Serving other services / tasks from the core?

[davidsmoot]

First post greetings... I'm a embedded system developer and I am in the process of buying a new house.  I finally will have my own office / study / gadget lab area and I am looking forward to playing with Linux MCE.  In the past, I really only had room for one computer and the wife did not want my Linux projects interfering with her computer use (Ubuntu 64 bit did not play nice with flash a couple years back).  So finally I can play around.  To be honest, the security cam / alarm integration appeals more to me, I don't watch that much TV.

I'm working my way through the Wiki and online info and I have come into some slightly contradictory info:  Should my core be a dedicated core doing nothing but MCE tasks or can it be a general purpose server/workstation?

For example, I want a Trac/SVN server for some of my code development projects.  I'm trying to learn Python / QT (got an N900 that I am playing with) and I want to use my linux box as a development workstation for Maemo / Meego. I own a domain that I have never put to good use and I might try to throw wordpress up there.  I'll probably try to set up openVPN and an incoming SSH server (I know about the SSH keys issue).

One place in the wiki it says that you can use your MCE box as a standard workstation, but elsewhere it talks about a "clean core". Am I going to break a lot of MCE functionality if I update pieces of Ubuntu for software development tasks?

Anybody else use their MCE box as a general purpose home server?

Many more questions to come but I'm going to finish the Wiki first...

Ok so maybe my question was too vague but here's my specific confusion:
From http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/User_Manual:
"It is best to dedicate one PC as the Core server. You can put this computer somewhere out of the way and not connect a monitor to it."

But from http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions
"We didn't take any modules away from the Kubuntu distribution, we only added some. You can still use your Core as a normal Kubuntu Linux PC. In fact, our additions can be bypassed if they get in your way, as is explained below. But in general, DCERouter and other devices, like the home automation modules, all run in the background and won't interfere in screen sessions."

I'm laying out my systems / network and I would prefer to have one "home server" that has my media, my VPN server, my TRAC / SVN server.  But if I am going to be constantly fighting compatibility between what works for MCE and the other services I want to run, I'd like to know sooner rather than later.  Surely with all the geeks around here somebody runs other Linux services on their core?.

Thanks,
David

[jamo]

Hi David

Did you ever make any progress on this one? What was your final decision? I'm grappling with similar issues- do I make my existing workstation a core or should I set up an entirely separate core so I can tinker/ develop/ do other stuff on the workstation.

I'd be interested to hear where you are with this now.

thanks
James

[merkur2k]

i use a pc as a dedicated core and also use it for many other server type tasks besides lmce. my main workstation pc still runs windows, but i also run ubuntu in a virtual machine on it.
you will not end up in a situation where lmce is fighting you as long as you set things up properly (ie dont try to overwrite lmce files, etc).

[daballiemo]

I turned the whole thing around. I have a server (9.10) that is serving LMCE, 3 websites, XP/Vista/Win7 VM's and a Samba server which is serving LMCE as well.
My setup is described in http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Installing_LinuMCE_on_Virtual_Machine_via_KVM

Rgds

Han

[jamo]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I think I was a bit confused about the internal MCE network. I was under the impression that all machines plugged into it had to either be the core or a media director so I was wondering where my existing workstation fitted in. As I now understand it, I can plug my existing workstation into the MCE internal network and MCE will just see it as a file server... I can continue to use it as normal, access the internet and possibly some other shared resources on the network without making it a core or Media director. I gather if I want to run it as a media director I can either dual boot it to PXE or run a virtual machine on it with the media director on that.