LinuxMCE - User contributions [en]

Contacts

2007-10-24T05:31:19Z

Lbrigman:

LinuxMCE is a hot new open source project. It's stable, practical and usable, and really cool. Just check out the [[Screenshots|Screen Shots]] to see for yourself. [[I]]'m 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!

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'''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''']]
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'''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 
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'''John Botte''' -- contact: qualityinterfaces -at- gmail (.com) 
Offering: Forum moderation help. Conceptual ideas, help with firewire support, UI help and testing 
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'''Jonathan Iannone''' -- Contact: thorn168 -at- yahoo (.com) 
Offering: Help with documentation
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'''Michael Stepanov''' -- Contact: stepanov.michael -at- gmail (.com) 
Offering: Build and test SDL Orbiter for Linux-based PC and Nokia770/N800.
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'''Paul D''' aka Trout -- Contact: linuxmce.gqn@gishpuppy.com 
Offering: Help with documentation, Wiki participation, Testing and feedback.
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'''Pete Kalogiannis''' -- Contact: pkalogiannis -at- gmail (dot) com 
Offering: [[Insteon]] Integration
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'''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.
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'''Pierre Hansson''' aka Samme -- Contact: 316097 at gmail dot com 
Offering: Wiki-admin
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'''Lozzo''' -- Contact via [[User talk:Lozzo|his talk page]] 
Offering: wiki admin & documentation
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'''Chriss''' 
Offering: SVN hosting (see [http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2277.msg13677#msg13677 forum])
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'''Larry Brigman''' -- Contact larry dot brigman -at- gmail (dot) com 
Offering: Help with documentation, Wiki participation, QA and testing,
Build script work.

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

History

2007-10-23T03:37:08Z

Lbrigman: /* History of LinuxMCE, why I started this project, and the goals */

== History of LinuxMCE, why I started this project, and the goals ==

By: Paul Webber

At Cedia 2006, the biggest event in the U.S.A. for home audio/video/automation, I saw an incredible demo of Monster Cable's new Einstein product suite. Cedia's Technology Council wrote that out of the tens of thousands products at the show, this was the "the most important product" there, and "the most exciting thing to hit home automation" [http://crn.com/digital-home/193104836?queryText=monster+einstein link]

I learned the best part was that the company that developed it and licensed it to Monster, Pluto (plutohome.com), released virtually all the source code for free as open source. They only held back modules for DRM and some patented or licensed stuff. Yet even though it had a gorgeous user interface, tons of cool features, and even the industry experts I talked to said it kicked ass over Windows Vista and was the most promising thing to help Linux grab the market for living room media pc's, almost nobody knows about it, and very, very few Linux users have ever tried it.

As I started to to use it, the reason was clear. The software was very tightly intertwined with Pluto's own custom distro which is single-purpose and designed to only run on a dedicated box, kind of like a Tivo. Thus it was almost impossible to make it work on a 'normal' Linux PC. Pluto said this wasn't the intent, but that it had to be that way because their paying customers demanded closed-down black-box solutions which had to comply with rules regarding DRM. And, they said they were too busy taking care of their commercial clients to put much effort into the open source community.

Fair enough, I guess. They already contributed over 3 million lines of code and this media platform. So I figured I'd branch off and work on building an open source community to take it from here. The folks at Pluto were helpful and supportive, and welcomed this fork, and even allowed me to use their build servers and svn to get it going.

The first task was porting Pluto to run on a standard Linux Distro, Ubuntu, instead of their proprietary one. This, I thought, would take me a week. Five months later with two of us working almost full-time, <sigh> it's finally done. It's still not perfect because there remain some Pluto stuff that was written for their black-box system and "take over" more than it should. However, I have rewritten them enough that it's quite usable for a Ubuntu user, and pretty non-intrusive.

My goals are:

* I want to continue stripping out any of the Pluto stuff that is at all invasive or non-conforming with what is expected of a Linux desktop so that this can be a standard desktop option distributed as part of Ubuntu that runs beside Gnome or KDE, and allow easy switching between the two. The challenge is to do this while still preserving the appliance-like, self-configuring, black-box nature that makes this non-computer-ish and easy for novices with no Linux experience. This is a bit tricky since in general standard Linux desktops expect users to be fairly technical, and the black-box appliances like TiVo, are totally closed and take over the system, like Pluto currently does.

* To build an active community that can continue to expand LinuxMCE. Fortunately, the architecture is extremely modular; every function is basically a separate module that runs in it's own memory space and talks to all the other modules through a socket-based messaging layer. This means there are many existing open source projects that could be seamlessly added-on to provide cool functionality, like speech recognition, internet radio, and so on. In fact, most of the modules Pluto wrote are already like this, basically thin wrappers around existing open source projects like Xine and Asterisk that allow them to all work together. So there's lots of room for integrating more open source projects like this.

* To rewrite the Orbiter GUI Pluto developed so it's more general-purpose for any developer that wants to add a suitable UI for displaying on TV and controlling with a remote (aka the 10' UI). Ideally I would like to make it easy for existing developers to target both the traditional desktop UI, and the 10' UI, since the nature of home pc's is moving in that direction. In other words, the same XCalc calculator could be launched on the Gnome desktop for use with a mouse, or on the 10' UI for use with a remote control.

* Most of all, I want to get LinuxMCE accepted into other Distro's as a standard desktop option. I humbly think this is important for Linux to be a viable option for home pc users, like it already is for commercial servers because, in the home, everyone is starting to expect their pc's to be media hubs. Windows Vista even includes the media center edition standard on every version now. Ultimately it would be nice if a home user could go to a retail store to buy a big-name home PC, like a Dell or an HP, and have the option of choosing Windows or Linux, just like somebody shopping for a server does today.

ASUS DIGIMatrix

2007-10-23T00:16:35Z

Lbrigman: /* Adding remote control */

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

__toc__

Asus Digimatrix has pros and cons. Let me do initial evaluation...

I've also added Panel utility that lets you control LCD display...

*Pros:
**Small factor
**Nice front panel
**Integrated IR Remote
**Clock and Temp display (although Time under LinuxMCE is not right at the moment)
*Cons:
**Cannot PXE boot (I simulate this with boot CD that is always in tray)
**Wake on LAN still doesn't work properly (but can be wrong on this one)...

[[Image:asus-fromt.jpg]] [[Image:asus_back.jpg]]

== HW clock problem ==

Digimatrix has nice little VFD screen that shows hardware clock. The problem is that when it is powered off that time is in GMT rather than local time (in my case this is two hours behind). This comes from default handling of time in Linux - HW clock keeps GMT time and software then handles it when powered on. But after power down it goes back to GMT.

'''''Solution'''''

Entry UTC=yes in /etc/default/rcS (for that particular MD and not on the core) has to be changed to UTC=no.

I have no idea if this breaks any automatic daylight time saving feature or anything else, but works on my Digimatrix now - so I can see proper time when powered off

== Adding remote control==

It seems pretty straightforward, but it seems it starts to work only after few hard reboots...

Two additional kernel modules are required for remote to operate properly (lirc_dev, lirc_it87). They should be added as additional kernel modules on Media Directors page. As I'm writing this, this feature doesn't work, so you must manually add them to /etc/modules and watch, cause that file could get overwritten (particularly if you click on 'Rebuild image')...

1. Add 'Digimatrix' remote control in the bottom of corresponding entry in Media directors LinuxMCE-admin page. 

2. Select 'default' driver

Those actions will add two devices to Digimatrix MD parent device : 'Digimatrix' (remote) and 'default' which will start actual lircd daemon. Now some of buttons should work (left,right,up,down) but not all of them. There is another further step necessary :

3. Setting up remote mapping in MySQL database pluto_main, RemoteMapping (where keys from lircd.conf on Digmatrix remote page have to be added to trigger proper DCE messages, but please read [http://linuxmce.com/wiki/index.php/Control_LinuxMCE_using_an_Infrared_remote this] first - if you make changes on your own, you'll lose upgrading feature of table entries!!!)

I've already sent email with suggested additions for Digimatrix remote :
<pre>
--------------------- suggested additions to table are listed in ()-------
(os_start)Power;|0 -203 1 194
1;One;|0 -203 1 28 26 16
2;Two;|0 -203 1 28 26 17
3;Three;|0 -203 1 28 26 18
4;Four;|0 -203 1 28 26 19
5;Five;|0 -203 1 28 26 20
6;Six;|0 -203 1 28 26 21
7;Seven;|0 -203 1 28 26 22
8;Eight;|0 -203 1 28 26 23
9;Nine;|0 -203 1 28 26 24
0;Zero;|0 -203 1 28 26 25
enter;|0 -203 1 28 26 5
(next)SkipNext;skipfwd;|0 -106 1 65 5 +1
(pre)SkipPrior;skipback;|0 -106 1 65 5 -1
(ch+)chup;ChanUp;|0 -106 1 65 5 +1
(ch-)chdown;ChanDown;|0 -106 1 65 5 -1
(step+)fastforward;Forward;|0 -106 1 41 43 +2
(step-)Rewind;|0 -106 1 41 43 -2
Pause;|0 -106 1 39
Play;|0 -106 1 37
Mute;|0 -106 1 97
Stop;|0 -106 1 95 203 1
Down;|0 -203 1 201
Up;|0 -203 1 200
Left;|0 -203 1 202
Right;|0 -203 1 203
ok;|0 -203 1 190
(vol-)voldn;VolDown;|0 -106 1 90
(vol+)VolUp;|0 -106 1 89
recorded_tv;RecTV;|0 -203 1 401 29 5
(dvd_vcd;dvd_audio)DVD;|0 -106 1 43
menu;|0 -106 1 548
tv;live_tv;LiveTV;|0 -106 1 43 29 1
Back;|0 -203 1 240
Clear;|0 -203 1 363
(subtitle)epg;Guide;|0 -106 1 126
start;Home;|0 -203 1 741 159 1
Music;|0 -203 1 401 29 4
(ui_size)Radio;|0 -106 1 43 29 6
(rec)Record;|0 -106 1 102
(ui_on_off)display;info;list;|0 -203 1 399
green;|0 -203 1 28 26 177
yellow;|0 -203 1 28 26 178
red;|0 -203 1 28 26 179
blue;|0 -203 1 28 26 180

----- suggestions to change in digimatrix remote entry
on_off 0x000000000000B04F
</pre>
to change to 'music' - there is alternate sign on remote that is more useful than on_off feature (os_start is for that)

I also suggested new entry in table :
photo (music,tv,dvd are already in)...

(to be expanded)

== Power ON/OFF from remote control !!!==
 
Currently not many PCs can do this. But digitools package (look below) includes digiwake utility that must be run on system's shutdown (anytime after lircd, but it disables it so shutdown is best place) and Digimatrix will then wake up on Music (On/Off) button on remote - if it stays in idle power of course..
 
Currently for 1.03 Digiwake, you must run digiwake -w to write default values. On on/off remote button Digimatrix starts booting but it doesn't read CD to PXE boot (maybe my BIOS is not the right version...
 
Radu suggests putting script in /etc/init.d, and make symlinks in /etc/rc6.d and /etc/rc0.d (rc6 = reboot; rc0 = halt/poweroff); use the existing symlinks as reference - I think only rc0 symlink is necessary.

'digiwake.sh' content (in /etc/init.d ) 
#
# digiwake.sh Prepares Digmatrix to be powered on by remote on/off button.
#
/usr/local/sbin/digiwake -w

and make this :
ln -s /etc/init.d/digiwake.sh /etc/rc0.d/S80digiwake

== Getting VFD panel to display time, temperature (with volume) and volume knob to work ==

You need to compile [http://www.geexbox.org/src/devel/ Digitools ] 
My notes:
wget http://www.geexbox.org/src/devel/digitools-1.03.tar.gz
tar zxvf digitools-1.03.tar.gz
cd digitools
apt-get install libc6-dev
apt-get install libasound2-dev
make install

Then I add this line to /etc/inittab (not sure if this is proper and nice way of doing it - but it works) :

FP:2345:once:/usr/local/sbin/digipanel -l -s -t &> /dev/null & echo "Starting panel control"

(to be expanded)