I have made the jump, this is what i have ordered..

[geekyhawkes]

I have finally made the jump to getting my MCE hybrid setup!  Below is a list of the hardware i have ordered so far;

     AMD Athlon64 5050e Socket AM2 Dual Core Processor - Retail   
   SilverStone GD02S Silver Media Center Style,No PSU      
        Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro Sock754/939/AM2 Cooler

ASUS M3N78-EM NFORCE 8300 Motherboard
RAM-2GB    800MHZ 2GB 240 PIN DDR2 PC6400    A    
HIPER 425 WATT 18DB SILENT PSU A    A    
KWORLD DVB-T 399U PLUSTV DUAL DV    A    
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.12 500GB    

Im hoping this will be a nice little hybrid once i get it up and running.  I will report back as and when i get it working! (More likely report back asking for help!)

Andy

[skeptic]

You've already made the jump so it's too late, but I probably would bump up the HD to 1T or more.  Under $100 (US) for a 1TB drive.  As long as you don't rip a ton of movies, 500G will be just fine. 

BTW, I really like the silverstone cases, but I'm too cheap to buy one so I'll just be jealous of yours.

[Craptastic]

Welcome.

I have the same motherboard, which really is the critical piece and it has worked really well for me. For ongoing testing and implementing I had to move off our main TV (720p) and use CRT so I added in an EVGA 6200 PCI Gfx card and for $50.00 it works even better.

With an upgraded nvidia driver (of early April, forget the rev) the board would do full UI2 very well. I only saw occasional artifacting of one or two lines during high action scenes. The addition of the EVGA card gets full UI2 with zero issues. Works flawlessly with DVI, VGA or S-Video up to 720p that I have tested.

I have not yet upgraded kernel or migrated to 810 to get the onboard NIC working  but I am still learning and deploying and it does what I need right now.

For a second NIC I would suggest a PCI Express card to save one of only two PCI slots. Forget the model off hand but I have an Intel NIC that works out of the box.

Anyway, I am certain you will be happy. There is so much to explore and learn and try. When you see this working on a tablet PC like a WebDT with audio and video information and cover art added in it is very slick and definitely a conversation piece for any guest.

Craptastic

[alx9r]

geekyhawkes,
In case you haven't already come across it already, there is a new guide in the wiki to help with mainboard selection.  You can find it here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/How_to_Select_Mainboards_for_Your_LinuxMCE_System
It might help you when you are selecting a mainboard for your next LinuxMCE box.

Alex

[geekyhawkes]

Alex,

i did read the guide in the wiki and found it VERY useful indeed!  Definatly recommend it to others!  As far storage I already have a buffalo NAS that I am intending on using so that will take total storage up to 1TB.  I am planning on running MCE on a 250gb sata drive i have lieing around to keep the system partition seperate.

Craptastic, have you had any luck getting audio over HDMI with the motherboard?  I have found a few posts saying it doesnt work, and I am really keen to get this working until i can sort the cash for a decent amp.

My TV is an LCD made by dell that has a round RS232 post on the back.  Has anyone any idea if i can use this to switch the tv on/off as in the demo video?  The use of RS232 in A/V gear is new to me, is the assumption that all manufactorers use a standard pin/out setup allowing the PC control of the items?

Thanks for the help so far!

[tschak909]

You would think there was a standardized RS232 protocol to control TVs and amps.

Unfortunately, no.

But don't worry,

If you can find the protocol specifications (either in the back of the manual, or on the website), you can easily make a device template to control your TV You can use the Sharp Aquos RS232 template as a basis for it. Then once you have this, you can make a plug and play script to send a test command to the TV and expect a response, you can then use this to detect if the TV is connected, and automatically set it up in the setup wizard.

Once you have this, you can work with us to fold this into future releases.

-Thom

[geekyhawkes]

Thanks for the tip.  I do have the rs232 spec document (thank you google!) but am having no luck in finding the sharp template?  The wiki entry appears to be deleted.  Can you steer me to the correct place please?

[geekyhawkes]

I just have one other (potentially) stupid question at this stage, do i need 2 NIC if i am planning on using wifi to connect to my router and the onboard nic to run the MCE network?  I cannot see any reason for a second NIC if i access the internet via wifi, but i might have missed something!

[tschak909]

This is not a supported configuration in 0810, so I am unsure of what will happen. It's not possible in 0710 at all.

-Thom

[itspac]

I just have one other (potentially) stupid question at this stage, do i need 2 NIC if i am planning on using wifi to connect to my router and the onboard nic to run the MCE network?  I cannot see any reason for a second NIC if i access the internet via wifi, but i might have missed something!

I run one wireless NIC and on gigabit NIC.   it takes some manual configuration to get it to work though

[GasVe]

Hi:
   I have used this wireless card TL-WN651G for my "internet" connection and the integrated nic of the MB as the MCE network and it works pretty good, the trick is this board uses uses a Atheros chip recognized at the first try, the only issue faced was after a reboot it does not start automatically, but this issue was fixed using acommand line in /etc/rc.local.
  My network arrangement is as follow:

        Switch/Wirelles router <------->  wireless nic | LinucMCE | integrated NIC <------> 

[tschak909]

Guys, instead of duct taping your setups,

why don't you work on actually providing us a patch to support configurations like this?

-Thom

[Techstyle]

If you cannot get a patch together at least an explanation in the Wiki so others can use the same steps.  But as Thom said, integration is better than individual tweaks.

[geekyhawkes]

I totally agree! I would be very pleased if someone could write up a wiki topic on using wifi and an onboard NIC under 810!  At least then several others can benefit from the knowledge, and if hard pressed i am sure we can make a script to run after the mce installer.

[tschak909]

No!

*Thwaps-geekyhawkes-on-the-head*

We need to make the network scripts aware of devices other than eth0/1, so that they can be configured BOTH at post-install, AND after install in the web admin.

Come on guys, stop thinking like duct-tape!

-Thom