LinuxMCE - User contributions [en]

Main Page

2008-02-25T11:04:52Z

Bmk789: removed spam

News: LinuxMCE Wiki was updated to latest version including a RSS feed extension.
Instructions about how to use it can be found [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WikiArticleFeeds here]or you may take a look at a [[Test RSS]].

__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__
<div align="center">
<div style="font-size:175%; font-weight:bold">The '''[http://linuxmce.org LinuxMCE]''' wiki</div>
'''Your guide to a smarter home!'''
</div>

{| style="clear: both; border: 1px solid #aaa; background-color: #f9f9f9; color: black; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; padding: 0.5em; float: right; text-align:center"
|'''Screenshots'''
[[Image:MainMenu2.jpg|200px]] The main menu with media in the background 
|-
|[[Image:FileBrowserUI1.jpg|200px]] Browsing media files 
|-
|[[Image:DialNumberUI1.jpg|200px]] Telephone dial pad [[Screenshots|More screenshots and videos]]
|}
'''LinuxMCE is the only all-in-one open source solution that seamlessly combines:'''
* ''Media & entertainment'' with a server for music and video plus a [[PVR]] like TiVo or Sky+
* ''Home automation'' to control everything from lights to heating with a touch-screen tablet or your mobile phone
* ''Phone system'' with video conferencing
* ''Security system'' that feeds live video to your mobile during a security breach

[[LinuxMCE|Read more]] to see all the possibilities that LinuxMCE offers.

LinuxMCE Video hardware link is here http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Video

=Download=
Please take a moment to read about '''[[Known_Issues|known issues]]''' before downloading our ''Quick Install DVD'' or the ''Two-CD Installer''.

{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0 width=100%
|width=48|{{Click || image=Globe.gif | link=Download_Instructions | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Download_Instructions|Download LinuxMCE]] or buy [[LinuxMCE Products]]''' After checking known issues please download from an appropriate mirror
|}

=Project News=
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Insteon_-_Setting_Up_PLM_Template RC1 Insteon Support now available] ''(20-Feb-08)''
*[[Version_0710|January 16, 2008 Version 0710 beta 3 is released]]
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Insteon_-_Setting_Up_PLM_Template Beta Insteon Support now available] ''(4-January-08)''
*[http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2664 Linux Media Center PCs Review Roundup] ''(4 October)''
*[http://www.news.com/DRM-troubles-drive-ex-Microsoft-employee-to-Linux/2100-1016_3-6210131.html DRM troubles drive ex-Microsoft employee to Linux] ''(26 September)''
*[http://linuxmce.org/news.php?id=10| New SchedulesDirect service for MythTV] ''(31 August)''
*[[Download_Instructions|LinuxMCE 0704 is out!]] ''(7 August)''

{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0 width=100%
|width=48|{{Click || image=Newspaper.gif | link=LinuxMCE_media_coverage | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[LinuxMCE media coverage|More LinuxMCE media coverage]]''' Third party media and blog coverage
|}

=Documentation Access=
This Wiki has many hierarchical [[:Category:Main|categories]] of articles. There are also developer maillists, [http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Source_Code source code] repositories (with attached discussions), [http://mantis.linuxmce.org bug/issue report mangement] and [http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php forums] for discussion among users, developers and other members of the LinuxMCE community.

==Support==
{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0
|width=48|{{Click || image=Manual.gif | link=User Manual | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[User Manual]]''' LinuxMCE User Manual
|width=48|{{Click || image=Guides.gif | link=:Category:Tutorials | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[:Category:Tutorials|Guides]]''' HOWTO guides describing common scenarios
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=FAQ.gif | link=Frequently Asked Questions | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Frequently Asked Questions]]''' Responses to the most common questions
|width=48|{{Click || image=Hardware.gif | link=Hardware | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Hardware]]''' Hardware documentation
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=Troubleshooting.gif | link=Troubleshooting | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Troubleshooting]]''' Help with common problems
|width=48|{{UrlClick || image=Mail.gif | link=Developers | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[http://www.charonmedia.org/mailman/listinfo Mailing List]''' Stay up to date with regular emails
|-
|width=48|{{UrlClick || image=Forum.gif | link=kjh | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[http://forum.linuxmce.com Forum]''' Support forum
|width=48|{{Click || image=Forum.gif | link=Chat | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Chat]]''' Support chat
|}

==Development==
{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0
|width=48|{{Click || image=Contacts.gif | link=Contacts | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Contacts|Contact Information]]''' Contact people involved with the project
|width=48|{{Click || image=Manual.gif | link=Programmer's Guide | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Programmer's Guide]]''' A guide for software developers
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=Software.gif | link=Software components | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Software components|Software Components]]''' Open source software used by LinuxMCE
|width=48|{{Click || image=Bug.gif | link=Bug Reports | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Bug Reports]]''' Help improve the software by reporting bugs
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=Binary.gif | link=Source Code | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Source Code]]''' Access the LinuxMCE source code
|width=48|{{UrlClick || image=CDR.gif | link=Versions | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Versions]]''' View version histories and changes
|}

Main Page

2008-01-06T03:32:58Z

Bmk789:

__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__
<div align="center">
<div style="font-size:175%; font-weight:bold">The '''[http://linuxmce.org LinuxMCE]''' wiki</div>
'''Your guide to a smarter home!'''
</div>

{| style="clear: both; border: 1px solid #aaa; background-color: #f9f9f9; color: black; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; padding: 0.5em; float: right; text-align:center"
|'''Screenshots'''
[[Image:MainMenu2.jpg|200px]] The main menu with media in the background 
|-
|[[Image:FileBrowserUI1.jpg|200px]] Browsing media files 
|-
|[[Image:DialNumberUI1.jpg|200px]] Telephone dial pad [[Screenshots|More screenshots and videos]]
|}
'''LinuxMCE is the only all-in-one open source solution that seamlessly combines:'''
* ''Media & entertainment'' with a server for music and video plus a [[PVR]] like TiVo or Sky+
* ''Home automation'' to control everything from lights to heating with a touch-screen tablet or your mobile phone
* ''Phone system'' with video conferencing
* ''Security system'' that feeds live video to your mobile during a security breach

[[LinuxMCE|Read more]] to see all the possibilities that LinuxMCE offers.

LinuxMCE Video hardware link is here http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Video

==Download==
Please take a moment to read about '''[[Known_Issues|known issues]]''' before downloading our ''Quick Install DVD'' or the ''Two-CD Installer''.

{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0 width=100%
|width=48|{{Click || image=Globe.gif | link=Download_Instructions | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Download_Instructions|Download LinuxMCE]] or buy [[LinuxMCE Products]]''' After checking known issues please download from an appropriate mirror
|}

==Project News==
*[http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2664 Linux Media Center PCs Review Roundup] ''(4 October)''
*[http://www.news.com/DRM-troubles-drive-ex-Microsoft-employee-to-Linux/2100-1016_3-6210131.html DRM troubles drive ex-Microsoft employee to Linux] ''(26 September)''
*[http://linuxmce.org/news.php?id=10| New SchedulesDirect service for MythTV] ''(31 August)''
*[[Download_Instructions|LinuxMCE 0704 is out!]] ''(7 August)''

{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0 width=100%
|width=48|{{Click || image=Newspaper.gif | link=LinuxMCE_media_coverage | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[LinuxMCE media coverage|More LinuxMCE media coverage]]''' Third party media and blog coverage
|}

==Support==
{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0
|width=48|{{Click || image=Manual.gif | link=User Manual | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[User Manual]]''' LinuxMCE User Manual
|width=48|{{Click || image=Guides.gif | link=:Category:Tutorials | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[:Category:Tutorials|Guides]]''' HOWTO guides describing common scenarios
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=FAQ.gif | link=Frequently Asked Questions | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Frequently Asked Questions]]''' Responses to the most common questions
|width=48|{{Click || image=Hardware.gif | link=Hardware | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Hardware]]''' Hardware documentation
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=Troubleshooting.gif | link=Troubleshooting | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Troubleshooting]]''' Help with common problems
|width=48|{{UrlClick || image=Mail.gif | link=:Category:Hardware | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=166973 Mailing List]''' Stay up to date with regular emails
|-
|width=48|{{UrlClick || image=Forum.gif | link=kjh | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[http://forum.linuxmce.com Forum]''' Support forum
|width=48|{{Click || image=Forum.gif | link=Chat | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Chat]]''' Support chat
|}

==Development==
{| cellspacing=5 cellpadding=5 border=0
|width=48|{{Click || image=Contacts.gif | link=Contacts | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Contacts|Contact Information]]''' Contact people involved with the project
|width=48|{{Click || image=Manual.gif | link=Programmer's Guide | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Programmer's Guide]]''' A guide for software developers
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=Software.gif | link=Software components | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Software components|Software Components]]''' Open source software used by LinuxMCE
|width=48|{{Click || image=Bug.gif | link=Bug Reports | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Bug Reports]]''' Help improve the software by reporting bugs
|-
|width=48|{{Click || image=Binary.gif | link=Source Code | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Source Code]]''' Access the LinuxMCE source code
|width=48|{{UrlClick || image=CDR.gif | link=Versions | width=48px | height=48px }}
|'''[[Versions]]''' View version histories and changes
|}

Backup-and-Restore

2007-12-25T03:32:19Z

Bmk789: i wish we could stop these spammers that have already been labeled!

#REDIRECT [[Backup and Restore]]

Backup-and-Restore

2007-12-24T02:43:09Z

Bmk789: back to normal, SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED AGAIN

#REDIRECT [[Backup and Restore]]

Windows

2007-12-24T02:40:40Z

Bmk789:

{{NeedsToBeFixed}}
If you want to run the Windows version of the Orbiter, we have an installer. This will allow you to use a Windows PC or tablet as an Orbiter. [http://plutohome.com/download/installers/windows/Orbiter%20-%202.0.0.0.exe Download]
The rest of the software, such as DCE Router, the devices and Plug-ins also run on Windows with the exception of Xine and MythTV. Since there is not yet a Windows-compatible media player, Windows has been a lower priority. An install program is not yet available to setup a Windows computer as a core or media director. We just created an archive file with all the required dll's and exe's http://files-upload.com/files/454340/winbin.zip. Uncompress the archive to any directory, and run DCERouter.exe. Any DCE Device can connect to any router. Windows devices will connect to a Linux DCERouter, and vice-versa. The archive also includes [[Designer]] which is used to build the user interface for the Orbiters. This is a C# program and requires the .NET framework.
You can also download the source code and build using the included Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 project files. You will need to install MySQL, SDL and the Pthread libraries manually until we have a Windows installer to do it for you. If you want to run the LinuxMCE Admin web site, you will also need php and a compatible web server, like Apache or IIS.

IPTV

2007-12-16T02:43:19Z

Bmk789:

IPTV can deliver more content to your LinuxMCE system on-demand. Software such as [http://getmiro.com Miro] automatically downloads audio/video through RSS feeds via HTTP/FTP/Bittorrent. Software similar to this should be built into LinuxMCE.

==Wishlist==
* Support for RSS/ATOM feeds
* Scheduled updates and downloading of media
* Tag media as downloaded from the net
* Tag new downloaded media as unwatched
* Automatic transfer of new media to a music phone, etc. via Bluetooth on detection

==Spec==

==External Links==
[http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3288.0 Forum discussion]

Backup-and-Restore

2007-12-07T16:53:08Z

Bmk789:

#redirect [[Backup and Restore]]

Pepperpad 3

2007-12-07T02:09:54Z

Bmk789:

[[Image:PepperPad3.jpg]]

[http://www.pepper.com/products/pepper_pad3.html Official Site]

----

CPU type: AMD Geode LX 800 
CPU speed: 533 Mhz 
OS: Linux 
Screen Size: 7 inches 
Screen Resolution: 800x480 
RAM: 256 MB 
Hard Disk: 20 GB 
Weight: 1000 gm 
Interfaces: 802.11b/g, USB2.0, Consumer IR (remote control), Line-out, Video-out (analogue), MIC-in 
Included accesories: Built-in camera 

----

Price: $699

==Setup Orbiter==
According to [http://www.pepper.com/forums/showthread.php?t=669], WINE can be run on the PepperPad. The Windows client of Orbiter downloaded from the admin page can be installed to use the device as an Orbiter.

[[Category: Orbiters]]
[[Category: WebPads]]

Pepperpad 3

2007-12-07T02:08:32Z

Bmk789: setup howto

Web Orbiter

2007-12-07T01:56:56Z

Bmk789: added to tutorials category

== Setup ==

Procedure to setup the Web Orbiter is simple but the order of steps is important:
<ol>
<li>First of all we should add a new Generic Web Device as a Child Device for your Core. Press "Show devices tree" and then "CORE". The Core detailed page should appear. On this page press a link 'Create Child Device' and press the button 'Pick device template' in the Add child device window. The new pop-up window contained device templates will be opened. Choose a category 'Peripherals', find and select Generic Web Device in the right list box and press the button 'Add device'. Generic Web Device will be added to the Core. Also new Generic Proxy Orbiter will be created automatically on this stage. We can watch the Orbiter generation process on the Orbiters page: Wizard --> Devices --> Orbiters.</li>
<li>We should wait till generation procedure finishes (we should see a message on some active Orbiter or on the Orbiter page).</li>
<li>Don't forget Quick reload router. It's important because otherwise the Orbiter won't work properly</li>
<li>We can access to the Web Orbiter just typing URL ''<nowiki>http://core_ip/pluto-admin/weborbiter.php</nowiki>'' in the browser address bar. We should input existing user name and password and choose Generic Web Device from the dropdown list. As result we should have something similar:

[[Image:Web Orbiter.jpg|center]]
</li>
</ol>
If you try to connect to the Web Orbiter and see this message :
<code>"Connect to proxy orbiter failed, please try again"</code>
this means that the procedure of Orbiter generation doesn't finish yet or you forgot to quick restart of router.

[[Category: Orbiters]]
[[Category: Tutorials]]

LinuxMCE:Community Portal

2007-12-07T01:52:58Z

Bmk789: /* To do */ removed Nokia 770 example

__NOTOC__
<div align="center">
<h1>'''[http://linuxmce.org LinuxMCE]''' community portal</h1>
</div>

==Request for comment==
Comments and ideas welcomed in a [[LinuxMCE Wiki talk:Community Portal|debate about categorization]].

==News==
*'''19/10-07''' - Danielk has set up a public development area ([http://svn.charonmedia.org/ Trac], [http://www.charonmedia.org dev mailing list]). Please do also comment on moving development related stuff on the [[LinuxMCE_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal#Separating_development-related_stuff_into_the_Trac_Wiki|discussion page]]. Thanks --[[User:Chriss|chriss]] 05:08, 20 October 2007 (MST)
*'''27/9-07''' - [[User:Lozzo|Lozzo]] and [[User:Trout|Trout]] are now also admins.
*'''24/9-07''' - New template added, [[:Template:Delete]], add this to pages that you propose for deletion, these pages will also be added to the category [[:Category:Delete Page|Delete Page]]. --[[User:Samme|Samme]] 06:09, 24 September 2007 (MST)
*'''24/9-07''' - I have now blocked the known spammers, another thing I've done is that I've added the category [[:Category: NeedsToBeFixed|NeedsToBeFixed]], look at the page for further information. --[[User:Samme|Samme]] 02:48, 24 September 2007 (MST)
*'''22/9-07''' - Is there somebody out there who knows how to make templates? If so we need you're help!!!
*'''15/9-07''' - [[User:Trout|Trout]] has now also volunteered as admin.
*'''14/9-07''' - I, [[User:Samme|Samme]] is now administrator of the wiki, after a discussion with Paul, other interested in helping, mail me, you'll find my adress under the [[Contacts|contact page]].

==To do==
#<strike>Spam prevention</strike>
#<strike>Recruit a second admin and also volunteers, up for the task? Contact me!</strike>
#<strike>Delete garbage pages all can be found in the category [[:Category:Delete Page|Delete Page]]</strike>
#Set up rules & guidelines for the wiki
#<strike>New first page</strike>
#<strike>Fix hardware pages</strike>
#[[LinuxMCE Wiki:Community Portal:Category Proposal|Categories, proposal]], very important
#Various guides maybe replace FAQ?
#Dictionary?
#Join associated pages by unision or cross-referencing (if they are definately in different categories)

Feel free to add things to do, after all it is a wiki :o)

==Pages needing attention==
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php?title=Special:Lonelypages&limit=500&offset=0 Orphaned articles] (65 as of 29 September)
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php?title=Special:Uncategorizedpages&limit=500&offset=0 Uncategorized articles] (241 as of 29 September)
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php?title=Special:Deadendpages&limit=500&offset=0 Dead-end articles] (279 as of 29 September)
*[[:Category:Articles needing categorization|Articles needing categorization]] <nowiki>{{nocat}}</nowiki>
*[[:Category:Articles needing expansion|Articles needing expansion]] <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki>
*[[:Category:Articles with sections needing expansion|Articles with sections needing expansion]] <nowiki>{{sectstub}}</nowiki>
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php?title=Special:Shortpages&limit=500&offset=0 Short articles]
*[[:Category:NeedsToBeFixed|Articles needing to be fixed in some way]] <nowiki>{{NeedsToBeFixed}}</nowiki>
*[http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php/Special:Uncategorizedcategories Categories with no parent] (currently one root category but needs checking periodically)
*[[:Category:Delete Page|Articles and categories to be deleted]] <nowiki>{{delete}}</nowiki>

==Handy templates==
* <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> used to specify articles which need expanding
* <nowiki>{{sectstub}}</nowiki> used to specify sections which need expanding
* <nowiki>{{uncat}}</nowiki> used to specify articles which need to be categorized
* <nowiki>{{delete}}</nowiki> article nominated for deletion
* <nowiki>{{merge|articlename}}</nowiki> specifies article with which the current article should be merged
* <nowiki>{{NeedsToBeFixed}}</nowiki> article needs to be fixed in some way - ''better to use more descriptive templates if possible''

==Some useful links==

*[http://LinuxMCE.com LinuxMCE homepage]
*[http://forum.linuxmce.com LinuxMCE Forums]
*[http://ubuntuforums.org/ Ubuntu Forums]

[[Category:Wiki administration]]

Nokia 770

2007-12-07T01:51:10Z

Bmk789:

[[Category: Hardware]]
[[Category: WebPads]]
[[Category: Orbiters]]

[[Image:Nokia770.jpg]]

[http://europe.nokia.com/770 Official Site]

==About the device==
'''Microprocessor:''' 220-MHz, ARM9-based Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP 1710 
'''RAM:''' 64MB DDR 
'''On-board memory:''' 128 MB, more than 64 MB available to the user 
'''Memory slot:''' RS-MMC (Reduced size MultiMedia Card) 
'''Battery:''' Standard Li-ion BP-5L Battery 1500 mAh (3 hours browse, 7 hours standby) 
'''Screen:''' 800×480 touch screen with up to 65,536 colors 
'''WiFi:''' 802.11 b/g 
'''Bluetooth:''' Bluetooth 1.2 - dial-up networking, file transfer, generic access, SIM access, and serial port profiles 
'''Audio:''' Audio out 
'''PC connectivity:''' USB (slave mode only) via DKE-2 cable 
'''OS:''' Internet Tablet 2005 (Maemo-based) 
'''Linux specs:''' 2.6 kernel, GNOME-based GUI 
'''Dimensions:''' Dimensions: 5.5 inches x 3.1 inches x 0.70 inch 
'''Weight:''' 8.1 ounces 
Price: $140

The Nokia770 works pretty well as a LinuxMCE Orbiter.

The Orbiter package and all dependences can be found in the [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 Maemo garage], for information on how to use it read "[http://smart-home-blog.com/writes/nokia770-as-plutohome-orbiter-os2006/ Using Nokia770/N800 as a Plutohome Orbiter]" on the [[SmartBlog]].
==Setup guide 1==
===Before you begin===
First of all this is work in progress so don't expect the orbiter to be fully functional at full speed on this tablet. There are some known bugs so far:
* It will only run on OS 2005 for now so don't try to install this on newer firmware versions
* TTF rendering is not working so you won't see any text when browsing you media files :(
* Crashing and working a little slow

Thanks to Michael "[[User:Nite man|Nite man]]" Stepanov from IPTRIPLEPLAY Ltd [[mailto:info@iptp.net info@iptp.net]] who ported Orbiter on maemo platform.

===Installing OS 2005 on Nokia 770===
Since LinuxMCE Orbiter won't run on firmware version newer that SO 2005, you'll need to get that firmware version installed before you begin.

To check you current firmware version you can go to : MainMenu -> Control Panel -> Device -> About Product. There it should say 'Version: 3.2005...". If you already have this version installed then you can skip to next paragraph, else follow up this steps to get it installed.

The next steps are copy pasted from [[http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HOWTO_FlashLatestNokiaImageWithLinux maemo wiki]] and adapted to meet you needs :

Beware that flashing a new image on the Nokia 770 will remove all user changes to the system, including preferences, bookmarks, news feeds, user installed applications, ... Everything not on the memory card will be gone and the device will behave as if just purchased with the single exception that any previously-set lock code will be kept and not reset to the factory-default of "12345" (even the code is not preserved on some images).

*PC: Download the Linux flasher at [[http://maemo.org/downloads/d3.php maemo.org]]
*PC: In the same directory download the image you want: [[http://www.maemo.org/downloads/nokia_770 Nokia_770_3.2005.51-13.bin]]
*770: Unplug charger and switch off the Nokia 770. Connect it to your computer via USB
*PC: Execute as root (or as a normal user with rights to use the USB port):
./flasher-2.0 -F Nokia_770_3.2005.51-13.bin -f -R
*PC: "Suitable USB device not found, waiting" is displayed on the console
*770: Now plug in the charger to switch on the 770 or switch it on using the power button WHILE holding the Home-button
*PC: Watch the messages as the image loads to the 770 after which it reboots automatically -- you're done now!

==Setup Guide 2==

=== Configuring the Core ===
#Open up a web admin interface, go to Orbiter page and add a new device of type 'Orbiter'
#Locate the newly added device and change the resolution to 640x480 as the Nokia 770 won't support the default of 800x600
#Memorize the numeric id that LinuxMCE assigns to your new orbiter since you'll need it later, you can see it right of the 'Description' filed on the same page.
#Do a full regen of that orbiter and a quick reload router after that

=== Configuring the Tablet ===
#Setup you wireless connection. To use your tablet as an orbiter you'll need to make sure that the tablet is located within the internal network of the core.
#Upload the deb package to you tablet using the usb cable or by downloading it directly from our website. You can fetch the deb file [[http://plutohome.com/pluto-orbiter_0.1_arm.deb here]]
#Install it by double clicking the deb file from Nokia 770's File Manager.

=== Starting the Orbiter ===
#There is no easy way to start you orbiter yet, and you'll need an X terminal emulator to do this task. If you don't have it yet installed, download the osso-xterm deb package from [[http://770.fs-security.com/xterm/ fs-security.com]] and install it on you tablet the same way you installed the LinuxMCE orbiter package.
#Open up an xterminal using nokia 770's main menu: Extras -> X Terminal
#Make sure the network connection is available
#Type this in the terminal to start you orbiter
/var/lib/install/bin/startOrbiter.sh -r <ROUTER_INTERNAL_IP> -d <ORBITER_ID>
You can also start the orbiter with verbose logging to debug possible problems, but this will bring a slowdown in orbiter's screen changing :
/var/lib/install/bin/startOrbiterVerbose.sh -r <ROUTER_INTERNAL_IP> -d <ORBITER_ID>

=== Getting Help ===
For getting help and troubleshooting possible problems related to nokia 770 and LinuxMCE you can always talk to other users the [[http://plutohome.com/support/phpbb2/ forum]] and don't forget that this is still WiP.

==Setup Guide 3==
These are the instructions to build a version of [[Orbiter]] for the Nokia 770 internet platform. Nokia 770 has an ARM family processor, therefore you will need to cross-compile if your build machine is an Intel.

[[Image:Nokia-orbiter-small-400.jpg]]

===Requirements===
You will need:
* an Ubuntu box to host the build
* the Maemo 1.1 SDK for ARM ( http://repository.maemo.org/stable/1.1/arm/Maemo_Dev_Platform_RS_v1.1_arm.tgz )
* Scratchbox cross-compilation toolkit 0.9.8.5 (http://www.scratchbox.org/download/files/sbox-releases/0.9.8/deb/ )
scratchbox-core_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-devkit-debian_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-doctools_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-libs_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-toolchain-arm-glibc_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-toolchain-i686-glibc_0.9.8.5_i386.deb

===Preparing the Nokia tablet===
# Make sure it is connected to the network - check the Connection manager for a WiFi connection
# Open an X terminal on the tablet; make a directory in your home dir to hold the Orbiter binaries, say <tt>/home/user/orbiter</tt>
# You'll need a way to transfer files from the build machine to the tablet. Either have an HTTP server somewhere on your network, or install OpenSSH on the tablet. If you install OpenSSH, remember to also start it, by doing <tt>/etc/init.d/ssh start</tt>. To get a root prompt, use <tt>sudo gainroot</tt>.

===Preparing the build machine===
# Install Scratchbox debs on the build machine
# Add yourself as a Scratchbox user: <tt>'''/scratchbox/sbin/sbox_adduser ''username'''''</tt>
# Check out a fresh working copy of LinuxMCE from http://svn.plutohome.com/pluto/trunk/src/ into <tt>/scratchbox/users/username/pluto/trunk/src</tt> (username is assumed to be your user name on the build machine)
# Copy or symlink the Maemo SDK into <tt>/scratchbox/packages</tt>
# Log in to Scratchbox by typing <tt>'''scratchbox'''</tt>
# Configure Scratchbox cross-compile target:
> '''sbox-config -ct Nokia770'''

Available compilers:
0) arm-linux-gcc-3.3_3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2.ds1
1) host-gcc
2) i686-linux-gcc-3.3_3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2.ds1

Enter compiler number: '''0'''

Available CPU-transparency methods:
sbrsh
qemu-arm
qemu-ppc

Enter method name (qemu-arm): '''qemu-arm'''

Available devkits:
debian

Enter list of devkit names (none): '''debian'''
# Select the new cross-compile target: <tt>'''sbox-config -st Nokia770'''</tt>
# Unpack the Maemo rootstrap: <tt>'''sbox-config -er /scratchbox/packages/Maemo_Dev_Platform_RS_v1.1_arm.tgz'''</tt>
# <tt>'''sbox-config -cc'''</tt>
# <tt>'''sbox-config -cf'''</tt>
# Update the package list inside Scratchbox by typing <tt>apt-get update</tt>
# Install the following build-time dependencies (with <tt>apt-get install</tt>)
#* libmysqlclient12-dev
#* libid3-dev
#* xlibmesa-gl-dev
# Before starting to compile Orbiter and its dependencies, type: export SNR_CPPFLAGS="-DMAEMO_NOKIA770" (add there -DDEBUG if you want to see all debug messages) and export SNR_LDFLAGS="". Also, apply that patch to Orbiter Makefile to remove GL and HID dependences:

<pre>
--- src-2.0.0.44/src/Orbiter/Makefile 2007-03-05 13:44:44.000000000 -0800
+++ tmp/Makefile 2007-06-07 08:02:09.000000000 -0700
@@ -23,9 +23,9 @@

CXXFLAGS += -g -O0
-CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/include/SDL -DORBITER -DCACHE_IMAGES -DENABLE_MOUSE_BEHAVIOR -I$(ROOT)/Splitter -I$(ROOT)/OrbiterGen -I$(ROOT)/SDL_Helpers -DHID_REMOTE
+CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/include/SDL -DORBITER -DCACHE_IMAGES -DENABLE_MOUSE_BEHAVIOR -I$(ROOT)/Splitter -I$(ROOT)/OrbiterGen -I$(ROOT)/SDL_Helpers
LDFLAGS += -L/usr/X11R6/lib
-XTRALDLIBS += -lDCECommon -lSDL -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSGE -lSDL_gfx -lXtst -lXext -lGL -lXrender -lGLU -lSDL_Helpers -lhid
+XTRALDLIBS += -lDCECommon -lSDL -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSGE -lSDL_gfx -lXtst -lXext -lXrender -lSDL_Helpers -lhid

# wmctrl wrapper
CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include
@@ -38,7 +38,6 @@
../utilities/linux/wrapper/wrapper_x11.cpp \
../utilities/linux/wrapper/image_file.cpp \
Linux/win_list_manager.cpp \
- Linux/HIDInterface.cpp \
Linux/OrbiterRenderer_Linux.cpp \
Linux/WindowContext.cpp \
DesignObj_Data.cpp \
</pre>

===Building Orbiter===
# While inside Scratchbox, go into /pluto/trunk/src/SerializeClass and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/PlutoUtils and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/DCE and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/SDL_Helpers and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/Orbiter and type <tt>'''make bin'''</tt>
# After a while, the following files will result in /pluto/trunk/src
#* lib/libDCECommon.so
#* lib/libSerializeClass.so
#* lib/libPlutoUtils.so
#* lib/libSDL_Helpers.so
#* bin/Orbiter
# Copy these files over to the tablet, in /home/user/orbiter
# Don't forget strip Orbiter binaries to save space:
#* strip lib/*
#* strip bin/*

===Running Orbiter===

Before starting Orbiter following applications and libraries should be installed:

* mysql-common
* libmysqlclient
* libhttpfetcher
* libhid (should be removed soon)
* libsdl-sge
* libsdl-gfx
* libsdl
* libgle
* libxmu
* libsdl-ttf
* libsdl-image
* libsm
* libice
* libxt
* xterm
* ssh

To do that just add additional repository repository.maemo.org and activate [http://wiki.snc.sapmi.net/doku.php?id=snc:nokia#red_pill_mode Red Pill Mode]. Additionally, you should [http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howdoibecomeroot/ became a root] on your device.

In an X terminal On the tablet itself (NOT via ssh) do this:
cd /home/user/orbiter
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.
./Orbiter -r xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -d yy -l orbiter.log
where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the DCE Router, and yy is the device number assigned to your new Orbiter.

If it complains about missing .so files, copy them over from your Scratchbox on the build machine into /home/user/orbiter on the tablet.

'''Notice:''' you need true type fonts on your Nokia770. The orbiter searches them here - '''/usr/share/truetype/msttcorefonts'''. Just copy this directory from your core to Nokia770 (the Debian package for Nokia is coming soon).

===Building Debian packages===
# Dependencies can be found [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 here]
# The latest Orbiter binaries get [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 here]
# Orbiter package - [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 here]

==External references==

* [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 Plutohome Nokia Orbiter on maemo garage]
* [http://smart-home-blog.com/writes/howto-build-plutohome-orbiter-for-nokia770/ Howto Build Plutohome Orbiter for Nokia770]
* [http://smart-home-blog.com/writes/nokia770-as-plutohome-orbiter-os2006/ Using Nokia770/N800 as Plutohome Orbiter]
* [http://www.maemo.org/platform/docs/tutorials/Maemo_tutorial.html#settingup Maemo Tutorial]

Nokia 770 Orbiter

2007-12-07T01:50:50Z

Bmk789:

#redirect [[Nokia 770]]

Building Orbiter for the Nokia 770

2007-12-07T01:50:38Z

Bmk789:

#redirect [[Nokia 770]]

Nokia 770

2007-12-07T01:50:24Z

Bmk789: merge of all 3 pages

[[Category: Hardware]]
[[Category: WebPads]]
[[Category: Orbiters]]

[[Image:Nokia770.jpg]]

[http://europe.nokia.com/770 Official Site]

==About the device==
'''Microprocessor:''' 220-MHz, ARM9-based Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP 1710 
'''RAM:''' 64MB DDR 
'''On-board memory:''' 128 MB, more than 64 MB available to the user 
'''Memory slot:''' RS-MMC (Reduced size MultiMedia Card) 
'''Battery:''' Standard Li-ion BP-5L Battery 1500 mAh (3 hours browse, 7 hours standby) 
'''Screen:''' 800×480 touch screen with up to 65,536 colors 
'''WiFi:''' 802.11 b/g 
'''Bluetooth:''' Bluetooth 1.2 - dial-up networking, file transfer, generic access, SIM access, and serial port profiles 
'''Audio:''' Audio out 
'''PC connectivity:''' USB (slave mode only) via DKE-2 cable 
'''OS:''' Internet Tablet 2005 (Maemo-based) 
'''Linux specs:''' 2.6 kernel, GNOME-based GUI 
'''Dimensions:''' Dimensions: 5.5 inches x 3.1 inches x 0.70 inch 
'''Weight:''' 8.1 ounces 
Price: $140

The Nokia770 works pretty well as a LinuxMCE Orbiter.

The Orbiter package and all dependences can be found in the [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 Maemo garage], for information on how to use it read "[http://smart-home-blog.com/writes/nokia770-as-plutohome-orbiter-os2006/ Using Nokia770/N800 as a Plutohome Orbiter]" on the [[SmartBlog]].
==Setup guide==
===Before you begin===
First of all this is work in progress so don't expect the orbiter to be fully functional at full speed on this tablet. There are some known bugs so far:
* It will only run on OS 2005 for now so don't try to install this on newer firmware versions
* TTF rendering is not working so you won't see any text when browsing you media files :(
* Crashing and working a little slow

Thanks to Michael "[[User:Nite man|Nite man]]" Stepanov from IPTRIPLEPLAY Ltd [[mailto:info@iptp.net info@iptp.net]] who ported Orbiter on maemo platform.

===Installing OS 2005 on Nokia 770===
Since LinuxMCE Orbiter won't run on firmware version newer that SO 2005, you'll need to get that firmware version installed before you begin.

To check you current firmware version you can go to : MainMenu -> Control Panel -> Device -> About Product. There it should say 'Version: 3.2005...". If you already have this version installed then you can skip to next paragraph, else follow up this steps to get it installed.

The next steps are copy pasted from [[http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HOWTO_FlashLatestNokiaImageWithLinux maemo wiki]] and adapted to meet you needs :

Beware that flashing a new image on the Nokia 770 will remove all user changes to the system, including preferences, bookmarks, news feeds, user installed applications, ... Everything not on the memory card will be gone and the device will behave as if just purchased with the single exception that any previously-set lock code will be kept and not reset to the factory-default of "12345" (even the code is not preserved on some images).

*PC: Download the Linux flasher at [[http://maemo.org/downloads/d3.php maemo.org]]
*PC: In the same directory download the image you want: [[http://www.maemo.org/downloads/nokia_770 Nokia_770_3.2005.51-13.bin]]
*770: Unplug charger and switch off the Nokia 770. Connect it to your computer via USB
*PC: Execute as root (or as a normal user with rights to use the USB port):
./flasher-2.0 -F Nokia_770_3.2005.51-13.bin -f -R
*PC: "Suitable USB device not found, waiting" is displayed on the console
*770: Now plug in the charger to switch on the 770 or switch it on using the power button WHILE holding the Home-button
*PC: Watch the messages as the image loads to the 770 after which it reboots automatically -- you're done now!

==Setup Guide 2==

=== Configuring the Core ===
#Open up a web admin interface, go to Orbiter page and add a new device of type 'Orbiter'
#Locate the newly added device and change the resolution to 640x480 as the Nokia 770 won't support the default of 800x600
#Memorize the numeric id that LinuxMCE assigns to your new orbiter since you'll need it later, you can see it right of the 'Description' filed on the same page.
#Do a full regen of that orbiter and a quick reload router after that

=== Configuring the Tablet ===
#Setup you wireless connection. To use your tablet as an orbiter you'll need to make sure that the tablet is located within the internal network of the core.
#Upload the deb package to you tablet using the usb cable or by downloading it directly from our website. You can fetch the deb file [[http://plutohome.com/pluto-orbiter_0.1_arm.deb here]]
#Install it by double clicking the deb file from Nokia 770's File Manager.

=== Starting the Orbiter ===
#There is no easy way to start you orbiter yet, and you'll need an X terminal emulator to do this task. If you don't have it yet installed, download the osso-xterm deb package from [[http://770.fs-security.com/xterm/ fs-security.com]] and install it on you tablet the same way you installed the LinuxMCE orbiter package.
#Open up an xterminal using nokia 770's main menu: Extras -> X Terminal
#Make sure the network connection is available
#Type this in the terminal to start you orbiter
/var/lib/install/bin/startOrbiter.sh -r <ROUTER_INTERNAL_IP> -d <ORBITER_ID>
You can also start the orbiter with verbose logging to debug possible problems, but this will bring a slowdown in orbiter's screen changing :
/var/lib/install/bin/startOrbiterVerbose.sh -r <ROUTER_INTERNAL_IP> -d <ORBITER_ID>

=== Getting Help ===
For getting help and troubleshooting possible problems related to nokia 770 and LinuxMCE you can always talk to other users the [[http://plutohome.com/support/phpbb2/ forum]] and don't forget that this is still WiP.

==Setup Guide 3==
These are the instructions to build a version of [[Orbiter]] for the Nokia 770 internet platform. Nokia 770 has an ARM family processor, therefore you will need to cross-compile if your build machine is an Intel.

[[Image:Nokia-orbiter-small-400.jpg]]

===Requirements===
You will need:
* an Ubuntu box to host the build
* the Maemo 1.1 SDK for ARM ( http://repository.maemo.org/stable/1.1/arm/Maemo_Dev_Platform_RS_v1.1_arm.tgz )
* Scratchbox cross-compilation toolkit 0.9.8.5 (http://www.scratchbox.org/download/files/sbox-releases/0.9.8/deb/ )
scratchbox-core_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-devkit-debian_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-doctools_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-libs_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-toolchain-arm-glibc_0.9.8.5_i386.deb
scratchbox-toolchain-i686-glibc_0.9.8.5_i386.deb

===Preparing the Nokia tablet===
# Make sure it is connected to the network - check the Connection manager for a WiFi connection
# Open an X terminal on the tablet; make a directory in your home dir to hold the Orbiter binaries, say <tt>/home/user/orbiter</tt>
# You'll need a way to transfer files from the build machine to the tablet. Either have an HTTP server somewhere on your network, or install OpenSSH on the tablet. If you install OpenSSH, remember to also start it, by doing <tt>/etc/init.d/ssh start</tt>. To get a root prompt, use <tt>sudo gainroot</tt>.

===Preparing the build machine===
# Install Scratchbox debs on the build machine
# Add yourself as a Scratchbox user: <tt>'''/scratchbox/sbin/sbox_adduser ''username'''''</tt>
# Check out a fresh working copy of LinuxMCE from http://svn.plutohome.com/pluto/trunk/src/ into <tt>/scratchbox/users/username/pluto/trunk/src</tt> (username is assumed to be your user name on the build machine)
# Copy or symlink the Maemo SDK into <tt>/scratchbox/packages</tt>
# Log in to Scratchbox by typing <tt>'''scratchbox'''</tt>
# Configure Scratchbox cross-compile target:
> '''sbox-config -ct Nokia770'''

Available compilers:
0) arm-linux-gcc-3.3_3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2.ds1
1) host-gcc
2) i686-linux-gcc-3.3_3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2.ds1

Enter compiler number: '''0'''

Available CPU-transparency methods:
sbrsh
qemu-arm
qemu-ppc

Enter method name (qemu-arm): '''qemu-arm'''

Available devkits:
debian

Enter list of devkit names (none): '''debian'''
# Select the new cross-compile target: <tt>'''sbox-config -st Nokia770'''</tt>
# Unpack the Maemo rootstrap: <tt>'''sbox-config -er /scratchbox/packages/Maemo_Dev_Platform_RS_v1.1_arm.tgz'''</tt>
# <tt>'''sbox-config -cc'''</tt>
# <tt>'''sbox-config -cf'''</tt>
# Update the package list inside Scratchbox by typing <tt>apt-get update</tt>
# Install the following build-time dependencies (with <tt>apt-get install</tt>)
#* libmysqlclient12-dev
#* libid3-dev
#* xlibmesa-gl-dev
# Before starting to compile Orbiter and its dependencies, type: export SNR_CPPFLAGS="-DMAEMO_NOKIA770" (add there -DDEBUG if you want to see all debug messages) and export SNR_LDFLAGS="". Also, apply that patch to Orbiter Makefile to remove GL and HID dependences:

<pre>
--- src-2.0.0.44/src/Orbiter/Makefile 2007-03-05 13:44:44.000000000 -0800
+++ tmp/Makefile 2007-06-07 08:02:09.000000000 -0700
@@ -23,9 +23,9 @@

CXXFLAGS += -g -O0
-CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/include/SDL -DORBITER -DCACHE_IMAGES -DENABLE_MOUSE_BEHAVIOR -I$(ROOT)/Splitter -I$(ROOT)/OrbiterGen -I$(ROOT)/SDL_Helpers -DHID_REMOTE
+CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/include/SDL -DORBITER -DCACHE_IMAGES -DENABLE_MOUSE_BEHAVIOR -I$(ROOT)/Splitter -I$(ROOT)/OrbiterGen -I$(ROOT)/SDL_Helpers
LDFLAGS += -L/usr/X11R6/lib
-XTRALDLIBS += -lDCECommon -lSDL -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSGE -lSDL_gfx -lXtst -lXext -lGL -lXrender -lGLU -lSDL_Helpers -lhid
+XTRALDLIBS += -lDCECommon -lSDL -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSGE -lSDL_gfx -lXtst -lXext -lXrender -lSDL_Helpers -lhid

# wmctrl wrapper
CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include
@@ -38,7 +38,6 @@
../utilities/linux/wrapper/wrapper_x11.cpp \
../utilities/linux/wrapper/image_file.cpp \
Linux/win_list_manager.cpp \
- Linux/HIDInterface.cpp \
Linux/OrbiterRenderer_Linux.cpp \
Linux/WindowContext.cpp \
DesignObj_Data.cpp \
</pre>

===Building Orbiter===
# While inside Scratchbox, go into /pluto/trunk/src/SerializeClass and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/PlutoUtils and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/DCE and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/SDL_Helpers and type <tt>'''make'''</tt>
# Go into /pluto/trunk/src/Orbiter and type <tt>'''make bin'''</tt>
# After a while, the following files will result in /pluto/trunk/src
#* lib/libDCECommon.so
#* lib/libSerializeClass.so
#* lib/libPlutoUtils.so
#* lib/libSDL_Helpers.so
#* bin/Orbiter
# Copy these files over to the tablet, in /home/user/orbiter
# Don't forget strip Orbiter binaries to save space:
#* strip lib/*
#* strip bin/*

===Running Orbiter===

Before starting Orbiter following applications and libraries should be installed:

* mysql-common
* libmysqlclient
* libhttpfetcher
* libhid (should be removed soon)
* libsdl-sge
* libsdl-gfx
* libsdl
* libgle
* libxmu
* libsdl-ttf
* libsdl-image
* libsm
* libice
* libxt
* xterm
* ssh

To do that just add additional repository repository.maemo.org and activate [http://wiki.snc.sapmi.net/doku.php?id=snc:nokia#red_pill_mode Red Pill Mode]. Additionally, you should [http://maemo.org/community/wiki/howdoibecomeroot/ became a root] on your device.

In an X terminal On the tablet itself (NOT via ssh) do this:
cd /home/user/orbiter
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.
./Orbiter -r xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -d yy -l orbiter.log
where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the DCE Router, and yy is the device number assigned to your new Orbiter.

If it complains about missing .so files, copy them over from your Scratchbox on the build machine into /home/user/orbiter on the tablet.

'''Notice:''' you need true type fonts on your Nokia770. The orbiter searches them here - '''/usr/share/truetype/msttcorefonts'''. Just copy this directory from your core to Nokia770 (the Debian package for Nokia is coming soon).

===Building Debian packages===
# Dependencies can be found [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 here]
# The latest Orbiter binaries get [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 here]
# Orbiter package - [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 here]

==External references==

* [https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=162 Plutohome Nokia Orbiter on maemo garage]
* [http://smart-home-blog.com/writes/howto-build-plutohome-orbiter-for-nokia770/ Howto Build Plutohome Orbiter for Nokia770]
* [http://smart-home-blog.com/writes/nokia770-as-plutohome-orbiter-os2006/ Using Nokia770/N800 as Plutohome Orbiter]
* [http://www.maemo.org/platform/docs/tutorials/Maemo_tutorial.html#settingup Maemo Tutorial]

Hardware

2007-12-07T01:25:58Z

Bmk789:

[[Image:Diagram1.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Connectivity possible with LinuxMCE]]
A basic LinuxMCE system can be set up with relatively modest PC and networking hardware. More advanced (though not necessarily expensive) systems can work with virtually any device that allows some form of input/output control capability. This might be through ethernet, infrared, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232 RS232] or a home control protocol such as [[X10]].

* Check out the [[:Category:Hardware|hardware category]] for an organized list of hardware
* Check out [[LinuxMCE_Products|LinuxMCE Products]] for a list of products made for LinuxMCE

==LinuxMCE hardware terms==
Here is a list of LinuxMCE-specific hardware terms.

*[[Core]] - a PC which is the center of your system
*[[Media director]] - PC devices which are connected to your core and provide
*[[Orbiter]] - one or more lightweight portable devices used to control the system

==Minimum Requirements==
===CPU===
A LinuxMCE core-only machine can be run on a slower CPU such as a P3 if media encoding/decoding is not done on the core but, running the database, web server, and other system services can put resonable load on your CPU.
===Motherboard===
Any Linux-compatible motherboard (95% chance your's will work) will run smoothly, give or take a few features (SPDIF, etc.)
===RAM===
For a bare minimum core, 256MB+ of RAM is needed. For machines encoding/decoding media and/or running desktop applications 512MB+ is needed for smooth function.
===Hard Drive===
Your machines' hard drive(s) should be at least 4GB (to install the OS) plus as much as you want for media storage, network-boot images, etc.
===DVD/CD-ROM===
A DVD drive is required for installing with the Quick Install DVD. Without a DVD-ROM drive, the user is left to the CD install method, which requires a fresh install of Kubuntu 7.04, then a 2CD installation of LinuxMCE.
==Recommended Specifications==
===CPU===
Late model single-core or any dual or quad core processor is enough power to run a Core or Media Director.
===Motherboard===
Any Linux-compatible motherboard. Can have built-in digital audio, Gb networking, HDMI, GPU, etc.
===RAM===
1GB+ RAM should handle most setups. 4GB+ would require 64-bit OS which will be available in 0710.
===Hard Drive===
Most drives today offer more than enough storage space to run LinuxMCE, but you can add as much storage as you want via NAS, other machines, and other storage devices.
===DVD/CD-ROM===
DVD-ROM drive is required for installing using the Quick Install DVD and a DVD+-RW drive is recommend for backing up media, burning CDs, etc.

==User Feedback==
===CPU===
* A PIII/733MHz system can encode one video stream using the MPEG-4 codec using 480x480 capture resolution. This does not allow for live TV watching, but does allow for encoding video and then watching it later.
* A developer states that his AMD1800+ system can almost encode two MPEG-4 video streams and watch one program simultaneously.
* A PIII/800MHz system with 512MB RAM can encode one video stream using the RTjpeg codec with 480x480 capture resolution and play it back simultaneously, thereby allowing live TV watching.
* A dual Celeron/450MHz is able to view a 480x480 MPEG-4/3300kbps file created on a different system with 30% CPU usage.
* A P4 2.4GHz machine can encode two 3300Kbps 480x480 MPEG-4 files and simultaneously serve content to a remote frontend.
===FireWire===
You may use the [[Firewire]] output of the [[Motorola DCT6200]] or the [[Motorola SA3250|SA3250]].
===Video Capture Card===
pcHDTV makes and manufactures cards just for Linux and is now on its third generation of card, the HD-5500 available from http://www.pchdtv.com/

The Plextor ConvertX PVR devices are supported through Linux drivers available from http://www.plextor.com/english/support/LinuxSDK.htm. MythTV uses the Plextor to capture hardware encoded MPEG-4, so the host CPU requirements are low.

[[Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2]] (driver available at http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/) emulates a PVR-x50 card.
IP Recorder (RTSP, RTS, UDP)

MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 internet TS stream recording is supported using the IPTV recorder in MythTV. This recorder expects the channels to be supplied as a m3u playlist. If your DSL/Fiber provider supplies television service, but does not provide a m3u playlist for the channels, you can construct one for your own use. You do not need to download it from the same server as the streams themselves, and can also read it from a file if this is more convenient.

If your provider uses 5C encryption on a particular channel, you won't be able to get any content.
DBoxII or other devices running Neutrino

You may use the Ethernet port of an DBoxII or a similar device to capture MPEG2. Your set top box has to be running the Neutrino GUI.
USB Capture Devices.
===Sound Card===
The system needs a sound card or an on-board equivalent on the motherboard to play back and in most cases, to record sound. Any sound card that can be operated by the [[ALSA]] (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) kernel modules will work with MythTV. However, some cards and drivers will provide better quality or compatibility than others. In particular, many audio devices included on motherboards can be problematic.

The usual practice for capturing the audio associated with the video is to run a cable from an audio output on the video capture card to the Line input on a sound card. However, some video capture cards provide on-board audio capabilities that work with the kernel btaudio module instead, thereby eliminating the need for a cable. This is useful if you will be using multiple capture cards in a single chassis, since each capture card will not need its own sound card. Note that a separate sound card is still required for playback when using btaudio, and that often the audio recorded in this way will be mono only. See the btaudio section for more information.
==== See Also ====
The [[:Category:Hardware|hardware category]] and it's sub categories.
==External references==
* [[Useful Accessories]]
* [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport Ubuntu hardware wiki]
* [http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Hardware MythTV hardware wiki]
* [http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+hardware Asterisk hardware]
* [http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1711.0 Building a New Rig]
* [http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1353.msg8341#msg8341 For those wanting to roll your own box ...]

What hardware I will need

2007-12-07T01:18:51Z

Bmk789:

#redirect [[Hardware]]

Hardware

2007-12-07T01:17:58Z

Bmk789:

[[Image:Diagram1.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Connectivity possible with LinuxMCE]]
A basic LinuxMCE system can be set up with relatively modest PC and networking hardware. More advanced (though not necessarily expensive) systems can work with virtually any device that allows some form of input/output control capability. This might be through ethernet, infrared, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232 RS232] or a home control protocol such as [[X10]].

* Check out the [[:Category:Hardware|hardware category]] for an organized list of hardware
* Check out [[LinuxMCE_Products|LinuxMCE Products]] for a list of products made for LinuxMCE

==LinuxMCE hardware terms==
Here is a list of LinuxMCE-specific hardware terms.

*[[Core]] - a PC which is the center of your system
*[[Media director]] - PC devices which are connected to your core and provide
*[[Orbiter]] - one or more lightweight portable devices used to control the system

===Minimum===
====CPU====
A LinuxMCE core-only machine can be run on a slower CPU such as a P3 if media encoding/decoding is not done on the core but, running the database, web server, and other system services can put resonable load on your CPU.
====Motherboard====
Any Linux-compatible motherboard (95% chance your's will work) will run smoothly, give or take a few features (SPDIF, etc.)
====RAM====
For a bare minimum core, 256MB+ of RAM is needed. For machines encoding/decoding media and/or running desktop applications 512MB+ is needed for smooth function.
====Hard Drive====
Your machines' hard drive(s) should be at least 4GB (to install the OS) plus as much as you want for media storage, network-boot images, etc.
====DVD/CD-ROM====
A DVD drive is required for installing with the Quick Install DVD. Without a DVD-ROM drive, the user is left to the CD install method, which requires a fresh install of Kubuntu 7.04, then a 2CD installation of LinuxMCE.
===Recommended===
====CPU====
Late model single-core or any dual or quad core processor is enough power to run a Core or Media Director.
====Motherboard====
Any Linux-compatible motherboard. Can have built-in digital audio, Gb networking, HDMI, GPU, etc.
====RAM====
1GB+ RAM should handle most setups. 4GB+ would require 64-bit OS which will be available in 0710.
====Hard Drive====
Most drives today offer more than enough storage space to run LinuxMCE, but you can add as much storage as you want via NAS, other machines, and other storage devices.
====DVD/CD-ROM====
DVD-ROM drive is required for installing using the Quick Install DVD and a DVD+-RW drive is recommend for backing up media, burning CDs, etc.

==User Feedback==
===CPU===
* A PIII/733MHz system can encode one video stream using the MPEG-4 codec using 480x480 capture resolution. This does not allow for live TV watching, but does allow for encoding video and then watching it later.
* A developer states that his AMD1800+ system can almost encode two MPEG-4 video streams and watch one program simultaneously.
* A PIII/800MHz system with 512MB RAM can encode one video stream using the RTjpeg codec with 480x480 capture resolution and play it back simultaneously, thereby allowing live TV watching.
* A dual Celeron/450MHz is able to view a 480x480 MPEG-4/3300kbps file created on a different system with 30% CPU usage.
* A P4 2.4GHz machine can encode two 3300Kbps 480x480 MPEG-4 files and simultaneously serve content to a remote frontend.
===FireWire===
You may use the [[Firewire]] output of the [[Motorola DCT6200]] or the [[Motorola SA3250|SA3250]].
===Video Capture Card===
pcHDTV makes and manufactures cards just for Linux and is now on its third generation of card, the HD-5500 available from http://www.pchdtv.com/

The Plextor ConvertX PVR devices are supported through Linux drivers available from http://www.plextor.com/english/support/LinuxSDK.htm. MythTV uses the Plextor to capture hardware encoded MPEG-4, so the host CPU requirements are low.

[[Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2]] (driver available at http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/) emulates a PVR-x50 card.
IP Recorder (RTSP, RTS, UDP)

MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 internet TS stream recording is supported using the IPTV recorder in MythTV. This recorder expects the channels to be supplied as a m3u playlist. If your DSL/Fiber provider supplies television service, but does not provide a m3u playlist for the channels, you can construct one for your own use. You do not need to download it from the same server as the streams themselves, and can also read it from a file if this is more convenient.

If your provider uses 5C encryption on a particular channel, you won't be able to get any content.
DBoxII or other devices running Neutrino

You may use the Ethernet port of an DBoxII or a similar device to capture MPEG2. Your set top box has to be running the Neutrino GUI.
USB Capture Devices.
===Sound Card===
The system needs a sound card or an on-board equivalent on the motherboard to play back and in most cases, to record sound. Any sound card that can be operated by the [[ALSA]] (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) kernel modules will work with MythTV. However, some cards and drivers will provide better quality or compatibility than others. In particular, many audio devices included on motherboards can be problematic.

The usual practice for capturing the audio associated with the video is to run a cable from an audio output on the video capture card to the Line input on a sound card. However, some video capture cards provide on-board audio capabilities that work with the kernel btaudio module instead, thereby eliminating the need for a cable. This is useful if you will be using multiple capture cards in a single chassis, since each capture card will not need its own sound card. Note that a separate sound card is still required for playback when using btaudio, and that often the audio recorded in this way will be mono only. See the btaudio section for more information.
==== See Also ====
The [[:Category:Hardware|hardware category]] and it's sub categories.
==External references==
* [[Useful Accessories]]
* [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport Ubuntu hardware wiki]
* [http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Hardware MythTV hardware wiki]
* [http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+hardware Asterisk hardware]
* [http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1711.0 Building a New Rig]
* [http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1353.msg8341#msg8341 For those wanting to roll your own box ...]

System Requirements

2007-12-07T01:09:36Z

Bmk789:

#redirect [[Hardware]]

User talk:Bmk789

2007-12-06T23:47:38Z

Bmk789:

Hello,

I have noticed that you have been very active lately, first off it is nice to see fresh posters. I have noticed that a few of the newly created pages are very similar to already existing pages. Take for instance [[What hardware I will need]] and the new [[System Requirements]]. Both pages are offering the same information. Hardware related wiki pages have been an area of contention around here in the past. [[LinuxMCE_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal]]. [[What hardware I will need]] has numerous links already in pages and it may be simpler to make you new changes to this older page.
Welcome and thanks for the new blood. --[[User:Rwilson131|Rwilson131]] 20:25, 5 December 2007 (MST)

:Hello and thanks for the welcome. I realize [[What hardware I will need]] and [[System Requirements]] are similar. I was using [[System Requirements]] as a rough draft for my revision of the [[What hardware I will need]] page. I just finished adding content from [[What hardware I will need]] and once I finish adding system req's for MDs, I may have the pages merged, with one redirecting to the other, depending on the feedback I get from wiki admins and the like. Thanks again and let me know if there's any other pages I can help with. --[[User:Bmk789|Bmk789]] 16:47, 6 December 2007 (MST)

User talk:Rwilson131

2007-12-06T23:47:20Z

Bmk789:

==Useful Wiki Code Snippets==
The Table of contents can be forced onto a floating table on the right hand of the screen with the code below:

<nowiki> {| align="right"
| __TOC__
|}</nowiki>
Image tips

<nowiki>[[Image:Example.jpg|thumb|500px|left|Resolution Settings]]
 
</nowiki>

Hi R Wilson,
I've made a request for comment with regard to a debate we're having about categorization of articles. If you could take a look here [[LinuxMCE Wiki talk:Community Portal]] when you have time and perhaps leave a comment I'd be very grateful.

Thanks. [[User:Lozzo|Lozzo]] 11:36, 8 October 2007 (MST)

:Hi, thanks for your comments before. I've expanded a bit [[LinuxMCE Wiki talk:Community Portal|here]] on the differences between lists and categories, and why I think that a list article might be better. To clarify, I do believe that a big list of hardware is very useful - but that categories are not the best way to achieve this. I look forward to hearing your comments!

:Many thanks! [[User:Lozzo|Lozzo]] 07:07, 9 October 2007 (MST)

== Minor changes ==

Thanks for all the work you do on the wiki... I really appreciate it as it gives the wiki a lot of structure...

But let me make a suggestion... When you do minor changes like adding a cathegorie to a page, could you please mark them as a minor change ? I look at the recent changes quite frequently to stay up2date and it would be nice to see, when it's a minor change.

By the way, you can also setup to have the minor-change-box be checked by default, if that helps...

Best regards, --[[User:Chewi|Chewi]] 01:41, 15 October 2007 (MST)

== Image delete ==

The image has been deleted as requested :-)
[[User:Lozzo|Lozzo]] 03:21, 16 October 2007 (MST)

==Reply==
Hello and thanks for the welcome. I realize [[What hardware I will need]] and [[System Requirements]] are similar. I was using [[System Requirements]] as a rough draft for my revision of the [[What hardware I will need]] page. I just finished adding content from [[What hardware I will need]] and once I finish adding system req's for MDs, I may have the pages merged, with one redirecting to the other, depending on the feedback I get from wiki admins and the like. Thanks again and let me know if there's any other pages I can help with. --[[User:Bmk789|Bmk789]] 16:47, 6 December 2007 (MST)

System Requirements

2007-12-06T23:38:56Z

Bmk789:

{{stub}}
==Core==
Core is the term given to the main server with in the house. This is the 'center' of the LinuxMCE system and is the device which serves the administration pages to browsers.

It is from this Core that allows whole house plug-and-play and lets you plug all sorts of devices anywhere into your home network:

* Media directors
* telephones
* surveillance cameras
* interface modules
* audio players
LinuxMCE will detect them and set them up automatically. It's like plug-and-play in Windows, but it extends throughout the whole house.

Retrieved from [[Core]]

===Minimum===
====CPU====
This machine should have a reasonably powerful CPU for decoding/encoding media, running the database and web server, and other system services.

I would recommend a ~700mhz P3 as a _bare_ minimum. --[[User:bmk789|bmk789]]
====Motherboard====
Any Linux-compatible motherboard (95% chance your's will work) will run smoothly, give or take a few features (SPDIF, etc.)
====RAM====
For a bare minimum server, 256MB of RAM is recommended, (128MB has been tested to work, but not very well)
====Hard Drive====
Your core's hard drive should be larger than 4GB (to install the OS) plus as much as you want for media storage, network-boot images, etc.
====DVD/CD-ROM====
A DVD drive is required for installing with the Quick Install DVD. Without a DVD-ROM drive, the user is left to the CD install method, which requires a fresh install of Kubuntu 7.04, then a 2CD installation of LinuxMCE.
===Recommended===
====CPU====
Late model single-core or any dual or quad core processor is enough power to run a Core.
====Motherboard====
Any Linux-compatible motherboard. Can have built-in digital audio, Gb networking, HDMI, GPU, etc.
====RAM====
1GB+ RAM should handle most setups. 4GB+ would require 64-bit OS which will be available with 0710
====Hard Drive====
Most drives today offer more than enough storage space to run LinuxMCE, but you can add as much storage as you want via NAS, other machines, and other storage devices.
====DVD/CD-ROM====
DVD-ROM drive is required for installing using the Quick Install DVD and a DVD+-RW drive is recommend for backing up media, burning CDs, etc.

==Media Directors==
===Minimum===

===Recommended===

==User Feedback==
===CPU===
* A PIII/733MHz system can encode one video stream using the MPEG-4 codec using 480x480 capture resolution. This does not allow for live TV watching, but does allow for encoding video and then watching it later.
* A developer states that his AMD1800+ system can almost encode two MPEG-4 video streams and watch one program simultaneously.
* A PIII/800MHz system with 512MB RAM can encode one video stream using the RTjpeg codec with 480x480 capture resolution and play it back simultaneously, thereby allowing live TV watching.
* A dual Celeron/450MHz is able to view a 480x480 MPEG-4/3300kbps file created on a different system with 30% CPU usage.
* A P4 2.4GHz machine can encode two 3300Kbps 480x480 MPEG-4 files and simultaneously serve content to a remote frontend.
===FireWire===
You may use the [[Firewire]] output of the [[Motorola DCT6200]] or the [[Motorola SA3250|SA3250]].
===Video Capture Card===
pcHDTV makes and manufactures cards just for Linux and is now on its third generation of card, the HD-5500 available from http://www.pchdtv.com/

The Plextor ConvertX PVR devices are supported through Linux drivers available from http://www.plextor.com/english/support/LinuxSDK.htm. MythTV uses the Plextor to capture hardware encoded MPEG-4, so the host CPU requirements are low.

[[Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2]] (driver available at http://www.isely.net/pvrusb2/) emulates a PVR-x50 card.
IP Recorder (RTSP, RTS, UDP)

MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 internet TS stream recording is supported using the IPTV recorder in MythTV. This recorder expects the channels to be supplied as a m3u playlist. If your DSL/Fiber provider supplies television service, but does not provide a m3u playlist for the channels, you can construct one for your own use. You do not need to download it from the same server as the streams themselves, and can also read it from a file if this is more convenient.

If your provider uses 5C encryption on a particular channel, you won't be able to get any content.
DBoxII or other devices running Neutrino

You may use the Ethernet port of an DBoxII or a similar device to capture MPEG2. Your set top box has to be running the Neutrino GUI.
USB Capture Devices.
===Sound Card===
The system needs a sound card or an on-board equivalent on the motherboard to play back and in most cases, to record sound. Any sound card that can be operated by the [[ALSA]] (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) kernel modules will work with MythTV. However, some cards and drivers will provide better quality or compatibility than others. In particular, many audio devices included on motherboards can be problematic.

The usual practice for capturing the audio associated with the video is to run a cable from an audio output on the video capture card to the Line input on a sound card. However, some video capture cards provide on-board audio capabilities that work with the kernel btaudio module instead, thereby eliminating the need for a cable. This is useful if you will be using multiple capture cards in a single chassis, since each capture card will not need its own sound card. Note that a separate sound card is still required for playback when using btaudio, and that often the audio recorded in this way will be mono only. See the btaudio section for more information.
==== See Also ====
The [[:Category:Hardware|hardware category]] and it's sub categories.
== Forum Discussions ==
* [http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1711.0 Building a New Rig]
* [http://forum.linuxmce.com/index.php?topic=1353.msg8341#msg8341 For those wanting to roll your own box ...]

Contacts

2007-12-06T23:29:51Z

Bmk789:

LinuxMCE is a media centered [[Linux]] distribution. It's built on the solid foundation laid down by debian and Ubuntu. But with all kinds of goodies for the home of the future, from digital video recorder capabilities and home automation to functioning as a telephone switching hub for your home in lieu of a boring intercom system; all tied together by an advanced messaging infrastructure. While the next release 0710 is almost done and focuses on stability, we're already planning for the next release and '''you''' could contribute to it's direction. We're always looking for developers and maintainers to '''[[Contribute|join the team]]'''. New LinuxMCE team members, please add your name, contact info, and a brief bio or description of what you're working on. Thanks!

----
'''Daniel Kristjansson''' -- contact: danielk -at- cuymedia (.net) 
Responsibilities: Community liaison, organizing open source volunteers and roadmap 
----
'''Paul Webber''' -- contact: webpaul1 -at- gmail (.com) 
Responsibilities: Installer, Ubuntu packaging, build system, linuxmce.com site 
I launched LinuxMCE on March 15, 2007. [[History|'''History of LinuxMCE, why I started this project, and the goals''']]
----
'''Justin Burdine''' -- contact: justin -at- cyburdinehosting (.com) 
Offering: Hosting/Bandwidth, Graphic Design (see [[http://cbvfx.com cbvfx.com]]), Video Editing/Promotion (see [[http://cbvfx.com cbvfx.com]]), install/testing 
----
'''John Botte''' -- contact: qualityinterfaces -at- gmail (.com) 
Offering: Forum moderation help. Conceptual ideas, help with firewire support, UI help and testing 
----
'''Jonathan Iannone''' -- Contact: thorn168 -at- yahoo (.com) 
Offering: Help with documentation
----
'''Michael Stepanov''' -- Contact: stepanov.michael -at- gmail (.com) 
Offering: Build and test SDL Orbiter for Linux-based PC and Nokia770/N800.
----
'''Paul D''' aka Trout -- Contact: linuxmce.gqn@gishpuppy.com 
Offering: Help with documentation, Wiki participation, Testing and feedback.
----
'''Pete Kalogiannis''' -- Contact: pkalogiannis -at- gmail (dot) com 
Offering: [[Insteon]] Integration
----
'''Nat''' -- Contact Paul Webber to relay messages to Nat
Offering: Nat has some access to some free or low-cost hardware, like TV Tuners, Video Cards, etc., which he can make available for developers actively working on a project.
----
'''Pierre Hansson''' aka Samme -- Contact: 316097 at gmail dot com 
Offering: Wiki-admin
----
'''Lozzo''' -- Contact via [[User talk:Lozzo|his talk page]] 
Offering: wiki admin & documentation
----
'''Chriss''' 
Offering: SVN hosting (see [http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2277.msg13677#msg13677 forum])
----
'''Larry Brigman''' -- Contact larry dot brigman -at- gmail (dot) com 
Offering: Help with documentation, Wiki participation, QA and testing,
Build script work.
----
'''Robert Wilson''' aka rwilson131 -- Contact: rwilson131 at gmail dot com 
Offering: Wiki Documentation and Creation of [[User Manual]]
----
'''Harald Klein''' aka hari -- Contact: hari at vt100 dot at 
Offering: sqlCVS maintenance, code developement, documentation and testing.
----
'''Seven Walter''' aka CylonSeven -- Contact: Seven -at- Apollo Smart Homes (dot) com 
Offering: QA & Testing, Docs, Wiki, Promotions (Central Texas USA). Plenty of hardware for testing: Hybrid w/ RAID, fast MD/HTPC w/ HiDef & Digital Audio out, Firewire & IP cameras, ZWave, etc. 
----
'''Brandon Kruger''' aka bmk789 -- Contact via [[User:bmk789|User page]] 
Offering: wiki moderation & documentation

[[Category:Development]]
[[Category:Wiki administration]]

Ipod Touch

2007-12-05T23:33:46Z

Bmk789: Ipod Touch moved to Apple Ipod-Touch

#redirect [[Apple Ipod-Touch]]

Apple Ipod-Touch

2007-12-05T23:33:46Z

Bmk789: Ipod Touch moved to Apple Ipod-Touch

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Orbiters]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Image:Ipodtouch.jpg]]
==About this device==
* 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display
** 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 pixels per inch
* Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)

This is a very popular device that would be handy to users as an Orbiter.

Iphone

2007-12-05T23:33:27Z

Bmk789: Iphone moved to Apple Iphone

#redirect [[Apple Iphone]]

Apple Iphone

2007-12-05T23:33:27Z

Bmk789: Iphone moved to Apple Iphone

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Orbiters]]
[[Image:Iphone.gif]]
==About this device==
* 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display
** 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi
** Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
* OS X
* Quad-band (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
* Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
* EDGE
* Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
* 2.0 megapixels

This is a very popular device that many users would prefer to use as an Orbiter.

Apple Iphone

2007-12-05T23:32:34Z

Bmk789:

File:Iphone.gif

2007-12-05T23:29:24Z

Bmk789:

Apple Ipod-Touch

2007-12-05T23:28:13Z

Bmk789:

File:Ipodtouch.jpg

2007-12-05T23:27:35Z

Bmk789:

Contacts

2007-12-05T23:09:50Z

Bmk789:

LinuxMCE is a media centered [[Linux]] distribution. It's built on the solid foundation laid down by debian and Ubuntu. But with all kinds of goodies for the home of the future, from digital video recorder capabilities and home automation to functioning as a telephone switching hub for your home in lieu of a boring intercom system; all tied together by an advanced messaging infrastructure. While the next release 0710 is almost done and focuses on stability, we're already planning for the next release and '''you''' could contribute to it's direction. We're always looking for developers and maintainers to '''[[Contribute|join the team]]'''. New LinuxMCE team members, please add your name, contact info, and a brief bio or description of what you're working on. Thanks!

----
'''Daniel Kristjansson''' -- contact: danielk -at- cuymedia (.net) 
Responsibilities: Community liaison, organizing open source volunteers and roadmap 
----
'''Paul Webber''' -- contact: webpaul1 -at- gmail (.com) 
Responsibilities: Installer, Ubuntu packaging, build system, linuxmce.com site 
I launched LinuxMCE on March 15, 2007. [[History|'''History of LinuxMCE, why I started this project, and the goals''']]
----
'''Justin Burdine''' -- contact: justin -at- cyburdinehosting (.com) 
Offering: Hosting/Bandwidth, Graphic Design (see [[http://cbvfx.com cbvfx.com]]), Video Editing/Promotion (see [[http://cbvfx.com cbvfx.com]]), install/testing 
----
'''John Botte''' -- contact: qualityinterfaces -at- gmail (.com) 
Offering: Forum moderation help. Conceptual ideas, help with firewire support, UI help and testing 
----
'''Jonathan Iannone''' -- Contact: thorn168 -at- yahoo (.com) 
Offering: Help with documentation
----
'''Michael Stepanov''' -- Contact: stepanov.michael -at- gmail (.com) 
Offering: Build and test SDL Orbiter for Linux-based PC and Nokia770/N800.
----
'''Paul D''' aka Trout -- Contact: linuxmce.gqn@gishpuppy.com 
Offering: Help with documentation, Wiki participation, Testing and feedback.
----
'''Pete Kalogiannis''' -- Contact: pkalogiannis -at- gmail (dot) com 
Offering: [[Insteon]] Integration
----
'''Nat''' -- Contact Paul Webber to relay messages to Nat
Offering: Nat has some access to some free or low-cost hardware, like TV Tuners, Video Cards, etc., which he can make available for developers actively working on a project.
----
'''Pierre Hansson''' aka Samme -- Contact: 316097 at gmail dot com 
Offering: Wiki-admin
----
'''Lozzo''' -- Contact via [[User talk:Lozzo|his talk page]] 
Offering: wiki admin & documentation
----
'''Chriss''' 
Offering: SVN hosting (see [http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2277.msg13677#msg13677 forum])
----
'''Larry Brigman''' -- Contact larry dot brigman -at- gmail (dot) com 
Offering: Help with documentation, Wiki participation, QA and testing,
Build script work.
----
'''Robert Wilson''' aka rwilson131 -- Contact: rwilson131 at gmail dot com 
Offering: Wiki Documentation and Creation of [[User Manual]]
----
'''Harald Klein''' aka hari -- Contact: hari at vt100 dot at 
Offering: sqlCVS maintenance, code developement, documentation and testing.
----
'''Seven Walter''' aka CylonSeven -- Contact: Seven -at- Apollo Smart Homes (dot) com 
Offering: QA & Testing, Docs, Wiki, Promotions (Central Texas USA). Plenty of hardware for testing: Hybrid w/ RAID, fast MD/HTPC w/ HiDef & Digital Audio out, Firewire & IP cameras, ZWave, etc. 
----
'''Brandon Kruger''' -- Contact via [[User:bmk789|User page]] 
Offering: wiki moderation & documentation

[[Category:Development]]
[[Category:Wiki administration]]

Tell LinuxMCE about your home

2007-12-05T23:07:31Z

Bmk789:

{{NeedsToBeFixed}}
<h1>Introduction</h1>
Most people who have experience with other smart home solutions say LinuxMCE's setup, or actually lack thereof, is the best part. With other products it can take weeks of programming for your dealer to get the system setup. With LinuxMCE, it can be done in only a couple hours, without programming or macros. The dealer or the homeowner himself uses a simple website, called LinuxMCE Admin, which runs on the Core, to describe the home and specify the preferences. This requires a fresh way of looking at home automation and a couple new concepts. IMPORTANT: Be sure to read the concepts below carefully, since everything else will be much clearer then.

<h1>Concept #1 - No Macros</h1>
If you've worked with other smart home software, you know that everything revolves around macros, scripts and programs. But with LinuxMCE there are none. So this approach may seem foreign at first. Quick example: To setup A/V equipment with other products, you get a design/macro tool. With Crestron, it's VTPro, with Philips Pronto, it's ProntoEdit. If you want a button called 'Watch Videotape', you use the design tool to create the button, and then you build macros: the macro sends an 'on' command to the TV, waits 5 seconds, then sends a 'switch to input: svhs', then sends an 'on' to the receiver, waits 5 seconds, and sends a 'switch to input: video2', and so on. The macro is just a 'dumb script'--it doesn't know what you're really trying to do, and cannot make accommodations dynamically. Also, the script can get out of sync if you do things in a different order, and if you change your A/V equipment, you must write new macros again--reprogram everything.

With LinuxMCE you have an A/V wizard page that shows you a diagram of all your a/v devices. Just drag and drop to tell LinuxMCE how you connected the VCR to the tv and receiver, as shown below. That's it--LinuxMCE figures the rest out on it's own. LinuxMCE handles everything else automatically. It knows to take into account things like delays for power on, timing of digits--it's all automatic. And the best part is this approach allows LinuxMCE to actually anticipate your wishes. If you walk over to the receiver and physically turn it on and switch the dial to 'video2', LinuxMCE senses this and knows that's what the VCR is connected to. So LinuxMCE reacts accordingly, without you doing anything. It will automatically turn on the VCR, turn on the TV to the right input, adjust the lights, and display a VCR remote control on any Orbiters in the room, etc. This kind of "artificial intelligence" would be impossible with a macro-based system like everyone else uses.

[[Image:avwizard.jpg|200px]]
 Audio/Video connection wizard--just draw a line and LinuxMCE does the rest 

<h1>Concept #2 - You don't build the user interface--LinuxMCE builds it automatically</h1>
As mentioned above, with virtually all other smart home systems there is a design tool where you build the user interface. With them you pick various images and basically "draw" a screen that will appear on the remote control, or Orbiter. Of course LinuxMCE also has a design tool, called Designer. However it is not intended that dealers or homeowners will ever use it, or will ever design their own user interface. With LinuxMCE the actual user interface you see on the Orbiter is built for you automatically by a piece of software called OrbiterGen. All you do is tell LinuxMCE what equipment you have and what you want to do with it using a non-technical web-based wizard, and you pick from a catalog the style, aka motif or skin, that you like, and OrbiterGen does the rest.
It's true that you lose some flexibility this way. For example, you cannot decide that you want the button which starts the TV to be twice as big as the one to start DVD, like you can with the other smart home products where you build your own user interface. You can't do that with LinuxMCE because you are not deciding on the size and position of the buttons at will, rather OrbiterGen is making those decisions for you based on the style you chose.
However, there are 2 huge advantages which we feel make it worth it. The first is speed and cost. If OrbiterGen didn't design the user interface for you, you would either need to do it yourself, or hire a dealer. Either way it takes a huge amount of time and costs a lot of money. Plus everything needs to be redone every time you want to make changes. The second advantage is consistency. A comfortable user interface is the biggest factor in determining how much you enjoy your smart home system. With other smart home systems this varies greatly depending on the skills of the person, or dealer, who designed the user interface. With LinuxMCE it's consistent.

<h1>Concept #3 - Devices</h1>
Every piece of equipment in your home that LinuxMCE will control is a "Device"; the motion detector, the VCR and the telephone are all devices. The Core, media directors and Orbiters are also Devices, as are all the various pieces of software running on them, such as the PVR and DVD Player.
Some devices are called "Interface Devices", which mean they are used to interface with, or control, other devices. When you have 1 device that connects to a piece of LinuxMCE equipment, and then a bunch of other devices connect to it, that 1 device is usually an "Interface Device". For example, when setting up the security system you will probably have an alarm panel which connects to the LinuxMCE Core. Then you will also have various sensors throughout the house which connect to the alarm panel. The alarm panel is an interface device, the various sensors are security devices. You probably will have an infrared transmitter which controls your a/v equipment by sending infrared codes. The infrared transmitter connects to a media director, or to your LAN, and is what LinuxMCE communicates with. It is an Interface Device. The a/v equipment it controls is not--they are normal a/v devices. If you have a lighting system, chances are there is 1 interface device, which is the master controller, and then a bunch of lighting devices like lamps and light switches.
Every device, except for the Core, Media Directors and Orbiters, has a controlling device aka the "Controlled Via" device. This is the device that is responsible for controlling it. In your lighting system, the "Controlled Via" devices for the lighting interface is whatever computer you connected it to, either the Core or a media director, since that computer is what will be responsible for controlling the lighting interface. Then all the lamps and light switches you add to the house will be "Controlled Via" the lighting interface.
This concept allows you to mix a lot of devices together. For example part of your house may have a Lutron lighting system, and the other part may have some X10 lights. Therefore you will have 2 interface devices: the Lutron controller, and the X10 controller. On the lighting devices page you can add all your lamps and light switches regardless of what kind they are. Each will have a "Controlled Via" pull-down. For the lamps connected to the Lutron system you will chose the Lutron controller as the "Controlled Via", and for the X10 lamps, the X10 controller. The advantage of this approach is clear when you go to create a Lighting scenario. You can create a scenario which adjusts all the lights in your house, even though they are on 2 different systems. And the interactive floorplans list all your lights together. This is much more convenient than maintaining 2 separate systems. But it requires that when choose the correct "Controlled Via" device when you add the light.

<h1>Concept #4 - Scenarios</h1>
What we call 'Scenarios' are sometimes called 'Commands', 'Actions', 'Command Groups', 'Scenes', or 'Moods' on other systems. A scenario is basically a series of commands, or tasks, which are activated by touching a button. All the commands will be sent to devices, so when using LinuxMCE Admin you must choose your devices before you can create scenarios. Remember how we said that with LinuxMCE you don't design the user interface, OrbiterGen does? OrbiterGen will create a button for each scenario you create. So, when you want a button on the Orbiter in the Living Room called "Entertaining" that turns on some lights and starts some background music, you don't use a design tool, rather you create a scenario in the Living Room, which you call "Entertaining", and in the scenario you choose the lights and music player you want to control. To keep things organized, scenarios are separated into rooms, and arranged by type: Lighting Scenarios, Media Scenarios, Climate Scenarios, Security Scenarios, Telecom Scenarios, and Other Miscellaneous Scenarios.

<h1>Putting it all together</h1>
There are then two ways to use the Orbiter to control the devices in your home. The most common way is to create a scenario that does common tasks and which appears as a button on the Orbiter. The second way is to control the device individually using a floorplan. In the LinuxMCEo Admin site you will be able to upload graphical floorplans of your home, and then position devices on it. The Orbiter will then show you the floorplan and let you touch individual devices to control them.
Here are some screen shots to show you how it all works:

include/images/quickstart/lights.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/lights_small.jpg" border="0 Step 1: Add devices using LinuxMCE Admin. This is the lighting devices wizard, reached by choosing Wizard, Devices, Lights from the LinuxMCE Admin web site on your Core. Note that 3 of the lights are EIB, controlled by the EIB Interface we called "EIB Test Device", and 1 of the lights is controlled by a low cost 1-wire relay interface, called "Link 45i". Also note that for the light called "Big Lamp" we chose the floorplan object "Ceiling Light" 

include/images/quickstart/floorplan.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/floorplan_small.jpg" border="0 Step 2: We upload one or more floorplans of our house that we create using any paint program or that we scan in. Position the lights using the floorplan wizard. We got there by choosing Wizard, Devices, Floorplans, and then choosing "Lighting Zones". Note that we just drag and drop the lights, and you can see we put "Big Lamp" in the middle of the main room. 

[[Image:litscen.jpg|200px]]

 Step 3a: Create some lighting scenarios. We got here by choosing Wizard, Scenarios, Lighting. In Katie's room we created a lighting scenario called "Bedtime". 

include/images/quickstart/litscenb.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/litscenb_small.jpg" border="0 Step 3b: When we click on the 'Edit' link next to "Bedtime" scenario, you can see that this scenario will turn off 2 lights in the house, including "Big Lamp", and leave the other 2 alone. 

include/images/quickstart/mainmenu.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/mainmenu_small.jpg" border="0 The finished result: After we run OrbiterGen, this is the main menu it created for us which we see on the Orbiter. When we touch the button "Bedtime" it will turn off those 2 lights, including "Big Lamp". 

include/images/quickstart/light_floor.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/light_floor_small.jpg" border="0 When we hit the "Lighting" button on the main menu, we see our floorplan and the 3 lights we positioned using the floorplan wizard. Note that "Big Lamp" is in the middle of the main room, where we positioned it, and that the icon used to represent it is a "ceiling lamp", which we specified when we created the light. The icon is color-coded to indicate its current state. In this case orange means it's turned on. To control this light individually touch the icon on the floorplan and then a set of controls will popup so you can turn it on or off or dim it. 

<h1>Concept #5 - Quick Reload Router and Quick Regen Orbiter</h1>
The main device that coordinates all the activity in the home is called DCERouter. It forwards messages to devices, sometimes hundreds per second. So for performance reasons when DCERouter gets a message for a device it does not look this device up in the master database which LinuxMCE Admin uses to store your devices. That would be too slow. But this means that if you just added a new device and then immediately try to use it DCERouter will not know the device exists, and won't send any commands to it. So, after you add new devices, before you can use them DCERouter must re-read the list of devices in the master database. You could, of course, reboot the Core, however that takes a while. A faster option is in LinuxMCE Admin to go to Wizard, Restart and choose "Quick Reload Router". That only takes a few seconds and DCERouter will pick up any new devices. You can add all the devices you want, but remember that before using them you either have to reboot or do a "Quick Reload Router".
Also, you remember that the tool called "OrbiterGen" is building your user interface for you. This actually takes some time since it means stretching and scaling the graphics, choosing the right language, and applying the skin, or style, you chose to get the right look and feel. If Orbiter tried to do this on the fly each time you needed to view a screen it would be too slow. So, OrbiterGen pre-renders all the screens so the Orbiters can respond quickly to your requests. But this means that if you add a new scenario or change what a scenario does you won't see the new button on the Orbiters until you run OrbiterGen. You do this by choosing Wizard, Devices, Orbiters in LinuxMCE Admin and clicking the "Quick Regen" button.
How long it takes to generate the user interface depends on how extensive your changes are. If you only added some scenarios OrbiterGen shouldn't take more than a minute or two to build the user interface for an Orbiter. But if you changed the skin, or motif, or resolution, or other changes that require OrbiterGen to recreate every single screen from scratch it can take up to 20 minutes or so to build the user interface for each Orbiter. Whenever you reboot the Core/Hybrid all the Orbiters user interfaces will be generated if you made recent changes. So, while you're still tinkering with your scenarios the best approach is to create or modify several scenarios at once, then do a "Quick Regen" on just 1 Orbiter. Then test those scenarios on that Orbiter, and repeat until you are satisfied with all the scenarios. Then you can either reboot, or choose "Quick Regen All" to regenerate the user interfaces for every Orbiter in the house, including all the media directors, webpads, pda's and mobile phones.

<h1>Let's get started</h1>
Now that you understand the concepts, let's get going! First turn on your Core, or hybrid. If you chose a Core, not being used as a Media Director, then it will boot up and you will see a simple menu like this: 
include/images/quickstart/console.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/console_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Core; After boot-up menu 
You don't need to do anything. Your Core is up and running. Just make note of the IP address � you will need it to configure the system.

If you choose a "Hybrid", that is you are using your Core as a Media Director, it will boot up to the same welcome menu as any media director. Note the welcome menu will only appear on the first boot. After that, it will boot to the normal main menu, however, you can click the LinuxMCE logo in the lower left corner of the main menu to see the advanced options, including all the buttons on the welcome menu. 
include/images/quickstart/welcome.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/welcome_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Media Director/Hybrid; Welcome menu 

You need a web browser to configure your LinuxMCE system using the [[LinuxMCE Admin Website]]. You will see the following web page.

include/images/quickstart/wizard.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/wizard_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Admin web site; Starting the Wizard 

You will select each of the links in the left panel to choose your basic settings, add the devices, scenarios, and event handlers. This quick start guide has a general overview. However, every page in the LinuxMCE Admin site has context-sensitive help. Click the 'HELP' button for detailed instructions about that page.

Normally when you are using LinuxMCE Admin for the first time you should complete each page in order since sometimes a page lower in the list may rely on information provided on another page higher up. After the initial setup, you can jump around. Always be sure you specify at least the rooms and users first. Almost every page will ask you to pick a room or user.

<h1>Specifying Basic Info, Devices and Scenarios</h1>

The first few pages ask you for Basic Info--who are the family members, what are the rooms in the house, and so on. Then you will tell LinuxMCE about the devices in your home. Here you can check off what software modules you want and choose options for your media directors and orbiters, like screen resolution and the look and feel of the user interface. You also pick the a/v equipment you have and tell LinuxMCE how you hooked them up, and choose the home automation devices you will use. Here you can add more Orbiters, too, if you want to use webpad's, pda's or pc's as remote controls. Don't worry about adding mobile phone Orbiters--as soon as LinuxMCE detects them it will display a message on all the media directors and other orbiters asking you if want to use that phone as a remote control. If you do, LinuxMCE will create the device and put the software on the phone automatically--you don't have to do anything but hit 'ok' or 'accept' on the phone and accept the default settings when prompted. There's also a Floorplan wizard. You can create one or more floorplans of your home using your favorite paint program, and then upload them into the Floorplan wizard, which then lists all the devices in your home and lets you drag and drop them on the floorplan.

See: [[Testing and troubleshooting devices]] for info on sending commands and following logs. It can be a bit techie.

Scenarios pages. This goes back to concept #4. Remember what we call 'Scenarios' are sometimes called 'Commands', 'Actions', 'Command Groups', 'Scenes', or 'Moods' on other systems. A 'Scenario' is a set of tasks you want LinuxMCE to perform. For each scenario you create the Orbiter will display a button you select to make LinuxMCE execute that scenario. For example, you can create a scenario called 'Good morning' that opens the blinds in your bedroom, turns on the lights, turns the tv on to the local news, adjusts the temperature, and takes the phones off do not disturb. Then a button will appear on the orbiter, the media director, and the mobile phone that says 'Good morning'. You only create the scenario 1 time in LinuxMCE Admin, and it becomes a part of the user interface on every Orbiter throughout the home. Select it, and LinuxMCE does all those things. To make it easier on you, LinuxMCE categorizes your scenarios as Lighting, Media, Climate, Security, Telecom and Misc.

In reality any scenario can do anything. The 'Good morning' scene we mentioned actually does a bit of everything. So what type of scenario is it? It really doesn't matter, you can put it in whatever category you want. But in general practice, it would probably be a 'Lighting Scenario' since those scenarios are normally used for moods, or scenes. The 'Media Scenarios' are often just for media tasks, like 'TV', 'Movies', 'Music', etc. The 'Climate Scenarios' are typically reserved for controlling environmental devices, like the hvac, pool, jacuzzi, sprinklers, etc. 'Security scenarios' usually consist of arming/disarming the alarm, viewing surveillance cameras, and an 'SOS' button. 'Telecom scenarios' are normally for making phone calls, and are most often speed dials.

To make it easier for you to create your scenarios, LinuxMCE's scenario wizards will guide you by default. For example, when creating a 'Lighting scenario', the wizard gives you a simple check list of all the lights in the home. Of course, if you want your Lighting scenario to also, say, turn on the a/c, then while creating your lighting scenario just choose the 'climate wizard' to throw in some climate commands too.

You will probably have lots and lots of scenarios, so LinuxMCE groups them by room. Your Orbiters and mobile phone remote controls will automatically show you only the scenarios for the room you're in to keep things simple. However, you can hit a button to select a different room, and select one of that room's scenarios. Note that putting a scenario in a room doesn't mean you only control devices in that room. You can create a scenario called 'Go to bed' that you put in the room 'Master bedroom'. That scenario can turn off all the lights around the house, lock the front door, etc. When you put the scenario in the room 'Master bedroom', you're just telling LinuxMCE that you would normally only want to see that scenario when you're in the Master bedroom--not that you only want to control devices in the bedroom. You're not so likely to want that scenario when you're in the kitchen--there you'll have other scenarios like 'Make Dinner'.

This structured approach makes LinuxMCE much more usable. Rather than a screen with tons of buttons, when you enter a room you see at first just the scenarios you are most likely to want in that room. A few Lighting scenarios or moods, some buttons to control whatever media is in that room, and so on.

Orbiter Generator even analyzes the tasks you will need to preform based on your scenarios, and automatically builds other user interfaces for you. For example, if you create a scenario to control your jacuzzi, Orbiter Generator knows to build you a graphical user interface with the advanced options for the jacuzzi too.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember concept #5. Whenever you add, remove or change any scenarios or any devices on your floorplans, or if you change the look and feel for an Orbiter (called the 'Skin'), the Orbiter Generator tool needs to rebuild your user interface. While your Orbiter's user interface is being generated you will not be able to use that Orbiter.

<h1>Real world example & tutorial</h1>
Every home has a different mix of devices and you will want to do different things. However we created a step-by-step tutorial for setting up a low-cost smart home system for under $1,000 based on [http://www.x10.com X10], a [http://www.globalcache.com gc100], and a couple [http://www.slimdevices.com SlimDevices]. The procedure and concepts, however, is exactly the same with a $100,000 high-end based on Lutron, Vantage, EIB, etc. So, you may want to read the tutorial anyway to better understand the techniques. It can be found [[Testing and troubleshooting devices]].

<h1>Next Steps</h1>

By this point you're probably done with LinuxMCE Admin for now. However, there are some other things you will want to do: 

Setting up your phone system
If you chose the Asterisk module, see: [[AMP Configuration Guide]]

Setting up your PVR
If you're using Myth TV, the software is already installed and most options are already set. Please read the quick step-by-step tutorial to set a few final options: [[Setting up MythTV]]

Upload your media
The Core automatically creates Microsoft Windows compatible network shares (uses Samba) . There is a "public" share for putting all files that the whole family can share--movies, music, etc. And there is a private share for each family member. To access these network shares in Windows, choose Start, Run, and type \\ plus the IP address of the Core or hybrid. For example: \\192.168.80.1 Note that if you add new family members, their network share will not be available until after you reboot the Core/Hybrid. Once you copy your media into the appropriate folder, you can go into the LinuxMCE Admin site, choose "Files & Media" and "Media Files Sync" to be sure your media is in the database, add attributes (artist, actor, etc.), and choose cover art. You can also put a disk in any media director and hit 'copy disk' to copy the media to the Core.

Rebooting
After you have set everything up, you should do a full reboot of the "LinuxMCE universe", meaning rebooting the Core/Hybrid plus any media directors. You can do this by choosing "Restart" from the LinuxMCE Admin site wizard (the last option), or from any orbiter or media director by clicking the LinuxMCE logo on the main menu and choosing "Reboot Core".

If your media directors support both software power off and wake on lan, the core will turn them off before it reboots itself, and will turn them back on when it has finished booting up. If not, you may need to reboot the media directors manually by cycling power on them. Note that you should not turn the media directors on until the Core/Hybrid has finished booting up.

Updates
LinuxMCE will automatically keep an eye out for software updates and will notify you when it would like to update itself.

Tell LinuxMCE about your home

2007-12-05T23:06:17Z

Bmk789:

{{stub}}
<h1>Introduction</h1>
Most people who have experience with other smart home solutions say LinuxMCE's setup, or actually lack thereof, is the best part. With other products it can take weeks of programming for your dealer to get the system setup. With LinuxMCE, it can be done in only a couple hours, without programming or macros. The dealer or the homeowner himself uses a simple website, called LinuxMCE Admin, which runs on the Core, to describe the home and specify the preferences. This requires a fresh way of looking at home automation and a couple new concepts. IMPORTANT: Be sure to read the concepts below carefully, since everything else will be much clearer then.

<h1>Concept #1 - No Macros</h1>
If you've worked with other smart home software, you know that everything revolves around macros, scripts and programs. But with LinuxMCE there are none. So this approach may seem foreign at first. Quick example: To setup A/V equipment with other products, you get a design/macro tool. With Crestron, it's VTPro, with Philips Pronto, it's ProntoEdit. If you want a button called 'Watch Videotape', you use the design tool to create the button, and then you build macros: the macro sends an 'on' command to the TV, waits 5 seconds, then sends a 'switch to input: svhs', then sends an 'on' to the receiver, waits 5 seconds, and sends a 'switch to input: video2', and so on. The macro is just a 'dumb script'--it doesn't know what you're really trying to do, and cannot make accommodations dynamically. Also, the script can get out of sync if you do things in a different order, and if you change your A/V equipment, you must write new macros again--reprogram everything.

With LinuxMCE you have an A/V wizard page that shows you a diagram of all your a/v devices. Just drag and drop to tell LinuxMCE how you connected the VCR to the tv and receiver, as shown below. That's it--LinuxMCE figures the rest out on it's own. LinuxMCE handles everything else automatically. It knows to take into account things like delays for power on, timing of digits--it's all automatic. And the best part is this approach allows LinuxMCE to actually anticipate your wishes. If you walk over to the receiver and physically turn it on and switch the dial to 'video2', LinuxMCE senses this and knows that's what the VCR is connected to. So LinuxMCE reacts accordingly, without you doing anything. It will automatically turn on the VCR, turn on the TV to the right input, adjust the lights, and display a VCR remote control on any Orbiters in the room, etc. This kind of "artificial intelligence" would be impossible with a macro-based system like everyone else uses.

[[Image:avwizard.jpg|200px]]
 Audio/Video connection wizard--just draw a line and LinuxMCE does the rest 

<h1>Concept #2 - You don't build the user interface--LinuxMCE builds it automatically</h1>
As mentioned above, with virtually all other smart home systems there is a design tool where you build the user interface. With them you pick various images and basically "draw" a screen that will appear on the remote control, or Orbiter. Of course LinuxMCE also has a design tool, called Designer. However it is not intended that dealers or homeowners will ever use it, or will ever design their own user interface. With LinuxMCE the actual user interface you see on the Orbiter is built for you automatically by a piece of software called OrbiterGen. All you do is tell LinuxMCE what equipment you have and what you want to do with it using a non-technical web-based wizard, and you pick from a catalog the style, aka motif or skin, that you like, and OrbiterGen does the rest.
It's true that you lose some flexibility this way. For example, you cannot decide that you want the button which starts the TV to be twice as big as the one to start DVD, like you can with the other smart home products where you build your own user interface. You can't do that with LinuxMCE because you are not deciding on the size and position of the buttons at will, rather OrbiterGen is making those decisions for you based on the style you chose.
However, there are 2 huge advantages which we feel make it worth it. The first is speed and cost. If OrbiterGen didn't design the user interface for you, you would either need to do it yourself, or hire a dealer. Either way it takes a huge amount of time and costs a lot of money. Plus everything needs to be redone every time you want to make changes. The second advantage is consistency. A comfortable user interface is the biggest factor in determining how much you enjoy your smart home system. With other smart home systems this varies greatly depending on the skills of the person, or dealer, who designed the user interface. With LinuxMCE it's consistent.

<h1>Concept #3 - Devices</h1>
Every piece of equipment in your home that LinuxMCE will control is a "Device"; the motion detector, the VCR and the telephone are all devices. The Core, media directors and Orbiters are also Devices, as are all the various pieces of software running on them, such as the PVR and DVD Player.
Some devices are called "Interface Devices", which mean they are used to interface with, or control, other devices. When you have 1 device that connects to a piece of LinuxMCE equipment, and then a bunch of other devices connect to it, that 1 device is usually an "Interface Device". For example, when setting up the security system you will probably have an alarm panel which connects to the LinuxMCE Core. Then you will also have various sensors throughout the house which connect to the alarm panel. The alarm panel is an interface device, the various sensors are security devices. You probably will have an infrared transmitter which controls your a/v equipment by sending infrared codes. The infrared transmitter connects to a media director, or to your LAN, and is what LinuxMCE communicates with. It is an Interface Device. The a/v equipment it controls is not--they are normal a/v devices. If you have a lighting system, chances are there is 1 interface device, which is the master controller, and then a bunch of lighting devices like lamps and light switches.
Every device, except for the Core, Media Directors and Orbiters, has a controlling device aka the "Controlled Via" device. This is the device that is responsible for controlling it. In your lighting system, the "Controlled Via" devices for the lighting interface is whatever computer you connected it to, either the Core or a media director, since that computer is what will be responsible for controlling the lighting interface. Then all the lamps and light switches you add to the house will be "Controlled Via" the lighting interface.
This concept allows you to mix a lot of devices together. For example part of your house may have a Lutron lighting system, and the other part may have some X10 lights. Therefore you will have 2 interface devices: the Lutron controller, and the X10 controller. On the lighting devices page you can add all your lamps and light switches regardless of what kind they are. Each will have a "Controlled Via" pull-down. For the lamps connected to the Lutron system you will chose the Lutron controller as the "Controlled Via", and for the X10 lamps, the X10 controller. The advantage of this approach is clear when you go to create a Lighting scenario. You can create a scenario which adjusts all the lights in your house, even though they are on 2 different systems. And the interactive floorplans list all your lights together. This is much more convenient than maintaining 2 separate systems. But it requires that when choose the correct "Controlled Via" device when you add the light.

<h1>Concept #4 - Scenarios</h1>
What we call 'Scenarios' are sometimes called 'Commands', 'Actions', 'Command Groups', 'Scenes', or 'Moods' on other systems. A scenario is basically a series of commands, or tasks, which are activated by touching a button. All the commands will be sent to devices, so when using LinuxMCE Admin you must choose your devices before you can create scenarios. Remember how we said that with LinuxMCE you don't design the user interface, OrbiterGen does? OrbiterGen will create a button for each scenario you create. So, when you want a button on the Orbiter in the Living Room called "Entertaining" that turns on some lights and starts some background music, you don't use a design tool, rather you create a scenario in the Living Room, which you call "Entertaining", and in the scenario you choose the lights and music player you want to control. To keep things organized, scenarios are separated into rooms, and arranged by type: Lighting Scenarios, Media Scenarios, Climate Scenarios, Security Scenarios, Telecom Scenarios, and Other Miscellaneous Scenarios.

<h1>Putting it all together</h1>
There are then two ways to use the Orbiter to control the devices in your home. The most common way is to create a scenario that does common tasks and which appears as a button on the Orbiter. The second way is to control the device individually using a floorplan. In the LinuxMCEo Admin site you will be able to upload graphical floorplans of your home, and then position devices on it. The Orbiter will then show you the floorplan and let you touch individual devices to control them.
Here are some screen shots to show you how it all works:

include/images/quickstart/lights.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/lights_small.jpg" border="0 Step 1: Add devices using LinuxMCE Admin. This is the lighting devices wizard, reached by choosing Wizard, Devices, Lights from the LinuxMCE Admin web site on your Core. Note that 3 of the lights are EIB, controlled by the EIB Interface we called "EIB Test Device", and 1 of the lights is controlled by a low cost 1-wire relay interface, called "Link 45i". Also note that for the light called "Big Lamp" we chose the floorplan object "Ceiling Light" 

include/images/quickstart/floorplan.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/floorplan_small.jpg" border="0 Step 2: We upload one or more floorplans of our house that we create using any paint program or that we scan in. Position the lights using the floorplan wizard. We got there by choosing Wizard, Devices, Floorplans, and then choosing "Lighting Zones". Note that we just drag and drop the lights, and you can see we put "Big Lamp" in the middle of the main room. 

[[Image:litscen.jpg|200px]]

 Step 3a: Create some lighting scenarios. We got here by choosing Wizard, Scenarios, Lighting. In Katie's room we created a lighting scenario called "Bedtime". 

include/images/quickstart/litscenb.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/litscenb_small.jpg" border="0 Step 3b: When we click on the 'Edit' link next to "Bedtime" scenario, you can see that this scenario will turn off 2 lights in the house, including "Big Lamp", and leave the other 2 alone. 

include/images/quickstart/mainmenu.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/mainmenu_small.jpg" border="0 The finished result: After we run OrbiterGen, this is the main menu it created for us which we see on the Orbiter. When we touch the button "Bedtime" it will turn off those 2 lights, including "Big Lamp". 

include/images/quickstart/light_floor.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/light_floor_small.jpg" border="0 When we hit the "Lighting" button on the main menu, we see our floorplan and the 3 lights we positioned using the floorplan wizard. Note that "Big Lamp" is in the middle of the main room, where we positioned it, and that the icon used to represent it is a "ceiling lamp", which we specified when we created the light. The icon is color-coded to indicate its current state. In this case orange means it's turned on. To control this light individually touch the icon on the floorplan and then a set of controls will popup so you can turn it on or off or dim it. 

<h1>Concept #5 - Quick Reload Router and Quick Regen Orbiter</h1>
The main device that coordinates all the activity in the home is called DCERouter. It forwards messages to devices, sometimes hundreds per second. So for performance reasons when DCERouter gets a message for a device it does not look this device up in the master database which LinuxMCE Admin uses to store your devices. That would be too slow. But this means that if you just added a new device and then immediately try to use it DCERouter will not know the device exists, and won't send any commands to it. So, after you add new devices, before you can use them DCERouter must re-read the list of devices in the master database. You could, of course, reboot the Core, however that takes a while. A faster option is in LinuxMCE Admin to go to Wizard, Restart and choose "Quick Reload Router". That only takes a few seconds and DCERouter will pick up any new devices. You can add all the devices you want, but remember that before using them you either have to reboot or do a "Quick Reload Router".
Also, you remember that the tool called "OrbiterGen" is building your user interface for you. This actually takes some time since it means stretching and scaling the graphics, choosing the right language, and applying the skin, or style, you chose to get the right look and feel. If Orbiter tried to do this on the fly each time you needed to view a screen it would be too slow. So, OrbiterGen pre-renders all the screens so the Orbiters can respond quickly to your requests. But this means that if you add a new scenario or change what a scenario does you won't see the new button on the Orbiters until you run OrbiterGen. You do this by choosing Wizard, Devices, Orbiters in LinuxMCE Admin and clicking the "Quick Regen" button.
How long it takes to generate the user interface depends on how extensive your changes are. If you only added some scenarios OrbiterGen shouldn't take more than a minute or two to build the user interface for an Orbiter. But if you changed the skin, or motif, or resolution, or other changes that require OrbiterGen to recreate every single screen from scratch it can take up to 20 minutes or so to build the user interface for each Orbiter. Whenever you reboot the Core/Hybrid all the Orbiters user interfaces will be generated if you made recent changes. So, while you're still tinkering with your scenarios the best approach is to create or modify several scenarios at once, then do a "Quick Regen" on just 1 Orbiter. Then test those scenarios on that Orbiter, and repeat until you are satisfied with all the scenarios. Then you can either reboot, or choose "Quick Regen All" to regenerate the user interfaces for every Orbiter in the house, including all the media directors, webpads, pda's and mobile phones.

<h1>Let's get started</h1>
Now that you understand the concepts, let's get going! First turn on your Core, or hybrid. If you chose a Core, not being used as a Media Director, then it will boot up and you will see a simple menu like this: 
include/images/quickstart/console.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/console_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Core; After boot-up menu 
You don't need to do anything. Your Core is up and running. Just make note of the IP address � you will need it to configure the system.

If you choose a "Hybrid", that is you are using your Core as a Media Director, it will boot up to the same welcome menu as any media director. Note the welcome menu will only appear on the first boot. After that, it will boot to the normal main menu, however, you can click the LinuxMCE logo in the lower left corner of the main menu to see the advanced options, including all the buttons on the welcome menu. 
include/images/quickstart/welcome.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/welcome_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Media Director/Hybrid; Welcome menu 

You need a web browser to configure your LinuxMCE system using the [[LinuxMCE Admin Website]]. You will see the following web page.

include/images/quickstart/wizard.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/wizard_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Admin web site; Starting the Wizard 

You will select each of the links in the left panel to choose your basic settings, add the devices, scenarios, and event handlers. This quick start guide has a general overview. However, every page in the LinuxMCE Admin site has context-sensitive help. Click the 'HELP' button for detailed instructions about that page.

Normally when you are using LinuxMCE Admin for the first time you should complete each page in order since sometimes a page lower in the list may rely on information provided on another page higher up. After the initial setup, you can jump around. Always be sure you specify at least the rooms and users first. Almost every page will ask you to pick a room or user.

<h1>Specifying Basic Info, Devices and Scenarios</h1>

The first few pages ask you for Basic Info--who are the family members, what are the rooms in the house, and so on. Then you will tell LinuxMCE about the devices in your home. Here you can check off what software modules you want and choose options for your media directors and orbiters, like screen resolution and the look and feel of the user interface. You also pick the a/v equipment you have and tell LinuxMCE how you hooked them up, and choose the home automation devices you will use. Here you can add more Orbiters, too, if you want to use webpad's, pda's or pc's as remote controls. Don't worry about adding mobile phone Orbiters--as soon as LinuxMCE detects them it will display a message on all the media directors and other orbiters asking you if want to use that phone as a remote control. If you do, LinuxMCE will create the device and put the software on the phone automatically--you don't have to do anything but hit 'ok' or 'accept' on the phone and accept the default settings when prompted. There's also a Floorplan wizard. You can create one or more floorplans of your home using your favorite paint program, and then upload them into the Floorplan wizard, which then lists all the devices in your home and lets you drag and drop them on the floorplan.

See: [[Testing and troubleshooting devices]] for info on sending commands and following logs. It can be a bit techie.

Scenarios pages. This goes back to concept #4. Remember what we call 'Scenarios' are sometimes called 'Commands', 'Actions', 'Command Groups', 'Scenes', or 'Moods' on other systems. A 'Scenario' is a set of tasks you want LinuxMCE to perform. For each scenario you create the Orbiter will display a button you select to make LinuxMCE execute that scenario. For example, you can create a scenario called 'Good morning' that opens the blinds in your bedroom, turns on the lights, turns the tv on to the local news, adjusts the temperature, and takes the phones off do not disturb. Then a button will appear on the orbiter, the media director, and the mobile phone that says 'Good morning'. You only create the scenario 1 time in LinuxMCE Admin, and it becomes a part of the user interface on every Orbiter throughout the home. Select it, and LinuxMCE does all those things. To make it easier on you, LinuxMCE categorizes your scenarios as Lighting, Media, Climate, Security, Telecom and Misc.

In reality any scenario can do anything. The 'Good morning' scene we mentioned actually does a bit of everything. So what type of scenario is it? It really doesn't matter, you can put it in whatever category you want. But in general practice, it would probably be a 'Lighting Scenario' since those scenarios are normally used for moods, or scenes. The 'Media Scenarios' are often just for media tasks, like 'TV', 'Movies', 'Music', etc. The 'Climate Scenarios' are typically reserved for controlling environmental devices, like the hvac, pool, jacuzzi, sprinklers, etc. 'Security scenarios' usually consist of arming/disarming the alarm, viewing surveillance cameras, and an 'SOS' button. 'Telecom scenarios' are normally for making phone calls, and are most often speed dials.

To make it easier for you to create your scenarios, LinuxMCE's scenario wizards will guide you by default. For example, when creating a 'Lighting scenario', the wizard gives you a simple check list of all the lights in the home. Of course, if you want your Lighting scenario to also, say, turn on the a/c, then while creating your lighting scenario just choose the 'climate wizard' to throw in some climate commands too.

You will probably have lots and lots of scenarios, so LinuxMCE groups them by room. Your Orbiters and mobile phone remote controls will automatically show you only the scenarios for the room you're in to keep things simple. However, you can hit a button to select a different room, and select one of that room's scenarios. Note that putting a scenario in a room doesn't mean you only control devices in that room. You can create a scenario called 'Go to bed' that you put in the room 'Master bedroom'. That scenario can turn off all the lights around the house, lock the front door, etc. When you put the scenario in the room 'Master bedroom', you're just telling LinuxMCE that you would normally only want to see that scenario when you're in the Master bedroom--not that you only want to control devices in the bedroom. You're not so likely to want that scenario when you're in the kitchen--there you'll have other scenarios like 'Make Dinner'.

This structured approach makes LinuxMCE much more usable. Rather than a screen with tons of buttons, when you enter a room you see at first just the scenarios you are most likely to want in that room. A few Lighting scenarios or moods, some buttons to control whatever media is in that room, and so on.

Orbiter Generator even analyzes the tasks you will need to preform based on your scenarios, and automatically builds other user interfaces for you. For example, if you create a scenario to control your jacuzzi, Orbiter Generator knows to build you a graphical user interface with the advanced options for the jacuzzi too.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember concept #5. Whenever you add, remove or change any scenarios or any devices on your floorplans, or if you change the look and feel for an Orbiter (called the 'Skin'), the Orbiter Generator tool needs to rebuild your user interface. While your Orbiter's user interface is being generated you will not be able to use that Orbiter.

<h1>Real world example & tutorial</h1>
Every home has a different mix of devices and you will want to do different things. However we created a step-by-step tutorial for setting up a low-cost smart home system for under $1,000 based on [http://www.x10.com X10], a [http://www.globalcache.com gc100], and a couple [http://www.slimdevices.com SlimDevices]. The procedure and concepts, however, is exactly the same with a $100,000 high-end based on Lutron, Vantage, EIB, etc. So, you may want to read the tutorial anyway to better understand the techniques. It can be found [[Testing and troubleshooting devices]].

<h1>Next Steps</h1>

By this point you're probably done with LinuxMCE Admin for now. However, there are some other things you will want to do: 

Setting up your phone system
If you chose the Asterisk module, see: [[AMP Configuration Guide]]

Setting up your PVR
If you're using Myth TV, the software is already installed and most options are already set. Please read the quick step-by-step tutorial to set a few final options: [[Setting up MythTV]]

Upload your media
The Core automatically creates Microsoft Windows compatible network shares (uses Samba) . There is a "public" share for putting all files that the whole family can share--movies, music, etc. And there is a private share for each family member. To access these network shares in Windows, choose Start, Run, and type \\ plus the IP address of the Core or hybrid. For example: \\192.168.80.1 Note that if you add new family members, their network share will not be available until after you reboot the Core/Hybrid. Once you copy your media into the appropriate folder, you can go into the LinuxMCE Admin site, choose "Files & Media" and "Media Files Sync" to be sure your media is in the database, add attributes (artist, actor, etc.), and choose cover art. You can also put a disk in any media director and hit 'copy disk' to copy the media to the Core.

Rebooting
After you have set everything up, you should do a full reboot of the "LinuxMCE universe", meaning rebooting the Core/Hybrid plus any media directors. You can do this by choosing "Restart" from the LinuxMCE Admin site wizard (the last option), or from any orbiter or media director by clicking the LinuxMCE logo on the main menu and choosing "Reboot Core".

If your media directors support both software power off and wake on lan, the core will turn them off before it reboots itself, and will turn them back on when it has finished booting up. If not, you may need to reboot the media directors manually by cycling power on them. Note that you should not turn the media directors on until the Core/Hybrid has finished booting up.

Updates
LinuxMCE will automatically keep an eye out for software updates and will notify you when it would like to update itself.

Tell LinuxMCE about your home

2007-12-05T23:03:28Z

Bmk789:

<h1>Introduction</h1>
Most people who have experience with other smart home solutions say LinuxMCE's setup, or actually lack thereof, is the best part. With other products it can take weeks of programming for your dealer to get the system setup. With LinuxMCE, it can be done in only a couple hours, without programming or macros. The dealer or the homeowner himself uses a simple website, called LinuxMCE Admin, which runs on the Core, to describe the home and specify the preferences. This requires a fresh way of looking at home automation and a couple new concepts. IMPORTANT: Be sure to read the concepts below carefully, since everything else will be much clearer then.

<h1>Concept #1 - No Macros</h1>
If you've worked with other smart home software, you know that everything revolves around macros, scripts and programs. But with LinuxMCE there are none. So this approach may seem foreign at first. Quick example: To setup A/V equipment with other products, you get a design/macro tool. With Crestron, it's VTPro, with Philips Pronto, it's ProntoEdit. If you want a button called 'Watch Videotape', you use the design tool to create the button, and then you build macros: the macro sends an 'on' command to the TV, waits 5 seconds, then sends a 'switch to input: svhs', then sends an 'on' to the receiver, waits 5 seconds, and sends a 'switch to input: video2', and so on. The macro is just a 'dumb script'--it doesn't know what you're really trying to do, and cannot make accommodations dynamically. Also, the script can get out of sync if you do things in a different order, and if you change your A/V equipment, you must write new macros again--reprogram everything.

With LinuxMCE you have an A/V wizard page that shows you a diagram of all your a/v devices. Just drag and drop to tell LinuxMCE how you connected the VCR to the tv and receiver, as shown below. That's it--LinuxMCE figures the rest out on it's own. LinuxMCE handles everything else automatically. It knows to take into account things like delays for power on, timing of digits--it's all automatic. And the best part is this approach allows LinuxMCE to actually anticipate your wishes. If you walk over to the receiver and physically turn it on and switch the dial to 'video2', LinuxMCE senses this and knows that's what the VCR is connected to. So LinuxMCE reacts accordingly, without you doing anything. It will automatically turn on the VCR, turn on the TV to the right input, adjust the lights, and display a VCR remote control on any Orbiters in the room, etc. This kind of "artificial intelligence" would be impossible with a macro-based system like everyone else uses.

[[Image:avwizard.jpg|200px]]
 Audio/Video connection wizard--just draw a line and LinuxMCE does the rest 

<h1>Concept #2 - You don't build the user interface--LinuxMCE builds it automatically</h1>
As mentioned above, with virtually all other smart home systems there is a design tool where you build the user interface. With them you pick various images and basically "draw" a screen that will appear on the remote control, or Orbiter. Of course LinuxMCE also has a design tool, called Designer. However it is not intended that dealers or homeowners will ever use it, or will ever design their own user interface. With LinuxMCE the actual user interface you see on the Orbiter is built for you automatically by a piece of software called OrbiterGen. All you do is tell LinuxMCE what equipment you have and what you want to do with it using a non-technical web-based wizard, and you pick from a catalog the style, aka motif or skin, that you like, and OrbiterGen does the rest.
It's true that you lose some flexibility this way. For example, you cannot decide that you want the button which starts the TV to be twice as big as the one to start DVD, like you can with the other smart home products where you build your own user interface. You can't do that with LinuxMCE because you are not deciding on the size and position of the buttons at will, rather OrbiterGen is making those decisions for you based on the style you chose.
However, there are 2 huge advantages which we feel make it worth it. The first is speed and cost. If OrbiterGen didn't design the user interface for you, you would either need to do it yourself, or hire a dealer. Either way it takes a huge amount of time and costs a lot of money. Plus everything needs to be redone every time you want to make changes. The second advantage is consistency. A comfortable user interface is the biggest factor in determining how much you enjoy your smart home system. With other smart home systems this varies greatly depending on the skills of the person, or dealer, who designed the user interface. With LinuxMCE it's consistent.

<h1>Concept #3 - Devices</h1>
Every piece of equipment in your home that LinuxMCE will control is a "Device"; the motion detector, the VCR and the telephone are all devices. The Core, media directors and Orbiters are also Devices, as are all the various pieces of software running on them, such as the PVR and DVD Player.
Some devices are called "Interface Devices", which mean they are used to interface with, or control, other devices. When you have 1 device that connects to a piece of LinuxMCE equipment, and then a bunch of other devices connect to it, that 1 device is usually an "Interface Device". For example, when setting up the security system you will probably have an alarm panel which connects to the LinuxMCE Core. Then you will also have various sensors throughout the house which connect to the alarm panel. The alarm panel is an interface device, the various sensors are security devices. You probably will have an infrared transmitter which controls your a/v equipment by sending infrared codes. The infrared transmitter connects to a media director, or to your LAN, and is what LinuxMCE communicates with. It is an Interface Device. The a/v equipment it controls is not--they are normal a/v devices. If you have a lighting system, chances are there is 1 interface device, which is the master controller, and then a bunch of lighting devices like lamps and light switches.
Every device, except for the Core, Media Directors and Orbiters, has a controlling device aka the "Controlled Via" device. This is the device that is responsible for controlling it. In your lighting system, the "Controlled Via" devices for the lighting interface is whatever computer you connected it to, either the Core or a media director, since that computer is what will be responsible for controlling the lighting interface. Then all the lamps and light switches you add to the house will be "Controlled Via" the lighting interface.
This concept allows you to mix a lot of devices together. For example part of your house may have a Lutron lighting system, and the other part may have some X10 lights. Therefore you will have 2 interface devices: the Lutron controller, and the X10 controller. On the lighting devices page you can add all your lamps and light switches regardless of what kind they are. Each will have a "Controlled Via" pull-down. For the lamps connected to the Lutron system you will chose the Lutron controller as the "Controlled Via", and for the X10 lamps, the X10 controller. The advantage of this approach is clear when you go to create a Lighting scenario. You can create a scenario which adjusts all the lights in your house, even though they are on 2 different systems. And the interactive floorplans list all your lights together. This is much more convenient than maintaining 2 separate systems. But it requires that when choose the correct "Controlled Via" device when you add the light.

<h1>Concept #4 - Scenarios</h1>
What we call 'Scenarios' are sometimes called 'Commands', 'Actions', 'Command Groups', 'Scenes', or 'Moods' on other systems. A scenario is basically a series of commands, or tasks, which are activated by touching a button. All the commands will be sent to devices, so when using LinuxMCE Admin you must choose your devices before you can create scenarios. Remember how we said that with LinuxMCE you don't design the user interface, OrbiterGen does? OrbiterGen will create a button for each scenario you create. So, when you want a button on the Orbiter in the Living Room called "Entertaining" that turns on some lights and starts some background music, you don't use a design tool, rather you create a scenario in the Living Room, which you call "Entertaining", and in the scenario you choose the lights and music player you want to control. To keep things organized, scenarios are separated into rooms, and arranged by type: Lighting Scenarios, Media Scenarios, Climate Scenarios, Security Scenarios, Telecom Scenarios, and Other Miscellaneous Scenarios.

<h1>Putting it all together</h1>
There are then two ways to use the Orbiter to control the devices in your home. The most common way is to create a scenario that does common tasks and which appears as a button on the Orbiter. The second way is to control the device individually using a floorplan. In the LinuxMCEo Admin site you will be able to upload graphical floorplans of your home, and then position devices on it. The Orbiter will then show you the floorplan and let you touch individual devices to control them.
Here are some screen shots to show you how it all works:

include/images/quickstart/lights.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/lights_small.jpg" border="0 Step 1: Add devices using LinuxMCE Admin. This is the lighting devices wizard, reached by choosing Wizard, Devices, Lights from the LinuxMCE Admin web site on your Core. Note that 3 of the lights are EIB, controlled by the EIB Interface we called "EIB Test Device", and 1 of the lights is controlled by a low cost 1-wire relay interface, called "Link 45i". Also note that for the light called "Big Lamp" we chose the floorplan object "Ceiling Light" 

include/images/quickstart/floorplan.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/floorplan_small.jpg" border="0 Step 2: We upload one or more floorplans of our house that we create using any paint program or that we scan in. Position the lights using the floorplan wizard. We got there by choosing Wizard, Devices, Floorplans, and then choosing "Lighting Zones". Note that we just drag and drop the lights, and you can see we put "Big Lamp" in the middle of the main room. 

[[Image:litscen.jpg|200px]]

 Step 3a: Create some lighting scenarios. We got here by choosing Wizard, Scenarios, Lighting. In Katie's room we created a lighting scenario called "Bedtime". 

include/images/quickstart/litscenb.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/litscenb_small.jpg" border="0 Step 3b: When we click on the 'Edit' link next to "Bedtime" scenario, you can see that this scenario will turn off 2 lights in the house, including "Big Lamp", and leave the other 2 alone. 

include/images/quickstart/mainmenu.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/mainmenu_small.jpg" border="0 The finished result: After we run OrbiterGen, this is the main menu it created for us which we see on the Orbiter. When we touch the button "Bedtime" it will turn off those 2 lights, including "Big Lamp". 

include/images/quickstart/light_floor.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/light_floor_small.jpg" border="0 When we hit the "Lighting" button on the main menu, we see our floorplan and the 3 lights we positioned using the floorplan wizard. Note that "Big Lamp" is in the middle of the main room, where we positioned it, and that the icon used to represent it is a "ceiling lamp", which we specified when we created the light. The icon is color-coded to indicate its current state. In this case orange means it's turned on. To control this light individually touch the icon on the floorplan and then a set of controls will popup so you can turn it on or off or dim it. 

<h1>Concept #5 - Quick Reload Router and Quick Regen Orbiter</h1>
The main device that coordinates all the activity in the home is called DCERouter. It forwards messages to devices, sometimes hundreds per second. So for performance reasons when DCERouter gets a message for a device it does not look this device up in the master database which LinuxMCE Admin uses to store your devices. That would be too slow. But this means that if you just added a new device and then immediately try to use it DCERouter will not know the device exists, and won't send any commands to it. So, after you add new devices, before you can use them DCERouter must re-read the list of devices in the master database. You could, of course, reboot the Core, however that takes a while. A faster option is in LinuxMCE Admin to go to Wizard, Restart and choose "Quick Reload Router". That only takes a few seconds and DCERouter will pick up any new devices. You can add all the devices you want, but remember that before using them you either have to reboot or do a "Quick Reload Router".
Also, you remember that the tool called "OrbiterGen" is building your user interface for you. This actually takes some time since it means stretching and scaling the graphics, choosing the right language, and applying the skin, or style, you chose to get the right look and feel. If Orbiter tried to do this on the fly each time you needed to view a screen it would be too slow. So, OrbiterGen pre-renders all the screens so the Orbiters can respond quickly to your requests. But this means that if you add a new scenario or change what a scenario does you won't see the new button on the Orbiters until you run OrbiterGen. You do this by choosing Wizard, Devices, Orbiters in LinuxMCE Admin and clicking the "Quick Regen" button.
How long it takes to generate the user interface depends on how extensive your changes are. If you only added some scenarios OrbiterGen shouldn't take more than a minute or two to build the user interface for an Orbiter. But if you changed the skin, or motif, or resolution, or other changes that require OrbiterGen to recreate every single screen from scratch it can take up to 20 minutes or so to build the user interface for each Orbiter. Whenever you reboot the Core/Hybrid all the Orbiters user interfaces will be generated if you made recent changes. So, while you're still tinkering with your scenarios the best approach is to create or modify several scenarios at once, then do a "Quick Regen" on just 1 Orbiter. Then test those scenarios on that Orbiter, and repeat until you are satisfied with all the scenarios. Then you can either reboot, or choose "Quick Regen All" to regenerate the user interfaces for every Orbiter in the house, including all the media directors, webpads, pda's and mobile phones.

<h1>Let's get started</h1>
Now that you understand the concepts, let's get going! First turn on your Core, or hybrid. If you chose a Core, not being used as a Media Director, then it will boot up and you will see a simple menu like this: 
include/images/quickstart/console.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/console_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Core; After boot-up menu 
You don't need to do anything. Your Core is up and running. Just make note of the IP address � you will need it to configure the system.

If you choose a "Hybrid", that is you are using your Core as a Media Director, it will boot up to the same welcome menu as any media director. Note the welcome menu will only appear on the first boot. After that, it will boot to the normal main menu, however, you can click the LinuxMCE logo in the lower left corner of the main menu to see the advanced options, including all the buttons on the welcome menu. 
include/images/quickstart/welcome.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/welcome_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Media Director/Hybrid; Welcome menu 

You need a web browser to configure your LinuxMCE system using the [[LinuxMCE Admin Website]]. You will see the following web page.

include/images/quickstart/wizard.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="include/images/quickstart/wizard_small.jpg" border="0 LinuxMCE Admin web site; Starting the Wizard 

You will select each of the links in the left panel to choose your basic settings, add the devices, scenarios, and event handlers. This quick start guide has a general overview. However, every page in the LinuxMCE Admin site has context-sensitive help. Click the 'HELP' button for detailed instructions about that page.

Normally when you are using LinuxMCE Admin for the first time you should complete each page in order since sometimes a page lower in the list may rely on information provided on another page higher up. After the initial setup, you can jump around. Always be sure you specify at least the rooms and users first. Almost every page will ask you to pick a room or user.

<h1>Specifying Basic Info, Devices and Scenarios</h1>

The first few pages ask you for Basic Info--who are the family members, what are the rooms in the house, and so on. Then you will tell LinuxMCE about the devices in your home. Here you can check off what software modules you want and choose options for your media directors and orbiters, like screen resolution and the look and feel of the user interface. You also pick the a/v equipment you have and tell LinuxMCE how you hooked them up, and choose the home automation devices you will use. Here you can add more Orbiters, too, if you want to use webpad's, pda's or pc's as remote controls. Don't worry about adding mobile phone Orbiters--as soon as LinuxMCE detects them it will display a message on all the media directors and other orbiters asking you if want to use that phone as a remote control. If you do, LinuxMCE will create the device and put the software on the phone automatically--you don't have to do anything but hit 'ok' or 'accept' on the phone and accept the default settings when prompted. There's also a Floorplan wizard. You can create one or more floorplans of your home using your favorite paint program, and then upload them into the Floorplan wizard, which then lists all the devices in your home and lets you drag and drop them on the floorplan.

See: [[Testing and troubleshooting devices]] for info on sending commands and following logs. It can be a bit techie.

Scenarios pages. This goes back to concept #4. Remember what we call 'Scenarios' are sometimes called 'Commands', 'Actions', 'Command Groups', 'Scenes', or 'Moods' on other systems. A 'Scenario' is a set of tasks you want LinuxMCE to perform. For each scenario you create the Orbiter will display a button you select to make LinuxMCE execute that scenario. For example, you can create a scenario called 'Good morning' that opens the blinds in your bedroom, turns on the lights, turns the tv on to the local news, adjusts the temperature, and takes the phones off do not disturb. Then a button will appear on the orbiter, the media director, and the mobile phone that says 'Good morning'. You only create the scenario 1 time in LinuxMCE Admin, and it becomes a part of the user interface on every Orbiter throughout the home. Select it, and LinuxMCE does all those things. To make it easier on you, LinuxMCE categorizes your scenarios as Lighting, Media, Climate, Security, Telecom and Misc.

In reality any scenario can do anything. The 'Good morning' scene we mentioned actually does a bit of everything. So what type of scenario is it? It really doesn't matter, you can put it in whatever category you want. But in general practice, it would probably be a 'Lighting Scenario' since those scenarios are normally used for moods, or scenes. The 'Media Scenarios' are often just for media tasks, like 'TV', 'Movies', 'Music', etc. The 'Climate Scenarios' are typically reserved for controlling environmental devices, like the hvac, pool, jacuzzi, sprinklers, etc. 'Security scenarios' usually consist of arming/disarming the alarm, viewing surveillance cameras, and an 'SOS' button. 'Telecom scenarios' are normally for making phone calls, and are most often speed dials.

To make it easier for you to create your scenarios, LinuxMCE's scenario wizards will guide you by default. For example, when creating a 'Lighting scenario', the wizard gives you a simple check list of all the lights in the home. Of course, if you want your Lighting scenario to also, say, turn on the a/c, then while creating your lighting scenario just choose the 'climate wizard' to throw in some climate commands too.

You will probably have lots and lots of scenarios, so LinuxMCE groups them by room. Your Orbiters and mobile phone remote controls will automatically show you only the scenarios for the room you're in to keep things simple. However, you can hit a button to select a different room, and select one of that room's scenarios. Note that putting a scenario in a room doesn't mean you only control devices in that room. You can create a scenario called 'Go to bed' that you put in the room 'Master bedroom'. That scenario can turn off all the lights around the house, lock the front door, etc. When you put the scenario in the room 'Master bedroom', you're just telling LinuxMCE that you would normally only want to see that scenario when you're in the Master bedroom--not that you only want to control devices in the bedroom. You're not so likely to want that scenario when you're in the kitchen--there you'll have other scenarios like 'Make Dinner'.

This structured approach makes LinuxMCE much more usable. Rather than a screen with tons of buttons, when you enter a room you see at first just the scenarios you are most likely to want in that room. A few Lighting scenarios or moods, some buttons to control whatever media is in that room, and so on.

Orbiter Generator even analyzes the tasks you will need to preform based on your scenarios, and automatically builds other user interfaces for you. For example, if you create a scenario to control your jacuzzi, Orbiter Generator knows to build you a graphical user interface with the advanced options for the jacuzzi too.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember concept #5. Whenever you add, remove or change any scenarios or any devices on your floorplans, or if you change the look and feel for an Orbiter (called the 'Skin'), the Orbiter Generator tool needs to rebuild your user interface. While your Orbiter's user interface is being generated you will not be able to use that Orbiter.

<h1>Real world example & tutorial</h1>
Every home has a different mix of devices and you will want to do different things. However we created a step-by-step tutorial for setting up a low-cost smart home system for under $1,000 based on [http://www.x10.com X10], a [http://www.globalcache.com gc100], and a couple [http://www.slimdevices.com SlimDevices]. The procedure and concepts, however, is exactly the same with a $100,000 high-end based on Lutron, Vantage, EIB, etc. So, you may want to read the tutorial anyway to better understand the techniques. It can be found [[Testing and troubleshooting devices]].

<h1>Next Steps</h1>

By this point you're probably done with LinuxMCE Admin for now. However, there are some other things you will want to do: 

Setting up your phone system
If you chose the Asterisk module, see: [[AMP Configuration Guide]]

Setting up your PVR
If you're using Myth TV, the software is already installed and most options are already set. Please read the quick step-by-step tutorial to set a few final options: [[Setting up MythTV]]

Upload your media
The Core automatically creates Microsoft Windows compatible network shares (uses Samba) . There is a "public" share for putting all files that the whole family can share--movies, music, etc. And there is a private share for each family member. To access these network shares in Windows, choose Start, Run, and type \\ plus the IP address of the Core or hybrid. For example: \\192.168.80.1 Note that if you add new family members, their network share will not be available until after you reboot the Core/Hybrid. Once you copy your media into the appropriate folder, you can go into the LinuxMCE Admin site, choose "Files & Media" and "Media Files Sync" to be sure your media is in the database, add attributes (artist, actor, etc.), and choose cover art. You can also put a disk in any media director and hit 'copy disk' to copy the media to the Core.

Rebooting
After you have set everything up, you should do a full reboot of the "LinuxMCE universe", meaning rebooting the Core/Hybrid plus any media directors. You can do this by choosing "Restart" from the LinuxMCE Admin site wizard (the last option), or from any orbiter or media director by clicking the LinuxMCE logo on the main menu and choosing "Reboot Core".

If your media directors support both software power off and wake on lan, the core will turn them off before it reboots itself, and will turn them back on when it has finished booting up. If not, you may need to reboot the media directors manually by cycling power on them. Note that you should not turn the media directors on until the Core/Hybrid has finished booting up.

Updates
LinuxMCE will automatically keep an eye out for software updates and will notify you when it would like to update itself.

Wake on LAN

2007-12-05T22:57:00Z

Bmk789:

From the command line type;

etherwake <mac-address of device> or even moonID (for MD/PC's)

try;

man etherwake

for more info. This will send a 'magic packet' to the device targeted and as long as that device has the bios & Network interface options to do WOL then your in business. Obviously you could build some scripts to make this work more slickly and also trigger those scripts based on other events or even time of day etc etc.

----
Taken from the forum [http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2726.msg13361#msg13361].

[[Category: Tutorials]]

Use my own pictures in the Screen Saver

2007-12-05T22:55:36Z

Bmk789:

The photo screen saver does a great job and ensures that media is displayed all the time, even if you just happen to be listening to music.
By default, the photos come from flickr and are downloaded regularly to your local drives.

But it would be nice to use your own photos in this screen saver, perhaps alongside the flickr ones or perhaps as a replacement.

This is a guide to do just that...

=== Background ===
All media on your linuxMCE system is catalogued and stored in a database. The database allows for attributes to be stored for each media file.
One such attribute is "Screen Saver For MD". By setting this attribute this picture will be used as one of the pictures for the Media Director Screen Saver.
Photos are selected by random from all the photos that exist with the "Screen Saver For MD" attribute set.

There are a number of ways to set this attribute for individual files. They are;
* Setting an attribute from the web admin screens
* Setting an attribute from the command line
* Assigning a picture to the screen saver from the Orbiter

=== Setting an attribute from the web admin screens ===
'''NOTE: Pictures must be smaller than 1240 x 1240. Hope this saves some a bit of fustration. '''
There is a section on the web admin screens that allow the setting of attributes for media.
It is available under Files & Media -> Media Files Sync

The left hand window frame gives a tree view into the directory structure of home/public/data.
Typically photos will be stored under the pictures sub-directory.
The right hand window frame gives a view of the files found and their status with relation to linuxMCE's database.

Firstly determine the pictures you wish to use, and locate them using the directory browser.
Then ensure that the files are ticked to indicate existing in both the database and on disk. If not then choose the type as 'LinuxMCE Pictures' and press the 'Add to database' button.

Once they are added to the database you should be able to select them and see the details (metadata) associated with them.

Part of the details include any currently set attributes for the file, which you can choose to Edit or Remove.
There is also a section to Add Attributes. Only attribute that have been associated with the particular file types can be selected from the drop down box.
''Note: If you do not see 'Screen Saver For MD' in this box then you will need to Associate the attribute.''

Select the attribute 'Screen Saver For MD' and enter or select the Attribute name value of '*'. Then press the Add button next to the box and your done.

A quick reload router should be enough to ensure that files are refreshed from the database and you should start to see your selected picture as one of the screen saver files.

==== Associate the attribute ====

Unfortunately by default this attribute has not been associated with the picture media type. Perhaps a bug, who knows. Anyway, to associate it you will need to run the following piece of SQL to put the required association into the database.

You will need to get to the command prompt of your CORE machine and from the command prompt (your default user should be fine) run:

mysql -u root -D pluto_media -N -e "INSERT into MediaType_AttributeType(EK_MediaType, FK_AttributeType, Identifier, CombineAsOne) values(7,30,0,1)"

Do a quick reload router and then the attribute should show up in the dropdown box under add attributes

''Note: If someone knows a better way to do this or can see some adverse side effects please update''

=== Setting an attribute from the command line ===

There is functionality built into the system that allows an attribute to be set through a sequence of Command Messages sent to the right device. This is what the flickr.pl script uses to assign the downloaded files the right attributes.
The commands can be executed from anything that can send linuxMCE messages (including the web admin screens) but this method will utilise the MessageSend utility available from the linux command line.

You will need to firstly determine the full filename and path for the file you wish to set the attribute for.
This method assumes that the file has already been sync'd with linuxMCE and exists in the data base.

The first command queries the database for the file ID of a particular filename.

The second command assigns an attribute type/value to the returned file ID

* Logon to your linuxMCE CORE and get to the linux command prompt
* execute the following command
/usr/pluto/bin/MessageSend dcerouter -targetType template -r -o 0 2 1 819 13 <pathtofile>

Substituting your full path to the file where is says <pathtofile>

''eg: /usr/pluto/bin/MessageSend dcerouter -targetType template -r -o 0 2 1 819 13 /home/public/data/pictures/sample.jpg''

You should get a response something like this:
0:OK
145:11392

The number next to the '145:' is the important part. This is the fileID. If this is zero then your command has not found a match in the database and you may need to take other measures to ensure that the database is sync'd with your files.

* Now execute the following command
/usr/pluto/bin/MessageSend dcerouter -targetType template -r -o 0 2 1 391 145 <fileID> 122 30 5 "*"

Substituting the fileID that you just discovered where it says <fileID>

''eg: /usr/pluto/bin/MessageSend dcerouter -targetType template -r -o 0 2 1 391 145 11392 122 30 5 "*"''

* You can then repeat for any other files that you want to use

''Note: Someone might like to write a user friendly script that simplifies this task''

=== Assigning a picture to the screen saver from the Orbiter ===

Sounds like a good idea??? Unfortunately it is not currently possible, but I thought that this sounded like a logical thing to do so have put this placeholder in.

Essentially, screens in the Orbiter have buttons that trigger message Command to be sent. So setting up a button in the Picture view screen "add to Screen Saver" should be quite straight forward.

If you feel like getting involved maybe this is somewhere you can start.....

NOTE: Pictures must be smaller than 1240 x 1240. Hope this saves some a bit of fustration.

[[Category: Tutorials]]

Useful 3rd party applications

2007-12-05T22:53:06Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
==Introduction==
I'd like to aggregate all 3rd party applications that can be useful to use together with LinuxMCE.

==Cross Platform==

* [http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ Misterhouse] great Perl based home automation system that lets you easily extend its functionality. Great for complementing features that are missing in LinuxMCE. Currently some limited integration is being worked on.

==Windows==

* [http://www.sudu.dk/mythtvplayer/index.php Mythtv player] useful small application that lets you watch mythtv recordings on win xp machines

==Linux==

* [http://www.egroupware.org/ Egroupware] potentially useful as PIM back-end. No integration with LinuxMCE yet
* [[VPN]] potential to link multiple cores over the net

Useful 3rd party applications

2007-12-05T22:52:42Z

Bmk789: added VPN

[[Category:Possibilities]]
==Introduction==
I'd like to aggregate all 3rd party applications that can be useful to use together with LinuxMCE.

==Cross Platform==

[http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ Misterhouse] great Perl based home automation system that lets you easily extend its functionality. Great for complementing features that are missing in LinuxMCE. Currently some limited integration is being worked on.

==Windows==

[http://www.sudu.dk/mythtvplayer/index.php Mythtv player] useful small application that lets you watch mythtv recordings on win xp machines

==Linux==

[http://www.egroupware.org/ Egroupware] potentially useful as PIM back-end. No integration with LinuxMCE yet
[[VPN]] potential to link multiple cores over the net

Useful 3rd party applications

2007-12-05T22:51:39Z

Bmk789:

Useful 3rd party applications

2007-12-05T22:51:15Z

Bmk789:

==Introduction==
I'd like to aggregate all 3rd party applications that can be useful to use together with LinuxMCE.

==Cross Platform==

[http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ Misterhouse] great Perl based home automation system that lets you easily extend its functionality. Great for complementing features that are missing in LinuxMCE. Currently some limited integration is being worked on.

==Windows==

[http://www.sudu.dk/mythtvplayer/index.php Mythtv player] useful small application that lets you watch mythtv recordings on win xp machines

==Linux==

[http://www.egroupware.org/ Egroupware] potentially useful as PIM back-end. No integration with LinuxMCE yet

Openmoko

2007-12-05T22:47:13Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Orbiters]]
==About the device==
*Processor - Samsung S3C2442B (Capable of running up to 400 MHz)
*Flash - 256MB integrated Samsung NAND flash inside the 2442 multi-chip package
*RAM - 128MB SDRAM (64MB inside 2442 MCP, 1x Samsung K4M51323PC) attached to S3C2442 SDRAM controller
*GSM/GPRS
** CALYPSO digital baseband
** TWL3014 analog baseband
** TRF6151 RF Transceiver
*AGPS
*microSD-Card - SDHC compatible slot under battery
*LCD Module (LCM) - 2.8" diagonal (1.7" x 2.27" - 43mm x 58mm) 480x640
*Bluetooth - V2.0 + EDR
*Vibrator
*Graphics
*WiFi - 802.11G
*Audio
** Wolfson Codec
** Stereo Amplifier
** Analog wired Headset
** Bluetooth Headset
*Accelerometers - Two ST LIS302DL 3D accelerometers

==Possible Uses==
* General Purpose Orbiter via Wifi or Bluetooth
* AGPS can detect when approaching home and send command to turn on entry lights or execute a scenario
* Accelerometers can be used for gestures

Openmoko

2007-12-05T22:47:03Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Orbiter]]
==About the device==
*Processor - Samsung S3C2442B (Capable of running up to 400 MHz)
*Flash - 256MB integrated Samsung NAND flash inside the 2442 multi-chip package
*RAM - 128MB SDRAM (64MB inside 2442 MCP, 1x Samsung K4M51323PC) attached to S3C2442 SDRAM controller
*GSM/GPRS
** CALYPSO digital baseband
** TWL3014 analog baseband
** TRF6151 RF Transceiver
*AGPS
*microSD-Card - SDHC compatible slot under battery
*LCD Module (LCM) - 2.8" diagonal (1.7" x 2.27" - 43mm x 58mm) 480x640
*Bluetooth - V2.0 + EDR
*Vibrator
*Graphics
*WiFi - 802.11G
*Audio
** Wolfson Codec
** Stereo Amplifier
** Analog wired Headset
** Bluetooth Headset
*Accelerometers - Two ST LIS302DL 3D accelerometers

==Possible Uses==
* General Purpose Orbiter via Wifi or Bluetooth
* AGPS can detect when approaching home and send command to turn on entry lights or execute a scenario
* Accelerometers can be used for gestures

Apple Mac-Mini

2007-12-05T22:37:49Z

Bmk789:

[[Category: Hardware]]
[[Category: Media Directors]]
[[Category: Possibilities]]

[http://www.apple.com/macmini/ Mac mini home page]

Pros: 
- small factor 
- stylish design 
- integrated IR Remote 
- integrated Bluetooth dongle 
- integrated WiFi (i. e. access point) 
- absolutely quiet 

Cons: 
- cannot PXE boot easily but I'm sure there is a way to boot Mac Mini as Media Director using elilo 

Links: 
- [http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Diskless_Mac-Mini_Howto Diskless Mac-Mini Howto - MythTV] 
- [http://www.sowerbutts.com/linux-mac-mini/ Linux on the Mac Mini]

Openmoko

2007-12-05T22:34:49Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
==About the device==
*Processor - Samsung S3C2442B (Capable of running up to 400 MHz)
*Flash - 256MB integrated Samsung NAND flash inside the 2442 multi-chip package
*RAM - 128MB SDRAM (64MB inside 2442 MCP, 1x Samsung K4M51323PC) attached to S3C2442 SDRAM controller
*GSM/GPRS
** CALYPSO digital baseband
** TWL3014 analog baseband
** TRF6151 RF Transceiver
*AGPS
*microSD-Card - SDHC compatible slot under battery
*LCD Module (LCM) - 2.8" diagonal (1.7" x 2.27" - 43mm x 58mm) 480x640
*Bluetooth - V2.0 + EDR
*Vibrator
*Graphics
*WiFi - 802.11G
*Audio
** Wolfson Codec
** Stereo Amplifier
** Analog wired Headset
** Bluetooth Headset
*Accelerometers - Two ST LIS302DL 3D accelerometers

==Possible Uses==
* General Purpose Orbiter via Wifi or Bluetooth
* AGPS can detect when approaching home and send command to turn on entry lights or execute a scenario
* Accelerometers can be used for gestures

Openmoko

2007-12-05T22:28:00Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
==About the device==
*Processor - Samsung S3C2442B (Capable of running up to 400 MHz)
*Flash - 256MB integrated Samsung NAND flash inside the 2442 multi-chip package
*RAM - 128MB SDRAM (64MB inside 2442 MCP, 1x Samsung K4M51323PC) attached to S3C2442 SDRAM controller
*GSM/GPRS
** CALYPSO digital baseband
** TWL3014 analog baseband
** TRF6151 RF Transceiver
*AGPS
*microSD-Card
*LCD Module (LCM)
** Touch Screen
** Stylus
*Bluetooth
*Vibrator
*USB Host
*USB Device
*Graphics
*WiFi
*Audio
** Wolfson Codec
** Stereo Amplifier
** Analog wired Headset
** Bluetooth Headset
*Power Management
*Battery
*Buttons
*Accelerometers

==Possible Uses==
* General Purpose Orbiter via Wifi or Bluetooth
* AGPS can detect when approaching home and send command to turn on entry lights or execute a scenario
* Accelerometers can be used for gestures

Openmoko

2007-12-05T21:39:36Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
[[Category:Hardware]]
==About the device==

VPN

2007-12-05T21:35:30Z

Bmk789:

[[Category:Possibilities]]
VPN (Virtual Private Networking) offers a lot of potential for connecting multiple cores (between houses, apartments, etc.). This would enable families and friends to share security cameras, call/intercom each other for free via Asterisk, pipe security notifications to every device at every connected residence, and possibly even share media (legality?)

==Requirements for a VPN plugin==
* Security
** Encryption
** Secure method of "pairing" houses
This could be done by sharing a public key with whomever you wish to pair with. User 1 would enter User 2's public key along with an optional message. User 2 would manually approve User 1 for pairing, and the cores would connect securly via VPN and automatically share security notifications and anything else set in a settings panel.
* Options panel for data to share with "paired" cores

==Wish List==

Add what you would like VPN to make possible in LinuxMCE

==External Links==
#[http://openvpn.net/ OpenVPN]

System Requirements

2007-12-05T21:18:11Z

Bmk789:

System Requirements

2007-12-05T21:17:42Z

Bmk789: /* Recommended */

==Core==
Core is the term given to the main server with in the house. This is the 'center' of the LinuxMCE system and is the device which serves the administration pages to browsers.

It is from this Core that allows whole house plug-and-play and lets you plug all sorts of devices anywhere into your home network:

* Media directors
* telephones
* surveillance cameras
* interface modules
* audio players
LinuxMCE will detect them and set them up automatically. It's like plug-and-play in Windows, but it extends throughout the whole house.

Retrieved from [[Core]]

===Minimum===
====CPU====
This machine should have a reasonably powerful CPU for decoding/encoding media, running the database and web server, and other system services.

I would recommend a ~700mhz P3 as a _bare_ minimum. --[[User:bmk789|bmk789]]
====Motherboard====
Any Linux-compatible motherboard (95% chance your's will work) will run smoothly, give or take a few features (SPDIF, etc.)
====RAM====
For a bare minimum server, 256MB of RAM is recommended, (128MB has been tested to work, but not very well)
====Hard Drive====
Your core's hard drive should be larger than 4GB (to install the OS) plus as much as you want for media storage, network-boot images, etc.
====DVD/CD-ROM====
A DVD drive is required for installing with the Quick Install DVD. Without a DVD-ROM drive, the user is left to the CD install method, which requires a fresh install of Kubuntu 7.04, then a 2CD installation of LinuxMCE.
===Recommended===
====CPU====
Late model single-core or any dual or quad core processor is enough power to run a Core.
====Motherboard====
Any Linux-compatible motherboard. Can have built-in digital audio, Gb networking, HDMI, GPU, etc.
====RAM====
1GB+ RAM should handle most setups. 4GB+ would require 64-bit OS which will be available with 0710
====Hard Drive====
Most drives today offer more than enough storage space to run LinuxMCE, but you can add as much storage as you want via NAS, other machines, and other storage devices.
====DVD/CD-ROM====
DVD-ROM drive is required for installing using the Quick Install DVD and a DVD+-RW drive is recommend for backing up media, burning CDs, etc.

==Media Directors==
===Minimum===

===Recommended===