LinuxMCE is great....Kinda

[GamerAyers]

So I have been working with LinuxMCE for about 8 months now.  I started with PlutoHome and found that it was just not easy enough to setup.  I have gone from an old Athlon XP to an Opteron 64.  I have tried to setup the media center as a wired/wireless router, and many other things, but being that I am not that familiar with Linux, I seem to fail in my attempts.  I learn a lot each time, but each time I seem farther back.  At the moment, my biggest problems are network based and tv-tuner based.  I have an nforce board and the network just seems flaky.  I have an HVR-1600, and it is a waste with Linux.  I have a PVR-150 and 500 which I will put in soon, but the lack of HD is upsetting.  I am soon getting a house, and I have been preparing the system for installation in the house.

Now for the praise, I like what LinuxMCE allows you to do, supposedly, and how it's interface is.  I think that there is a lot of good stuff going on.

That all being said, the first complaint I have is in a community, I have posted many times, and have only received a response to maybe one of them.  It was barely a help as I still needed to do my own research and I haven't even tried it as I don't want to waste time. (using a USB cable modem as the internet Ethernet adapter and then having just a regular Ethernet for the lan side).  I find the people on the forum will look and look and look at posts all day, but nobody seems to reply.  I'd bump, but it seems like a waste.

This leads me to my second complain, which is Linux to some extent.  Yes, yes, it is open source, and without DRMs and so on.  That being said, most things are barely supported.  Take the HVR, you can only use it for analog, and that is even a hack.  Yes this is a manufacturer's responsibility, but LinuxMCE can be a far superior product than XP MCE or Vista MCE as it includes so much.  At this point, the manufacturer's need to know that there are people who want drivers, and if need be have an endorsement area of LinuxMCE which includes a manufacturer's logo saying they approved it.

Nobody is saying what has been done was easy, so get some corporate support. PLEASE.

This leads me to my last complaint.  I know there is a lot of garbling back and forth about satellite TV and being able to record HD.  Now hear me out.  I don't care if things are DRM or not, I keep them for myself and watch them on my PC/tvs.  I want to watch something I recorded on any tv in my house.  Vista has DRM built in and DirectTV is making a card specifically for Vista computers to record tv.  I hate Vista, I would use it if it were Windows Server or XP MCE.  If somebody with LinuxMCE was to work directly with Dish Network/Freestar, which uses Linux for their new 722 receivers, I think that a deal could be worked out for a recording card for LinuxMCE.  That being said, most likely the drive it recorded to would have to encrypted (so freakin what) but if you presented this and even teamed up with them for a select area they could have you doing installs of these systems in people's house and they would look like an amazing company.  Which means we get what we want, and they get huge profits (what they want).

Now that I ranted, I expect that nobody is going to reply, maybe they will read it, and it will just work its way down the list.

[darrenmason]

What exactly do you want a reply to?

You havn't really asked anything, you have just voiced a couple of complaints. If you want a bunch of replies along the lines of I agree/disagree then I can't see that adding much value.

It is a community driven effort and most users involved will work on a part that interests them. If everyone that came on and complained got involved in fixing up a particular part that interests them then surely the end result will be less things to complain about.

[nascarfan1956]

The problems you are encountering are not problems with Linux per se.  Until recently Mac users have been up against the same obstacles.

Re:your USB cable modem - That's a decision by the manufacturers of the modems not to support the open source.  It's really not realistic to expect a commmunity of largely unpaid developers to try and obtain development kits etc from manufacturers that have no interest in providing these or charge large amounts of money for such kits, or dedicate HUGE amounts of time "reverse engineering" drivers to adapt to the Linux kernel (which then treads on that legality line again).  Mac support for USB cable modems only became a reality in the last year.  Ethhernet cards that are well supported in  Linux can be had for reasonable amounts of $$$ even gigabit LAN cards.  Break down and buy one...  

The DRM issue:  The music industry is finally coming around and well on the way to  abandoning this approach, however the MPAA in all of it's omnipotence and wisdom has decided that this is the way to go, and has effectively shut out the Open source.  Micro$oft paid BIG $$$ for the supported cable card option in Vista, and it's not and won't be supported in earlier versions of  Window$.  As far as working out a deal for a recording card???  Do you really think Dish will do this out of the goodness of their hearts?  Not as long as they sell Dish DVR's.

Such is the reality of our day and age where fair use is perceived by some as a threat.  

[colinjones]

GamerAyres

First and most importantly, nobody here owes you a living. As Darren says, this is a community forum full of other people trying to fix their own problems or trying their best to help other people. Asking the right question in the right way will help you enormously in getting responses - I read almost every message on the board, and this is time consuming. If the message waffles or doesn't make it clear what the issue is, I click on. Having a clear and enticing subject line is critical, and not burying your question at the end of a long diatribe helps. Zaerc recently posted a link to forum etiquet, on how to "not ask a stupid question"!

Of your 7 posts prior to this one:

One I have just answered for you - but I note that this is one that I answered for myself a few days ago by doing a few simple forum searches - on your mp3 ripping errors.

One was off topic in a long and complex thread - expect these to go unanswered, when there is a lot of volume hitting a thread, your message will get missed unless you are talking about the subject that everyone else is - start a new thread

One was a thread that had been dead for 3 months, and was more a statement than a request (other than implied)

One contained 2 questions, both of which were on very obscure topics - sometimes, people just don't know the answer, or the one that does misses it. Check out my threads on video issues, I just had to keep hammering on about it, explaining it in different ways and adding more detail as I learned more about the issue, in the hopes that it would trigger something in someone. Still working on that - but I still haven't whinged that nobody is answering - I know they would if they knew the answer. Do a search on orionsume's posts - new user to the forums, but was very happy with the "community" assistance they got. There are plenty of other examples.

And two were requests for assistance posted in the Feature request and Roadmap forum. You may wanted something added as a feature but it was by no means clear, they were worded more as requests for assistance because something wasn't working. Posts in that forum are often not replied to because they are usually statements or opinion. If you want help, go to the Users forum or another one. Frankly, if you want a feature, go to the Mantis and log it.

[GamerAyers]

After about 5 hours of searching, trying, and retrying, I found the answer to the MP3 issue.  That being said, it was a simple one line answer, but I still can't get a full CD to rip, normally they get to about 80%, whether it is on ogg or mp3.  I have all my music on XP MCE, but transferring from there to LinuxMCE is more hassle than reripping it all (as sad as that may seem).

My complain comes as more of a well, if you want the community to grow, you have a great product, but I don't post here at this point since nobody answers unless I have exhausted all other resources.

Network seems to be my biggest problem.  Yes, USB cable modems (especially Motorola) are support by 99% of Linux Distros, it is just getting it to work with LinuxMCE, which not requires a re-installation, and hope that it detects it during the installation as a networking adapter as it detects it normally.

I have read a whole post on TV shows/videos on LinuxMCE.  Having them in folders of the show/season/episode.  And certain users saying just get over it.  I would like it known that I have 2 xp mce computers, and 3 xboxes which run XBMC.  I like them all, but none of them has the 'supposed' features of LinuxMCE.  XBMC is free and the developers work for nothing there also, but the progress made is a join effort of community and developers, and it shows.

I am trying to point out what a great product LinuxMCE could be.  Yah, nobody likes corporate sponsors and getting developer kits are expensive....I know I know.  That being said, if a developer sees profit in supporting a product, developer kits become a LOT cheaper or free.  Hauppauge for example would probably donate hardware and white sheets if they knew you were working towards helping them sell products.  Nvidia offers opensource drivers now because of the growing communities.

It's funny that when you say no response will come, you get one.

I understand certain items might seems stupid or only one person wants them, but I can tell you that wireless was mentioned on many posts, and nobody had any suggestions or ideas.  There is no way to do it current in LinuxMCE because of the way it sets up the internal and external network cards.  I have been able to do it in a normal distro.

It is also funny that people will now go back through all my posts.  I am not partial to Linux or Windows, I used what gets the job done best.  If somebody told me that a MAC could do it better, I would want them to prove it, but I wouldn't discredit them because I don't like MACs.  I think that LinuxMCE can do things better than Windows, but when I read on here of the squabbling to get a different layout for videos and the support for/against the change, it seems, well detrimental to the entire thing.  Just my two cents.

[cirion]

After about 5 hours of searching, trying, and retrying, I found the answer to the MP3 issue.  That being said, it was a simple one line answer, but I still can't get a full CD to rip, normally they get to about 80%, whether it is on ogg or mp3.  I have all my music on XP MCE, but transferring from there to LinuxMCE is more hassle than reripping it all (as sad as that may seem).

Not sure why you think re ripping is less a hassle than just copying it in... Drag'n drop?
Depending on how many CD's you have ripping is very time

In your WindowsXP PC in a Eplorer window just type this in the adress bar:
\\192.168.80.1
And press enter.

XP will ask for user/password/domain type your LinuxMCE username and password (They are the same when installed by DVD)
Domain is not needed and if there is something written in it, delete that.

Now you will see the LinuxMCE filestructure.

Music goes in public\data\audio
Movies goes in public\data\video

If you are using 0710Beta3, tags from your music will automatically be read from the MP3.

[JimmyGosling]

Hey, while everyone else is dumping in there .02, I would like to throw in as well.

My perspective is that that LinuxMCE is still a young product.  Yes, it's unpaid part time devs as said above, but I think there is an argument against that factor as well.  One, we have much more brilliant, interested developers working with this project who are dedicated and empowered to make a difference, not seeking to waste an 8 hour day looking at their email.

That being said, LinuxMCE is quirky, and hard to work with, and sometimes downright frustrating   We're early adopters, and that's the price we pay.  The cool factor coming out of this project is not that you walk into a house where the system is seemlessly integrated... yet.  The cool factor right now is more along the lines of that first matrix movie where all kinds of junk is hanging around and your lookng at it going "this guy is a genius for even getting this going"... but I digest.

I'm a developer as well.  Yes, i know I've been a slime, and I have not committed anything to date but I'm looking forward to it when I've settled in enough myself.  and I think that I'm the target market for this product right now, not a real end user.  The kind of person who is more prone to reporting, than throwing a fit when the lights go out, and the movie stops while they're watching with their mate.

I think the big mistake that LinuxMCE/Pluto has made is marketing materials.  When I first looked at this project back when it was pluto, they already had this cool visual presentation up and running.  too bad their system wasn't as refined.  Hopefully it will turn out that way some day though. 

On the DRM/HD/whatever problems.  I've run into those frustrations as well.  It's sad that we are treated like content criminals.  I too am the kind of person who is ripping music and movies to listen to for myself.  I'm not trading them online.  When I record a show, I want to watch it later, not sell it on the black market.  (alright, I'll fess up, I don't like commercials either).

Until those guys come around though, we're stuck with what we got, hacks and all.  The community here I think is excellent.  Sometimes very prone to attack (which is also a lot of fun to read when you're not in the middle of it), but an excellent community none the less.  Ask questions in the right way and do your own research in parallel, and with a lot of much need patience, you're going to get there.

[skeptic]

Since this seems to be the place for (constructive?) criticism...  LinuxMCE is a hassle, way more than it should be.  I can appreciate the idea that it's all supposed to be plug and play, automagic everything, but what when it doesn't work right or you want to do things a bit different?  Try to use a different DHCP setup and it's a hassle if it works at all.  I'm still trying to figure out how the hard drive setup is supposed to work for additional drives, what should and shouldn't be mounted by the OS, how I can tell it to only use certain directories (setting those directories in the web admin page did NOT work for me).   Neither of my PXE capable laptops will boot all the way to a MD so I will need to install just the MD stuff (which apparently requires a core already up and running for it to auto detect, why can't you just have the option to install a MD?).  Per the advertising fluff, it should be no problem to use my desktop as a core/hybrid/workstation.  I'm doing that now, but I need to figure out how to get it to boot the core on one screen and give me an actual graphical login on another.  I started with 0704 installed on a fresh Kubuntu login and the mostly pc option got me to a login like I want, but now that I've re-installed from the 0710b3 DVD the best I've been able to do is let it boot all the way into lmce then select advanced->kde desktop.

It's young, it's beta (trying 0710 b3 now after giving up on 0704).  I can overlook things not working right, but my biggest complaint is linuxMCE tries to automate and control everything and when it doesn't work there doesn't seem to be a logical way to change it.

Another real nuisance is it's always  reloading the router and regenerating the interfaces.  Go into setup wizard then cancel, it's reloading and regenerating. 

I haven't even gotten to adding other media or home automation hardware stuff, I'm just trying to setup a "mostly pc" core/hybrid with my existing on-disk media library, and a MD or two.  I feel I'm somewhat committed to it now, but I seriously wish I would have just stuck with my old MythTV setup.  It wasn't fancy, didn't do all the things I hope to do with lmce, but in the end it didn't disrupt every PC in the house (DHCP hassles) and it worked on my desktop and the laptop connected to the TV in my living room.  Perhaps IF I'm able to get it working as advertised I'll change my mind.

[cirion]

Well Skeptic LinuxMCE is a lot less a hassle than you make it. From what I read, you make it a hassle...
Why not accept what it is, and try it like that first... You might like it.

I too thougt LinuxMCE was a BIG hassle to install and nothing worked, everything was wrong. But after a while I tried accepting what it was and how it "should" be installed. So I tried that.

One example it the way network and folders work. I was thinking in my old ways and hated the fact that I could not have it that way anymore. I had one folder for movies, tv shows, music, pictures and so on and how the heck could I get those in.... Even when getting a NAS nothing worked. My NAS was never detected, and when I added it my media never showed up.

When I finnaly accepted the fact that the Core has to be there, and it has to be my router/firewall/dhcp things started to work a lot better. Afther that I had to learn to accept that my old folder structure could no longer work like it did... There are other ways to use them and they turned out to be exactly how I wanted it in the first place. By using Pluto's structure on my NAS, USB disks, Local HD's and so on, I could just put my picture structures in the picture folder, my tv shows and movies structure in the videos folder and so on. Then when using those in LinuxMCE I just sort by filename instead of title and I can use the same structure... (They just look different on the drive, not in the GUI).

I tried using a lot of old HW I had lying around, that had mixed results. After a while I began to like LinuxMCE more and uppgraded the old stuff to newer supported HW.

I now have a dedicated core that is also my NAS. For my bedroom and living room I have now 2 diskless MD's. I use the FireChief and an old Dell Axim PDA as remotes. I have 2TB of RAID5 storage in my Core (4x750GB) and all movies, tv shows, music and pictures.

I do not use TV in linuxmce yet, analogue SD is not good enough for me and I'm working on getting DVB to work. I plan to have dual DVB-C HD cards for digital cable and a DVB-S2 card for my sattelite dish with a rotor. For now I'm still using my Dreambox (Linux based sat receiver) and it dumps the DVB streams directly to my Core.

Feel free to run throug my posts from the beginning. I was not as happy with LinuxMCE as I am now.

Future projects for me would be to integrate my alarm panel, EIB light control and IR for my receiver and TV's. I'd love to have a MD for my kitchen.

[skeptic]

Well Skeptic LinuxMCE is a lot less a hassle than you make it. From what I read, you make it a hassle...
Why not accept what it is, and try it like that first... You might like it.

I too thougt LinuxMCE was a BIG hassle to install and nothing worked, everything was wrong. But after a while I tried accepting what it was and how it "should" be installed. So I tried that.

I'll try to answer as best I can, and try to read your suggestions as well.  Much of my frustration could simply be because I don't understand what is really going on....

One example it the way network and folders work. I was thinking in my old ways and hated the fact that I could not have it that way anymore. I had one folder for movies, tv shows, music, pictures and so on and how the heck could I get those in.... Even when getting a NAS nothing worked. My NAS was never detected, and when I added it my media never showed up.

Honestly, I don't think I really understand how the folders and such are supposed to work.  At this point, I don't even have a MD, neither of the laptops I want to use will boot all the way.  However, I want to have normal access to all the drives in my system, mostly-pc setup remember.  I want to be able to copy or transcode movies outside of linuxMCE.  As for actual structure on disk, I can live with however lmce wants it, but I still need access to them from the OS.

When I finnaly accepted the fact that the Core has to be there, and it has to be my router/firewall/dhcp things started to work a lot better.

If the core is the router/firewall/dhcp for JUST the md, that's great.  The issue I have is with the non-lmce computers in the house.  I work from home, and my fiancee does as well from time to time.  If I'm out of town, which is often, and she needs to work from home, I don't want to rely on my desktop playing middle-man.  I also need my work laptop to just plain work, regardless of whether or not some pc is running right.

Afther that I had to learn to accept that my old folder structure could no longer work like it did... There are other ways to use them and they turned out to be exactly how I wanted it in the first place. By using Pluto's structure on my NAS, USB disks, Local HD's and so on, I could just put my picture structures in the picture folder, my tv shows and movies structure in the videos folder and so on. Then when using those in LinuxMCE I just sort by filename instead of title and I can use the same structure... (They just look different on the drive, not in the GUI).

I don't think I "get" the way linuxMCE handles the drives.  All I want is to be able to access everything on my drives from the OS and limit what linuxMCE has access to.  The way it is, sometimes my 2 extra drives are mounted (odd mount point, but I don't care), sometimes they are not, the external USB always seems to be running (I changed cron so the scanning or whatever only happens once an hour so now it's better).

I tried using a lot of old HW I had lying around, that had mixed results. After a while I began to like LinuxMCE more and uppgraded the old stuff to newer supported HW.

I now have a dedicated core that is also my NAS. For my bedroom and living room I have now 2 diskless MD's. I use the FireChief and an old Dell Axim PDA as remotes. I have 2TB of RAID5 storage in my Core (4x750GB) and all movies, tv shows, music and pictures.

If you look at a thread I posted right before seeing this one, I'm considering going this route, building a couple cheap boxes with supported hardware and having them 100% dedicated to lmce.  For the most part, my frustrations are around my laptops not booting into MDs, and trying to use my desktop as a workstation as well as lmce.

I do not use TV in linuxmce yet, analogue SD is not good enough for me and I'm working on getting DVB to work. I plan to have dual DVB-C HD cards for digital cable and a DVB-S2 card for my sattelite dish with a rotor. For now I'm still using my Dreambox (Linux based sat receiver) and it dumps the DVB streams directly to my Core.

Feel free to run throug my posts from the beginning. I was not as happy with LinuxMCE as I am now.

Future projects for me would be to integrate my alarm panel, EIB light control and IR for my receiver and TV's. I'd love to have a MD for my kitchen.

My mythTV setup has been used ONLY for movies and music.  I have DirectTV, an HD receiver and a Tivo.  It hasn't been worth the hassle to integrate them into Myth, but I was hoping to get them into lmce.  I also want to integrate non-media type home automation which is why I'm trying lmce.

[cirion]

Honestly, I don't think I really understand how the folders and such are supposed to work.  At this point, I don't even have a MD, neither of the laptops I want to use will boot all the way.  However, I want to have normal access to all the drives in my system, mostly-pc setup remember.  I want to be able to copy or transcode movies outside of linuxMCE.  As for actual structure on disk, I can live with however lmce wants it, but I still need access to them from the OS.

I never found my disk either... But when adding a disk, wait for it to pop up in the GUI (This is only the first time). Add it and use Pluto structure... If you have added that device before remove it first. LinuxMCE will create it's own directory structure starting with public.

After that, there is no need to actually use that drive directly.... Try using it throug the directory structure of LinuxMCE...
What you call desktop pc I will call core(First desktop pc used as a server), and what you call os I will call KDE (KDE Desktop from the GUI).

In KDE I start my Home folder but instead of using that I selec Root from the bookmarks on the left. This is the Root folder, from there I enter /root/home/public/data that is where "root" folders in the GUI (Video, Pictures, Audio...)

If you wanted to put a video file on my Core's local HD, you would put it just in the video folder.
If but if you want to put a video file on another drive added throug the GUI that drive is "inside" the video folder...
If you enter the folder Video there is a folder link (Not shure what they are called.. Sym links?) just double click it and you will enter the video folder of your second drive. Add your video file here.

In the GUI when you sort by filename, this is the structure you will see.

The same is true for Audio and Picture folders.

There is no need to really know where it mounted your second drive when using this method.

The same is true when trying to access those folders from the LAN on either a Linux or Windows PC.
In linux, just browse throug sbm://192.168.80.1/public and in windows \\192.168.80.1\public
As long as your Core is DHCP/FIREWALL/ROUTER this just works

[cirion]

If the core is the router/firewall/dhcp for JUST the md, that's great.  The issue I have is with the non-lmce computers in the house.  I work from home, and my fiancee does as well from time to time.  If I'm out of town, which is often, and she needs to work from home, I don't want to rely on my desktop playing middle-man.  I also need my work laptop to just plain work, regardless of whether or not some pc is running right.

I'm a bit paranoid of not having my internet work too... So in the beginning I used my connection like this:
Cable modem - > Router - > LinuxMCE Core -> LAN

This way, if there was a problem with the Core I could just attatch my LAN directly in my router and evererything worked fine. I also had 2 core's running for a while. Just so that I could test stuff on one core, then switch back afterwards....

I later found out how fun testing is on a MD... Make an error that can not be easily fixed and just rebuild it from the Webadmin. This is only fun when you have a MD that is actually well supported in LinuxMCE so there is no hassle with video/audio setup. Remember to always backup stuff that works, and take notes so you can easily get back to where you where.

Now my core has been stable for so long that I skipped my router. I never turn off my Core. So now I try to use it for everything that needs a PC running. I now also access my Core's Webadmin from work and update media tags when I have spare time...

[skeptic]

Thanks for the help, I really do appreciate it even if my frustrations don't always come across that way.

I never found my disk either... But when adding a disk, wait for it to pop up in the GUI (This is only the first time). Add it and use Pluto structure... If you have added that device before remove it first. LinuxMCE will create it's own directory structure starting with public.

One drive (empty) I added using the pluto structure, the other (475G of stuff) I followed the on-screen advice and told it to just make the drive public or whatever that option was.

After that, there is no need to actually use that drive directly.... Try using it throug the directory structure of LinuxMCE...

In KDE I start my Home folder but instead of using that I selec Root from the bookmarks on the left. This is the Root folder, from there I enter /root/home/public/data that is where "root" folders in the GUI (Video, Pictures, Audio...)

Once I get everything off the drive that isn't media related, such as the copy of my home directory before I re-installed, this would work just fine.  However, it isn't what I see.  I had the core shut down, so I started it and watched what happened.  At first, these two drives were mounted (neither was mounted before I started the core):
/dev/sdc1            721075720 476737560 207709560  70% /mnt/device/52
/dev/sdb1            480721636    202920 456099388   1% /mnt/device/31
Looking at the file structure you mentioned shows (browsing in the gui starting with the root bookmark shows the same, but this is easier to c&p):

# ls -lR /home/public/data/videos/
/home/public/data/videos/:
total 16
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root public   33 2008-02-27 12:10 Internal HDD-CORE (sdb1) [31] -> /mnt/device/31/public/data/videos
drwxrwsr-x 2 root public 4096 2008-02-26 22:33 tv_shows_0
drwxrwsr-x 2 root public 4096 2008-02-26 22:33 tv_shows_1
drwxrwsr-x 2 root public 4096 2008-02-27 07:23 tv_shows_33
drwxrwsr-x 2 root public 4096 2008-02-27 07:23 tv_shows_42

/home/public/data/videos/tv_shows_0:
total 0

/home/public/data/videos/tv_shows_1:
total 0
-rwxrwxr-x 1 mythtv public 0 2008-02-27 11:02 nfslockfile.lock

/home/public/data/videos/tv_shows_33:
total 0

/home/public/data/videos/tv_shows_42:
total 0

Pretty much nothing.  After a few minutes I did a df and this was the only extra drive mounted:
/dev/sdc1            721075720 476737560 207709560  70% /mnt/device/52
No idea why the other is no longer mounted.  If I browse /mnt/device/52 I DO see all my stuff, so ultimately this would work fine assuming the other drive was mounted and stayed that way.

Within lmce I do see all 300+ videos that are on the drive, as well as my music.  What I don't see are my pictures, minor but interesting to note.  Another issue is I see ALL the videos anywhere on the drive, even though I only want the directory structure that starts at /video.  I put an entry for video in the drive config in web admin, but it's not enforcing it. 

I'm a bit paranoid of not having my internet work too... So in the beginning I used my connection like this:
Cable modem - > Router - > LinuxMCE Core -> LAN

This way, if there was a problem with the Core I could just attatch my LAN directly in my router and evererything worked fine.

Now my core has been stable for so long that I skipped my router. I never turn off my Core. So now I try to use it for everything that needs a PC running. I now also access my Core's Webadmin from work and update media tags when I have spare time...

Leaving my core on all the time is not an issue, after the HD died in my server, the desktop has been doing double duty as my email/dns server so it stays on all the time anyway.  I know I'm bucking the system, but is there any reason why I can't use my actual router as my internet router?  I guess I can always use static IP/router/DNS info for those systems, but I'm mostly worried about the fiancee running into a problem when I'm out of town.  The only two high-profile PCs I'm really worried about are wireless laptops, perhaps I can setup DHCP on the wap to only give out DHCP info to wireless requests while letting the MDs route through the core.  I can probably set it up such that wireless traffic is on the "internet" side of the core, and use a separate network for the linuxMCE stuff.  I only have one nic in my desktop, but nics are cheap and I may have one laying around in a closet.

Earlier I was on the verge if giving up on linuxMCE, and I even started downloading kubuntu 7.10 for a clean install.  I'm starting to pull back a bit, but I still have a few show-stopper issues to deal with.  The biggest is I need to get my HP laptop (old MythTV client) running as a MD. 

[cirion]

One drive (empty) I added using the pluto structure, the other (475G of stuff) I followed the on-screen advice and told it to just make the drive public or whatever that option was.

Within lmce I do see all 300+ videos that are on the drive, as well as my music.  What I don't see are my pictures, minor but interesting to note.  Another issue is I see ALL the videos anywhere on the drive, even though I only want the directory structure that starts at /video.  I put an entry for video in the drive config in web admin, but it's not enforcing it.

This where I mean you should readd the 475GB drive and select pluto structure. No data will be lost, but the pluto structure will be addet. Then move your media, videos goes in public/data/video and so on... That way you control what is videos, what is pictures and what is music.

Then when you are in the GUI, view by filename instead of the default title (I do not know how do make this default so this has to be done every time I reboot or quick reload. Now you will see only videos or pictures or music depending on what menu you are in. And you will se your own structure.

[skeptic]

One drive (empty) I added using the pluto structure, the other (475G of stuff) I followed the on-screen advice and told it to just make the drive public or whatever that option was.

Within lmce I do see all 300+ videos that are on the drive, as well as my music.  What I don't see are my pictures, minor but interesting to note.  Another issue is I see ALL the videos anywhere on the drive, even though I only want the directory structure that starts at /video.  I put an entry for video in the drive config in web admin, but it's not enforcing it.

This where I mean you should readd the 475GB drive and select pluto structure. No data will be lost, but the pluto structure will be addet. Then move your media, videos goes in public/data/video and so on... That way you control what is videos, what is pictures and what is music.

Then when you are in the GUI, view by filename instead of the default title (I do not know how do make this default so this has to be done every time I reboot or quick reload. Now you will see only videos or pictures or music depending on what menu you are in. And you will se your own structure.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.  Any idea how I can force lmce to only use those directories I specify in the web admin page?  Perhaps this only works when using the pluto structure??