LinuxMCE - User contributions [en]

Control LinuxMCE using a Symbian Series 60 mobile phone

2007-08-30T03:59:02Z

Mrchapp: grammar

<p><h1>How to set it up</h1></p>
<p>You need a [[Bluetooth Dongle]] in each media director where you want to use your mobile phone as an Orbiter. Bluetooth is not a strong signal, and doesn't go long distances or through walls very well. So, likely a USB Bluetooth dongle will only give you Bluetooth coverage for the room it's in. When you are within range of any media director with a Bluetooth dongle, you will be able to use your mobile phone to control every device anywhere in the house. In the LinuxMCE Admin website go to Wizard, Devices, Media Directors and make sure 'Bluetooth Dongle' is checked for each media director has one. Checking the box adds a "Bluetooth Dongle" device to that media director.</p>

<p>DCERouter cache's a list of all the devices in your home for better performance. So if you recently added Bluetooth Dongle's by checking that box, in LinuxMCE Admin go to Wizard, Restart, and choose Quick Reload Router. All the devices will close and wait for the router to restart, which takes about 15 for the Router. If you're adding lots of devices, you can add them all at once, and just do a Quick Reload Router when you're all done. As the Router restarts it will start any new Bluetooth dongle devices.</p>

<p>Then on your mobile phone, choose Connect, Bluetooth, and be sure Bluetooth is on, and the phone's visibility is Shown to all. Also, choose Tools, App Manager and be sure 'Software installation' is on. Now just get within range of a Bluetooth Dongle and wait about 20 seconds or so. When the Bluetooth Dongle detects the phone it will display a message on all the Orbiters and Media Directors asking if it's a phone. Touch the name of the person to whom the phone belongs. The phone will beep in about 20 seconds indicating you got a new message. Open it, click ok to accept the new program, and accept the defaults. This will install LinuxMCEMO software.</p>
<p>The LinuxMCEMO software needs to be always running on the phone--you can let it run in the background. Hold down the phone's menu button for a couple seconds to see a list of all the programms currently running on the phone. If LinuxMCEMO isn't running, touch menu and choose the LinuxMCEMO icon.</p>

<p>The Core will have been busy generating a new user interface for the phone during this time. It can take a couple of minutes. Once it's done the Core will display a message and the phone will be ready to go.</p>

If you want to take advantage of features like "speak in the house" or "view alarm events over GPRS" from your mobile phone, make sure you have set the user and the phone number for your mobile device and on LinuxMCE-admin website that you have set in Advanced->Network->WAP/GRPS Settings the correct URL and caller ID. LinuxMCEMO will receive a configuration file with these settings and you'll be able to use the embedded VMC file (for Symbian phones) or directly the phone's browser to control your house.

<p><h1>How to use it</h1></p>
<p>[[Using LinuxMCE]]</p>

<p><h1>Programmer's guide</h1></p>
<p>Orbiter has its own [[Orbiter Programmer's Guide]].</p>

[[Category: Orbiters]]

Control LinuxMCE using a Symbian Series 60 mobile phone

2007-08-30T03:57:06Z

Mrchapp: caps

<p><h1>How to set it up</h1></p>
<p>You need a [[Bluetooth Dongle]] in each media director where you want to use your mobile phone as an Orbiter. Bluetooth is not a strong signal, and doesn't go long distances or through walls very well. So, likely a USB Bluetooth dongle will only give you Bluetooth coverage for the room it's in. When you are within range of any media director with a Bluetooth dongle, you will be able to use your mobile phone to control every device anywhere in the house. In the LinuxMCE Admin website go to Wizard, Devices, Media Directors and make sure 'Bluetooth Dongle' is checked for each media director has one. Checking the box adds a "Bluetooth Dongle" device to that media director.</p>

<p>DCERouter cache's a list of all the devices in your home for better performance. So if you recently added Bluetooth Dongle's by checking that box, in LinuxMCE Admin go to Wizard, Restart, and choose Quick Reload Router. All the devices will close and wait for the router to restart, which takes about 15 for the Router. If you're adding lots of devices, you can add them all at once, and just do a Quick Reload Router when you're all done. As the Router restarts it will start any new Bluetooth dongle devices.</p>

<p>Then on your mobile phone, choose Connect, Bluetooth, and be sure Bluetooth is on, and the phone's visibility is Shown to all. Also, choose Tools, App Manager and be sure 'Software installation' is on. Now just get within range of a Bluetooth Dongle and wait about 20 seconds or so. When the Bluetooth Dongle detects the phone it will display a message on all the Orbiters and Media Directors asking if it's a phone. Touch the name of the person to whom the phone belongs. The phone will beep in about 20 seconds indicating you got a new message. Open it, click ok to accept the new program, and accept the defaults. This will install LinuxMCEMO software.</p>
<p>The LinuxMCEMO software needs to be always running on the phone--you can let it run in the background. Hold down the phone's menu button for a couple seconds to see a list of all the programms currently running on the phone. If LinuxMCEMO isn't running, touch menu and choose the LinuxMCEMO icon.</p>

<p>The Core will have been busy generating a new user interface for the phone during this time. It can take a couple of minutes. Once it's done the Core will display a message and the phone will be ready to go.</p>

If you want to take advantage of features like "speak in the house" or "view alarm events over GPRS" from your mobile phone, make sure you have set the user and the phone number for your mobile device and on LinuxMCE-admin website that you have set in Advanced->Network->WAP/GRPS Settings the correct URL and caller ID. LinuxMCEMO will receive a configuration file with these settings and you'll be able to use the embedded VMC file (for Symbian phones) or directly the phone's browser to control your house.

<p><h1>How to use it</h1></p>
<p>[[Using LinuxMCE]]</p>

<p><h1>Programmer's guide</h1></p>
<p>Orbiter has it's own [[Orbiter Programmer's Guide]].</p>

[[Category: Orbiters]]

Architecture Intro

2007-08-30T03:51:36Z

Mrchapp: some grammar and style corrections

LinuxMCE is divided in two parts: the '''core''' (aka the backend) and the '''media station''' (aka the frontend).

The '''core''' has no user interface. It provides services throughout the home, like the phone system, the central database cataloging all your media, message routing and net boot images for all the media stations. You can only have one core in the house because it is the central point through which all the devices connect. Your core should generally be left on all the time because if it's ever turned off, all the LinuxMCE functionality everywhere in the home stops working.

Wherever you have a TV you have a '''media station''', which is just a PC running LinuxMCE. Generally you do not need to install any software on the media stations because one of the services the core provides is what's called ''net boot''. This is a seldom used feature that almost all PC's have. You need to go into the BIOS setup on any PC you want to use as a media station, turn on the net boot and make it higher in the boot priority. This means when you turn the PC on, before it boots up off the hard drive like it normally would, it asks on the network for a boot image, and will boot up off the core's hard drive, not its own. This makes it extremely convenient. You can leave Windows, Fedora, or any other operating system you want on your PC's hard drive, and when you want to use it as a LinuxMCE media station, all you do is enable net boot, and without installing any software, you have a media station. A great benefit is that the LinuxMCE software will never interfere with the software or operating system on the hard drive, so it's like having 2 systems in one. It also means you only have to install LinuxMCE software one time and one PC, the core, and you can have LinuxMCE media stations throughout the house. The whole process is fully automated and completely plug and play, so it doesn't matter if you don't understand what net boot is all about. The only technical thing you need to do is turn on net boot in the BIOS of any PC you want to use as a media station, and your PC manufacturer can explain how to do that.

The most common way to install LinuxMCE is to install the media station software on the same PC you install the core on. This means you can use the core as a media station, and you can thus have a single PC stand-alone solution. You can still add other media stations using the net boot described above, and the UI (user interface) on those media stations will look exactly the same as the UI on the core. They will have the same media catalog, the same UI, and so on, and you actually can't tell the difference between the media station on the core and a net boot media station. But remember, don't turn off the core, or all the other media stations will stop working.

Another important thing to know about LinuxMCE is that it's fairly important that LinuxMCE be your DHCP server, which is what allocates IP addresses to all the devices in your home network. Generally you can only have 1 DHCP server on your network, and in most cases you will already have a DHCP server running in your cable or DSL modem. The easiest way around this is to have 2 network cards in the core. One connects to the cable or DSL modem and gets an IP address from its DHCP server, and the other connects to your home switch and all your other PC's connect to it and use the core's DHCP server. LinuxMCE's default installer recognizes this configuration automatically, and will automatically set everything up for you, so this is what's recommended if you don't know about networking concepts. If you only have 1 network card in your core and your Internet service provider gives you a static IP, and not a DHCP server, then this will also be fine. Otherwise if you already have a DCHP server in your home, you will need to know how to configure it to disable DHCP and give your core a static IP address. Or, if you don't know how to do this, then just answer 'no' when the LinuxMCE installer asks if you want to run a DHCP server. However by doing this, LinuxMCE won't be able to provide net boot images to additional media stations, and most of the plug-and-play adding of IP devices will not work.

The [[Usage_Intro]] explains the concepts about how to use LinuxMCE.

Download Instructions

2007-08-29T17:18:06Z

Mrchapp: affect != effect

Before installing, check out the [[Known_Issues]]. There is an issue with the Quick Install DVD that may affect most users, but there is an easy work around.

There are 2 installers.

1. The Quick Install DVD installs both Kubuntu and LinuxMCE at the same time in 20 minutes with only 3 keystrokes. You pick the hard drive you want it to install onto, and it will partition it, format it, install everything with default options, and set your location and regional settings using an IP2Location service. The DVD installer essentially takes a pre-installed image and copies it to the hard drive. This is why it is so fast and easy. But you also don't have low-level control over the installation process. '''Note''': this installer will erase all existing data from the selected hard drive.

2. The CD installer comes on 2 CDs and requires you to first install Kubuntu 7.04 using [http://kubuntu.org/download.php Kubuntu's Live CD], and then to install LinuxMCE on top. The CD installer can only be installed on a Kubuntu 7.04 installation that has not already been upgraded, since LinuxMCE has its own update mechanism that updates both Kubuntu and LinuxMCE in parallel. The CD installer gives you a lot more options. After answering the setup questions, it takes a couple of hours to install since everything is stored in .deb packages which must be decompressed and installed. The [[Installation_Guide]] explains how to install with the CD installer.

Both installers are on the [[Mirrors]]. You can [[Backup_and_Restore|upgrade from LinuxMCE 1.0 or Pluto to LinuxMCE 0704]].

The new demo [[Video]] is the best way to get oriented and see what LinuxMCE can do and how to do it.

Please indicate if the installation went ok here so we know what still needs fixing here: http://linuxmce.org/troubles.php

==Also read==

The short [[Architecture_Intro|Architecture Intro]] which explains what pc's you'll need to install software on and how they all work together.
Then there's a [[QuickStart_Guide|Quick Start Guide]] which explains how to set the video and audio settings using the AV Wizard, and to add devices to LinuxMCE with the Setup Wizard.
The [[Usage_Intro|Usage Intro]] is a quick primer on how to use LinuxMCE once it's installed.

LinuxMCE is a huge program with lots of features that you won't even notice right away, and the wiki already has a ton of pages which I imported from existing sources when I launched LinuxMCE, such as the original [[User's_Manual|User's Manual]] and [[Programmer's_Guide|Programmer's Guide]]. I found most of these docs weren't well organized and some of the data isn't up to date. But it's a wiki and all pages are open for editing, so hopefully this will improve.

== Getting the source code ==
Instructions on getting the source code and compiling it are located on [[Building From Source]] page.