Director Kernel Panic on P5E-VM HDMI

[Oatz]

Hello Linuxmce world, I've traveled a long way through Nuppelvideo + bash, XP MCE, MythTV, Mediaportal, and now to this neck of the woods and I like what I see so far.

I have the core and a few directors going with 710.

My main existing SageTV HTPC......
P5E-VM HDMI
Nvidia 8800
Atheros onboard Gb NIC
HDPVR
Avermedia Combo QAM/Analog
4gb
2tb

 ......seems to work according to other users, but as a director I'm getting a kernel panic on Netboot, seem to be related the Atheros NIC:

NET: Registered protocol family 17
lpconfig: no devices to configure
/init: .: 1: Can't open /tmp/net-eth0.conf
Kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init!

Looks like it didn't find the NIC possibly? So close!

I would love to tinker with the linux config for this director, is there a directory on the core with a preconfigured directory for each "announced" director?

Also, is there a scenario where a director would be the main store of video, audio, pictures etc? Or is this not viable. It would be nice to make my core "aware" of all the media on my SageTV rig without having to move all of those drives to the core.

Sorry for the mashup of various questions, but better than 4 threads.
Thanks!

[Zaerc]

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/FAQ#My_Network_Card_Doesn.27t_Work.21_Now_What.3F

[colinjones]

Essentially, the network bootstrap code downloaded to the MD at boot time did not include a driver that can drive that NIC. Follow the article that Zaerc linked to and you should be able to refresh the bootstrap with the correct driver. You will also find there the folder you seek ... /usr/pluto/diskless/##

On the media - Basically, anything can store media. LMCE is then responsible for aggregating all this together and presenting it as a single media library right across the house. Typically, you would not have media on a MD because they are intended to be diskless. Makes more sense to have a central network location that you can scale up with lots of disk. But it is certainly possible if you want to. I would recommend a NAS solution, or keeping the media on a general purpose PC (ie don't keep the media on LMCE units at all, ideally). Yes, there is nothing stopping you having LMCE detect your media on your other rig, but note that it is highly preferable to use the LMCE folder structure when it asks you. This is a trivial reorganisation on the SageTV end, but makes a big difference to the functionality of LMCE. So once it detects and creates the necessary LMCE media folders, then you can just move the media into the appropriate folder... done..

[totallymaxed]

Hello Linuxmce world, I've traveled a long way through Nuppelvideo + bash, XP MCE, MythTV, Mediaportal, and now to this neck of the woods and I like what I see so far.

I have the core and a few directors going with 710.

My main existing SageTV HTPC......
P5E-VM HDMI
Nvidia 8800
Atheros onboard Gb NIC
HDPVR
Avermedia Combo QAM/Analog
4gb
2tb

 ......seems to work according to other users, but as a director I'm getting a kernel panic on Netboot, seem to be related the Atheros NIC:

NET: Registered protocol family 17
lpconfig: no devices to configure
/init: .: 1: Can't open /tmp/net-eth0.conf
Kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init!

Looks like it didn't find the NIC possibly? So close!

I would love to tinker with the linux config for this director, is there a directory on the core with a preconfigured directory for each "announced" director?

Also, is there a scenario where a director would be the main store of video, audio, pictures etc? Or is this not viable. It would be nice to make my core "aware" of all the media on my SageTV rig without having to move all of those drives to the core.

Sorry for the mashup of various questions, but better than 4 threads.
Thanks!

Ok... re the question about where content storage can be located in your LinuxMCE system... yes you can have add HD's in your MD's as storage to your system. Its technically possible to do this... just make sure the drive is formatted and has a Linux partition on it. Your Core should then detect it and you can add it as you would any other storage device. The down side of locating drives in MD's or on other devices like Windows PC's or indeed Mac's or other Linux based PC's on your internal LAN is that those devices will inevitably come & go from the network unless they are all powered up all the time... and this means that any media you store on their internal HD's will also come and go with them ;-)

So as others have said here and in other threads its usually a better strategy to locate all of your storage either in the Core or even better in a NAS that can be expanded as needed (and RAIDED too). The NAs route also means that whatever happens to your Core... your media will always just be there.

All the best

Andrew

[Oatz]

Thanks a lot for the explanations. I will try adding NIC module names to that modules config file. Also will check out the media structure and see if I can apply directory structure that to my Sage setup. I'm assuming that if I'm pushing 1080i video around the house I'm going to need Gigabit wired everywhere.

It looks like my SageTV rig will eventually be the core, as soon as HDPVR support is working reliably and I have a decent Nvidia card in it. I've been pretty happy how all of my Dell laptops are running as Directors, same with my gaming rig.

I'm pretty sure this is the media architecture I've been looking for, I just hope a slightly tighter default skin is on the way. Browsing music at 1080p is a bit scary looking with the block letters and contasting colors.

One last question (again should be a new thread), if I have a wireless laptop, to be used for low bandwidth media (pics, music), I know that I can't netboot a wireless card, so is there way to install my media director files on a small partition on the director, boot this partition, and then use my wireless card to interface with the other units/core/directors? Or am I talking crazy talk?

[totallymaxed]

One last question (again should be a new thread), if I have a wireless laptop, to be used for low bandwidth media (pics, music), I know that I can't netboot a wireless card, so is there way to install my media director files on a small partition on the director, boot this partition, and then use my wireless card to interface with the other units/core/directors? Or am I talking crazy talk?

Hi Oatz,

LinuxMCE-0710 does not support local boot at the moment (it was removed due to stability issues). However it is likely that local boot from your MD's local drive will return in LinuxMCE-0810.

All the best

Andrew

[Oatz]

Great well I await 810. Until then I set up a DD-WRT wireless N bridge to cheat the in the meantime. I'm actually getting great performance though I've only used SD video so far.

[totallymaxed]

Great well I await 810. Until then I set up a DD-WRT wireless N bridge to cheat the in the meantime. I'm actually getting great performance though I've only used SD video so far.

Yep that should work fine...its just that Wireless cards dont support pxe boot

Andrew

[Oatz]

The atl1 modules worked!! Thanks!!

[totallymaxed]

The atl1 modules worked!! Thanks!!

Great :-)

Andrew