. Install LCME with Orbiter and Core and away you go.

[Misogynist]

I'm using full virt. Define the machine with the Kubuntu iso as a cdrom. Fire up and install kubuntu. Copy over Kubuntu, LCME 1&2 and the extracted installer. Install LCME with Orbiter and Core and away you go.

I wish I could .. no VT on my test-server.. so I have to wait with this test until I have my real server.
My whole project is going way over my head .. haha. I love it.

My newest idea is - using a psp as remote. I'll blog all that stuff soon, my whole concept could be interesting for others maybe.