Its still a very new project - much work to do....
Hi! I was enticed by your LinuxMCE video, very pretty stuff. But after trying for several days of getting everything to which i've been mostly successefull with i'm ending up asking myself why i'm not just running MythTV instead.
http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeatures
Turns out there's not that many must-have features LMCE has to make up for the effort and development time required to set it up.
LinuxMCE 0704 didn't...
...have European download mirrors for the 0704 DVD
These are by donation, if you know of any that would be willing to provide the service, then contribute - community project, nothing happens without contribution! Either way, its not the end of the world, download from another mirror
...have well seeded torrents of the DVD ISO
Did you download the torrent? If not, then you have your answer. If you did - are you still seeding? No one can change this except the downloaders.
...let me know that i needed Kubuntu 7.04 ISO to install, but crashed at end of install with an obscure error about DeCSS not installing.
Seems like two separate issues - don't understand the first. Yes you need an operating system is you are installing from CDs, the DVD is a bundle that includes the OS....?
The second sounds like you were trying to play a DVD and the dvdcss decryption library wasn't installed. This is normal and is a simple package to add, that can't be by default for legal reasons around copyprotection - its mentioned frequently in the wiki, but last I looked, was not something that jumped out at you unless you were looking for it!
...let me switch between dedicated MD/Kubuntu desktop (without searching the forums)
...leave my network alone (it wants to be dhcp+dns+gateway on it's own network)
If you are setting up a standalone LMCE machine, this isn't relevant. It does nothing to your network, just turn off the DHCP if its on. If you are setting up an LMCE environment with MDs, then this is only relevant as it only applies to the internal network and doesn't touch your existing network - assuming that you set it up as described in the wiki and forums, with 2 NICs! Again, this is clearly described in the wiki, but it certainly could be placed more promonently for people just starting and looking for how to download, like with the DVD version scratching your whole HDD!
...give me the option to autodetect my monitor
That would be nice
in fact a lot of things around displays and resolution would be nice soas to avoid modlines, etc!
...have a good weborbiter
Not played with it much, but looked OKish for a simple web product. Could certainly improve a lot with the discussion about UI3 going on at the moment
...have a native Linux or OSX orbiter
That would be nice, at least a Linux one!
...use my network shares because they had spaces in them (DISK 1 and DISK 2)
This is a bug that has been fixed - get 0710beta2 or 3 in the next couple of days. If you're interested in the project improving, you should be using this anyway
0704 is sooooo yesterday, as you say!
...have an easy to use web admin
Unfortunately, this is reflective of the very sophisticated internal architecture of LMCE. Its ugly and cumbersome, but not actually that hard once you get used to it. Sadly, it would be nice to say this isn't important because it is only very advanced tasks that need it, but there are still some "user" tasks that need it too. I'm sure this will get better as the product evolves.
...recognize .mkv as video.
Relatively new outside of HD. But has been added now - again, get the 0710 version
...recognize my remote (it gets handled as a keyboard through /dev/input)
A few people seem to have that issue, I'm pretty sure I have seen threads on HID stuff, do a search...
and the last drop is that it won't detect my .mkv files to play HDTV movies from the network.
The things i think need the most improvement is:
• Documentation. The wiki is good but more people need to make an effort to document it.
Agreed, lots of good info, but the structure isn't the best to ensure that you come across the important stuff as a newbie in the process of looking into LMCE or downloading.
• Getting errata and bugfixes out to the users. LMCE 0704 is quite old by now.
Also searching for issues in the forum gives me flamewars instead of help. Users asking about something and then getting bashed for not searching. Please improve the documentation, errata & bugfixes, it'll help get rid of stupid questions.
I hope this will be used as constructive criticism and used to improve future versions
To address your first question - if you just want live TV and PVR functionality, then yes, you have picked the wrong product. Go with Mythbuntu. Assuming you are in Europe, then another reason to use 0710 is that VDR can be chosen instead of Myth - it was designed for DVB which you are using, and so will integrate better.
