Blank screen after 1st bootup

[elitenoobboy]

64bit athlon x2, with a 7 series nvidia geforce.

I installed using the 64 bit dvd, and the installation seemed to go well. I restarted and the system started booting up the system. The kubuntu screen came up after the grub and everything seemed to be going normally. Right around when the kubuntu progress bar got around full, it switched to terminal output, then the screen blanked real quick and the terminal output came back (with the text changed), then immediately after, the screen blanked again and nothing happened after that. The terminal screen goes by too quickly for me to read what is being displayed.

[colinjones]

Seriously - read the installation instructions on the wiki, or do a search on this forum for "blank screen" or "black screen".... this has been covered countless times and is one of the most basic first steps covered in installation.

[elitenoobboy]

Seriously - read the installation instructions on the wiki, or do a search on this forum for "blank screen" or "black screen".... this has been covered countless times and is one of the most basic first steps covered in installation.

Sorry! I was under the impression that linuxmce was supposed to be somewhat intuitive/easy to use.

btw, you wouldn't happen to know what the web admin login is? I tried my user name and the 1234 password that it gave me, but that doesn't work, and neither does the password that I put in at the beginning of the install.

[colinjones]

yes, but it won't do the thinking for you, its still a computer! if you haven't read the installation instructions even after you have had a problem during installation, then they should be your next step (or rather your first!)

On the forum, try typing "blank screen" from your topic title into the search function .... second step...

your username is your name you give during the setup wizard, your password is the same as your username (1234 is your default voice mail password) - but none of that will work until you have completed the setup wizard, which you haven't yet as you are getting a blank screen before you have even got to the AVWizard.

your video is outputting to the wrong output or invalid resolution, use the keyboard shortcuts

[elitenoobboy]

yes, but it won't do the thinking for you, its still a computer! if you haven't read the installation instructions even after you have had a problem during installation, then they should be your next step (or rather your first!)

I didn't even think to look at the wiki for instructions. I was thinking that it was just for the downloads and screenshots for some reason.

On the forum, try typing "blank screen" from your topic title into the search function .... second step...

your username is your name you give during the setup wizard, your password is the same as your username (1234 is your default voice mail password) - but none of that will work until you have completed the setup wizard, which you haven't yet as you are getting a blank screen before you have even got to the AVWizard.

your video is outputting to the wrong output or invalid resolution, use the keyboard shortcuts

I completed the setup after I found the wiki, but I couldn't find anything about the username's password in the wiki, so thanks.

I am thinking that the main directory that I put my media files such as video and music is /home/public/data/ due to what I saw when I was configuring the web admin thing. However, the owner of that directory is root, which seems really odd to me. From what I can tell from the wiki, I have to use some program to import it in to the folder? And then for some reason, remote desktop seems broke, as the kubuntu desktop won't connect to other computers that my ubuntu desktop will, and the kubuntu one is unreachable even though I set it up to connectable. Is there some firewall setting that I have to disable? I would assume that to be the case.

[tschak909]

*hmm* I keep having to repeat this, because people won't read....

Your core linuxmce box needs to have two network cards in it.

It needs to become the DHCP, Firewall, and Internet Gateway, for a variety of reasons...

once you do this, you can access the system from any other box as a windows share mapped to \\dcerouter .. the username and password is what you use to log into the web admin.

You can also transfer files over via ssh, and you can NFS mount /home anywhere inside the network once LinuxMCE is set up as described above.

-Thom

[elitenoobboy]

*hmm* I keep having to repeat this, because people won't read....

Where have you said this before? If its in the wiki, that's barely even working for me. Bad servers apparently.

Your core linuxmce box needs to have two network cards in it.

It needs to become the DHCP, Firewall, and Internet Gateway, for a variety of reasons...

? 2 network cards? That's just retarded. Are you one of the developers? I need to talk to one so that I can tell them how retarded that is.

You may say that there are a variety of reasons, which I believe, but there are no good reasons for this. What networking part of linuxmce is so special that it can't share the network with kubuntu normally?

[tschak909]

I love it when people tell us how retarded we are, without understanding that we actually do have specific reasons for doing this:

(yes, I am one of the developers, if you want to flame me, go ahead, i'm wearing my flame retardant suit, BRING IT ON.)

LinuxMCE is not a media center.

LinuxMCE is a smart home platform. The first of its kind.

It is designed to be the center of the house, the core machine being an always-on server providing:

* storage services for both media and data for the entire house
* message routing services for all other media directors, and home automation interfaces inside the house
* network booting services for the media directors connected to TVs around the house
* asterisk for telephony services
* plug and play interception of all devices in the system, connected to any media director or the core, or network devices.

the three last points are the most poignant, because they are the big reasons we need the server to be the central router.

with asterisk, we need to be at the edge of the network, because most standard VOIP protocols do not route nicely through NATwalls. This allows us plug and play installation of a VOIP line in the least painless way possible, so it just works.

with the plug and play engine, we detect a wide variety of network devices, such as IP phones, network TV tuners, and network attached storage servers the moment they come onto the network. We need direct access to the DHCP server to do this, and we use a patched DHCP server to provide the necessary notifications.

with the netbooting, I don't know if you've ever done diskless workstation booting, but network booting is directly tied to needing a working DHCP server. With our system, you drop a pc onto the network, tell it to network boot, and you have a media director. We need direct control over DHCP to do this in a plug and play manner.

All of these services come together to produce the first smart home platform, a unified control center for every single aspect of your home.

We still have very rigid hardware requirements, because we need to do a massive amount of configuration underneath between all the different components of the system when things are detected... this is why we say:

* 2 network cards
* nvidia graphics card (6200 or better recommended)
* hauppauge pvr 150/250/500/usb2 or HDHomeRun for TV tuners.
* one disk for system
* one or more disks for media storage, attached either directly to the system, via USB, via eSATA, or via NAS storage

We will support more hardware, but it will take the support of everyone helping out, using the tools provided by the system to create new device templates, and using the infrastructure set up to distribute all these changes to everyone.

now, that's the explanation, before you retort with "I don't want any of that!" consider that the above is precisely what LinuxMCE was designed for...maybe you want to use something else?

Now, don't you feel like an ass?

-Thom

[elitenoobboy]

I love it when people tell us how retarded we are, without understanding that we actually do have specific reasons for doing this:

So does this mean that you love me then?

LinuxMCE is not a media center.

I thought that the "MCE" stood for media center edition?


It is designed to be the center of the house, the core machine being an always-on server providing:

* storage services for both media and data for the entire house
* message routing services for all other media directors, and home automation interfaces inside the house
* network booting services for the media directors connected to TVs around the house
* asterisk for telephony services
* plug and play interception of all devices in the system, connected to any media director or the core, or network devices.

the three last points are the most poignant, because they are the big reasons we need the server to be the central router.

with asterisk, we need to be at the edge of the network, because most standard VOIP protocols do not route nicely through NATwalls. This allows us plug and play installation of a VOIP line in the least painless way possible, so it just works.

with the plug and play engine, we detect a wide variety of network devices, such as IP phones, network TV tuners, and network attached storage servers the moment they come onto the network. We need direct access to the DHCP server to do this, and we use a patched DHCP server to provide the necessary notifications.

with the netbooting, I don't know if you've ever done diskless workstation booting, but network booting is directly tied to needing a working DHCP server. With our system, you drop a pc onto the network, tell it to network boot, and you have a media director. We need direct control over DHCP to do this in a plug and play manner.

All of these services come together to produce the first smart home platform, a unified control center for every single aspect of your home.

Having all of those features is definitely a good thing, but not when you can't turn them off in case your system doesn't support them.
I still don't understand the need for 2 network cards. Would they both be connected to the same router? Even if you have a large number of apps that need direct access to the internet without a firewall, that shouldn't limit other services from using the same card at the same time. So, what am I still missing here?


* one disk for system
* one or more disks for media storage, attached either directly to the system, via USB, via eSATA, or via NAS storage


There is no way to use the same partition that the system is on for media storage?
btw, it would be prudent to make a list of system requirements and post a link to them on the main wiki page, so at least some people will know before committing to the download.

Now, don't you feel like an ass?

Are you implying that there is a moment in time when I don't feel like an ass? 

[tschak909]

No, the core _BECOMES_ the router.

if you have to use your existing router as a witch, simply disable dhcp on both sides, and only use the LAN ports, don't connect anything to the WAN port at all.

And yes, you can use the same partition. I'm just trying to tell you the cleanest way to deal with media storage so you can do upgrades more cleanly.

-Thom

[elitenoobboy]

No, the core _BECOMES_ the router.

if you have to use your existing router as a witch, simply disable dhcp on both sides, and only use the LAN ports, don't connect anything to the WAN port at all.

And yes, you can use the same partition. I'm just trying to tell you the cleanest way to deal with media storage so you can do upgrades more cleanly.

-Thom

I'm gonna go ahead and take you advice that LMCE isn't for me. I'll give a few reasons for feedback purposes:
Its router settings should be in one of the setup wizards at the beginning of the install. Not everyone will want it to be a router, so it would be nice to be able to turn that off. Including every feature in the book is awesome, but not if it can't be turned off and becomes more of a hindrance than help.
There's no real major problems, but lot's of small ones. Such as the interface for displaying files being hard to use, there being no already watched status for movies that you've seen, and the interface just not being compatible with anything other than a gyro mouse or the like. It seems that in trying to be everything, you forgot about the little things.

[tschak909]

incorrect on the watched status.

simply select Watched or Unwatched from the More popup.

also, what is so hard about the movie system? it works exceptionally well, we trashed the concept of filesystem hierarchy for a variety of reasons... spend some time with it.

but, if you're leaving..then. okay...

And when we can get people to do the things you suggest, then they will be implemented.. It just seems we have a lot of people who love to flap their jaws, and not help...... including you.

-Thom

[elitenoobboy]

incorrect on the watched status.

simply select Watched or Unwatched from the More popup.

But can it do it automatically?

also, what is so hard about the movie system? it works exceptionally well, we trashed the concept of filesystem hierarchy for a variety of reasons... spend some time with it.

Every time a movie ended, I had to do a lot of button clicks to get back to the folder I was just in to watch the next one on the list (it didn't remember what folder I was previously in; there may be an option for that, but I didn't see it.) I was using a microsoft mce remote, which doesn't seem to work very well with the ui. Also, every time I wanted to increase or decrease the volume, I had to hit the volume button multiple times. Holding the button down had no effect.

but, if you're leaving..then. okay...

For now at least. LinuxMCE is ahead of all other linux media centers I've seen, so I will definitely keep an eye on it's progress.

And when we can get people to do the things you suggest, then they will be implemented.. It just seems we have a lot of people who love to flap their jaws, and not help...... including you.

I don't know how to code, so there's little I can do there.

[tschak909]

dude, if your stuff is tagged, you don't need to use the filename sorting.

*hmm*

-Thom

[nite_man]

dude, if your stuff is tagged, you don't need to use the filename sorting.

Sorting by filename is useful in case of watching some TV show. I put all episodes into separate directories for each season. So, it's easy to navigate then.

Tom, could you clarify what do you mean when said tagged stuff? How the list of tagged video files will be displayed on the Orbiter?