How did you end up here, using LinuxMCE?

[Dale_K]

Google

[WhateverFits]

I have run most everything from GeexBox to MythTV in many incarnations. I am a software engineer and a networking freak so I really love the idea of network booting the computer that hooks up to the TV. I saw Pluto posted to Slashdot in 2004 and was fascinated. I did absolutely nothing about it at the time but continued with my existing MythTV and GeexBox (plus MisterHouse) experimentation. A friend of mine mentioned LinuxMCE some time back. I realized what it was and immediately installed it on a spare system. It is no longer on my spare system and is my central server for everything. In my downtime between studies, I'm looking at the HADesigner and trying to see if I can fix a few bugs in it like ODBC.

[rvetruba]

the video... and i'm so green it's my first linux install, but I'm hooked on the dream!

I do happen to be a great designer, IMHO, coder, not much at all - but I'd love to help the project and make it look nicer..i'm not sure how to get involved but am open.

[tschak909]

rvetruba: You should look at my HADesigner screencasts, here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Developers_Guide#9.3.1_HADesigner

These are a series of in-depth tutorials dealing with Designer, and making UI variations for each and every possible target. Please watch them all, and you'll start to see the scope of why Orbiter is very different from the UI for say... XBMC.

-Thom

[WhateverFits]

rvetruba: I second that! Please come up with some nice themes if you are a designer. If you can't do the entire thing, come up with ideas and screen mockups. Post them. Ask for comments. Other people (like myself), who are more technical than artistic, can run with your designs and create the interface in HADesigner.

[valent]

the video... and i'm so green it's my first linux install, but I'm hooked on the dream!

I do happen to be a great designer, IMHO, coder, not much at all - but I'd love to help the project and make it look nicer..i'm not sure how to get involved but am open.

rvetruba this project needs designers much more than coders IMHO
Any help is really appreciated... I'm amazed at graphic design of some open source projects, for example XBMC has a beautiful interface. LinuxMCE is not bad but not as slick as XBMC or some other projects out there...

Just my 2c

[MarcoZan]

Back in 2004 I started a personal research about HA softwares. The topic has been always fascinating to me, and moreover at that time I started to have plans to renovate an old house to live in so I wanted to make up my mind on the best possible choice.

I started with Misterhouse, but as I was living in a small rented apartment I did not make any special arrangement with lighting (just some CM11 devices). System was indeed nice, WAF factor was not so bad.

Several factors pushed me to keep on searching for more HA project, with the idea to choose one that could be a possible base to build a business upon. I found a lot of project, but basically they were kind of "home breed" and therefore not really suitable.

Reading Misterhouse mailing list I stumbled on a post of a guy (that turned out to be Tinia/Bulek) stating that Pluto was switching to Open Source, then I gave it a try.

Learning curve of Pluto isn't a breeze, expecially if you don't have robust linux skill and expecially if you choose to start with hardware that does not fit exactly. So I had to fight a bit to get my VIA EPIA M10000 hybrid to work, but in the end it has been a pleasant fight. Pluto was covering definitely better the multimedia aspect and it overall seemed way more powerful to me, so I started to write a rude GSD to drive a Weeder I/O board to control some light and a simple surround system. This increased dramatically WAF factor, so I was allowed to buy a new server and switch VIA hybrid to simple MD.
The idea was then to get as much confidence with system as possible, to study some C++ and OO programming and afterwards to start with some "under the hood" approach with the codebase. Unfortunately Pluto momentum started to progressively fade, and it seemed to me that I was putting a lot of effort basically on a dead horse. So I put everything in kind of "suspended mode".

Reading from time to time Pluto Forum I found out in summer 2007 that project was forked, and this pointed me here. I joined the forum and as soon it was released I switched my Pluto system do LMCE 704.
In the mean time renovation works for my house were already started, but it was not too late to make some change to wiring and lighting system in order to set up an infrastructure relying on LMCE.
Now I'm living in my new house since last july, my LMCE 710 system is still a small one (1 hybrid and 1 MD) but nevertheless in my spare time I wrote a rude and dirty GSD driver to integrate my lighting and electric shutter system (heavyly based on Dan Damron Insteon driver structure).

I've plenty of thing still to be done on my system (improving GSD, implementing anti-intrusion and video surveillance, integrating telephony, integrating different remotes, integrating LCD devices, integrating iButtons, speech synthesis ...) and no time to get them done.
To be honest in this particular economic situation I don't really regret not to have spare time ... but also I hope to find a better balance between my family and my job that allow me to exchange back something to LMCE, that is probably the best way to thank those great guys that are doing such an incredible work.

Marco

[itsmeok]

I came to the linuxmce website after my brother showed me the comparison video on You Tube. I was considering buying a commercial HD video player. In my eyes this is a brilliant product and I do believe in the strength of a community developed product against commercial developed products.

As not having a huge knowledge of linux it is sometimes challenging. I hope to be able to help out more in the future. Currently trying to document the things I am doing on my system for other new users. I do believe that documentation will prevent the same questions to be asked over and over again, taking time from all members.

I just build my second system with a small hiper case (DVD player size) for my livingroom. I get a lot of interest from everyone visiting the house. 

I am not a developer but for my work I am involved in development as test consultant / manager. If that would be of any help sometime.....

[tschak909]

itsmeok: trust me, that would help a ton.

The scope of the entire system is HUGE, and we need a regression framework to put into place to make sure that our functionality is consistent from release to release, especially as things change underneath as time goes on.

-Thom

[Craptastic]

Part accident, part destiny perhaps.

After a multitude of failures with the Bell ExpressVu PVR (total of 8 units in just over two years) I knew that I had to do something. Unfortunately, we had just started having a family and well, like me, my kids don't sleep so I get even less sleep and less time to myself so the project went no where until about a month ago.

I was aware of MythTV from my desire to not be tied to dedicated hardware, and I used to dabble in DVB so I really wanted flexibility. I also wanted to eventually get home automation going.

In my desire to get this moving, searches about MythTV made a connection to LinuxMCE. This solved both of primary objectives.

I have looked at a lot of automation systems over the years and found this to be quite impressive from a capability standpoint.

For the last month I have been handpicking my parts and ordering them from across Canada and finally have my hybrid "running". I have not connected it to any TV feeds yet, hope to do that next week.

I have also started mapping out my deployment of other aspects such as security.

I would love to get to the point of having security up and running, MAME playing, irrigation control, camera at front door, full lighting control (likely Zwave), HVAC, phone, maybe a remote weather station for actual temperature etc.

I am very green to Linux as a language but have done a reasonable amount of personal programming in other languages so it is not completely foreign. I hope to contribute and to truly be part of the community and not just a user. It seems that standard phone services needs some work so that might be an area I could contribute to.

For the next few months time is scarce but I do plan on soaking up as much Linux as possible. If anyone has any recommended resources for Linux or Ruby or anything else they would not go to waste.

I look forward to contributing and hope to affect positive change during my time here.

[rvetruba]

Thom, et al - i'm playing more with the system, and starting to get a feel for it..in my case, it's a linux learning curve too.

Anyway, I'll start a new post about UI (or ID an existing one).

Also, software is easier to change than humans.

Human patterns and existing conventions should be used whenever we can... as an outsider coming in, I'll put forth a few observations:
a. Noobs like me should get greeted, in a perfect world - the way I have been here. It's very helpful to know there's an online forum for questions, and furthermore, the forums aren't just for tech gods who look down on my lowly questions. What we're really creating here is improvements in people's lives... the wealthy who hire home automation experts might not care, they just hire someone to fix the problems - but for the masses, LMCE is close

b. I'd love to see (help with even, if anyone's in Los Angeles?) a "what next" video or stupid-simple wiki...say you installed LMCE - now what? What PVR to buy? What is an orbiter (I've figured it out...)? What do I need to control my stereo? A big-@ss "start here" I think will help more people not just install it, but make it part of their life.

c. Orbiters should default to a contextual layout. Any orbiter should control any device, but this is something i'll push for and am happy to help design context-specific orbiters. I'm guessing the main orbiters might be: Entertainment, Security (Entry/Exit)... perhaps bedroom (wake-up + sleep shutdown + security..?) + main default + kitchen specific if anyone tackles assisted cooking?
   (note: this conversation moved to new post - plz reply there)

d. This could be presumptious for a rookie, but I think I saw a post that LMCE is home automation, not entertainment center...but I think I reject the assumption that this has to be the case - only because those two are not contradictory. It can be both and has the basics of such already (??). The music player for orbiter needs a lot of work, but

[Afkpuz]

d. This could be presumptious for a rookie, but I think I saw a post that LMCE is home automation, not entertainment center...but I think I reject the assumption that this has to be the case - only because those two are not contradictory. It can be both and has the basics of such already (??). The music player for orbiter needs a lot of work, but

Well, I would hope that both media and HA are being worked on.  However, I can see how HA would take alot more work than media playback.  Linux already has several very nice media players that IMO would be easy to integrate into something like LMCE.  Home automation though doesn't have alot of native linux support.  But yea, I agree that there are some improvements I'd like to see with media playback.

[lmce3000]

Hi All,

Finally decided to join the forum. I've been using linux for over 15 years, My home/office is 90% Linux.
I've got a couple of Win XP instances running in VMWare server, because there are some applications that
are not yet available for Linux, but as soon as they become available, I will ditch XP altogether.
I stumbled upon Linuxmce a while back, but never had the time to put a system together. As a business
owner, I clock some serious work hours. Finally managed to get some free time a couple of months ago
Bought some hardware and built a killer core/Hybrid system. (Quad Core / 3 Gigs of Ram / 250 Gb OS Drive
500 Gb Storage and a 1TB NAS) Overkill perhaps, But I call it forward thinking, by the way, my hardware
had some issues with LMCE, but with a couple of trips to the command line, passed a few commands to Grub
and a few VGA card tweaks. I've got the Hybrid running with UI2. SWEET!  After a dozen or so installs and reinstalls.
I've got a working system. My system is on 24/7 for the past month with no issues or whatsoever. I'll add
my hardware list to the wiki at some point. Right now, I've got two Laptops working as MDs. One is attached to my TV via
Svideo and the second Laptop is setup in the dining area. Will be adding light modules, IP cams and so on soon.
Also looking into the ASUS EETOP as and MD for the kitchen area. I think the touch screen would be great for
the wife to browse for recipes and play her fav shows and or listen to her fav songs while she's cooking. It is a
work in progress, needless to say, LMCE, Very Addictive!!!
Linux MCE with all it's rough edges is the best solution for HA out there by a mile. I'm hooked.!!! 

[Steve]

I started messing with linux back in 1996 when all there was slackware and redhat. As time moved on went to debian cause it was alot more user friendly. In 2004 built a debian full fledged server probably over kill, but i like to dabble into new things. I had tried linuxmce 1.0 never did get it to work so I canned it. About a month ago was googling for a better system to fit my lifstyle without the overkill and found linuxmce which I thaught had disappeared of the face of the earth so I loaded up 7.1 and much to my amazment everything worked this time with alittle bit of patching the kernel. If you are very new to linux dont try it. I joined the forums and have been pretty happy with it. Great job to all the developers! Someday soon I would like to contibute more than just alittle knowledge.

[Pnuts]

I have been using XP-MCE for about 4 years now and my wife loves it. Talking to a virtual team member\coworker of mine, we got on the topic of MCE's. He was thinking of setting one up himself and i mentioned I had been using XP without any problems. He mentioned LMCE as one of the options available. I dismissed it without even looking at it as I was content with XP-MCE.

Fast forward about 6 months and I just moved into a house we just purchased. Now that I have free roam to do what i want to it, I considered adding some IP Cameras and began looking into different ways to do this. I mention this to that same coworker and he brings up LMCE again. This time he also provides a demo video from google video. After watching it, I was sold.

I played around with it for a few weeks isolated on my home network and decided to make a run at installing it on my main network. Well, after a long weekend, a fed up wife, and getting poorer TV reception then the XP-MCE, i had to scrap the rollout and return everything to normal. Biggest wife complaint was lack of internet while i was doing most of this.

Move forward another 2 weeks and im at it again, this time, I keep it simple instead of trying to do the house at once. I have a hybrid setup in my office\media room which is providing dhcp to the house. an HDHomerun hopefully arriving today and shortly after a gyro mouse. Once i can get my wife comfortable with it, ill turn the xp-mce machine in the front room into a 2nd MD. Then I can work on doing zwave lighting and more automation things.