Latest revision as of 19:08, 7 October 2012

Hardware used

CORE

• MB: Asus M2NPV-VM Unfortunatetly stoped working, got new M2n68-VM so have to test it
  
• CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4000+
• RAM: 3GB 667MHz Patriot
• HDD: Seagate 160GB SATAII
• VGA: Onboard VGA (128MB), using UI2 without alpha blending
• DVD/RW: Pionner 112
• Hauppage PVR-150-MCE
• Onboard audio
• Onboard NIC(Gigabit) for internal network
• Realtek 10/100Mbit NIC for external network
• Case: Antec NSK2400 + PSU LC Power 550W
• Fiire Chief remote - dint try Follow me options

After installing with no problems, i had random crashes with my Core. After messing with xorg.conf (and i am a complete Linux newbie, learned a lot surfing this wiki) and changing the driver used for VGA (i manually entered nvidia), crashes seemed to disapper. Autodetection of PVR-150MCE didnt work so a did a manual install, scanned for channels and all seems to work for now. Didnt bother with scheduling and recording, just watched Live TV and everything seemd to work fine.

Core is connected with VGA to 20" Philips monitor (native resolution is 1680x1050). Core running at 720P.

Update (29.03.2009) Decided to connect Core with DVI, also 720P. Fonts seem much clearer and easier to read, especially in KDE in which i had very bad fonts and troubles with reading them. Also media seems much sharper now, but thats just my opinion.

Here is a picture of my house setup[1]

Update (21.03.2009)Decited to play a little with NAS in internal network and addes some mobile Orbiters so take a look at new House setup[2]

Media directors and Orbiters

Media Directos

I am using laptop Compaq Presario 700EA (got it for 50$, used, battery dead, but it does its job:) ) as a Media Director in a living room, with UI1, using PXE boot. Couldnt find option on LinuxMCEDVD to install as media director only, so i went for PXE boot. I rarely turn of this MD so i dont mind booting it for like 2 mins.

Orbiters

Fiire Chief

Completely plug and play, had no problems with it. Only objection is a cursor "flashing", kinda hard to navigate with it jumping up and down in UI2 menu. Had read that maybe its the battery problem, will deal with it later.

Nokia N95

Using JAVAMO, over Bluetooth. Its kinda slow, but it does its job. Instalation was simple, had to change one file with a new one and after it all worked. Follow instructins here [3], under Core/MD.

Nokia 770

Update (01.11.2008) Got Nokia few days ago, had little problems making it to work (Nokia 770 is also Linux based, since i am a Linux newbie, didnt know what to do:) ). Followed the instructions from here [4] and after a few nights figuered it all out. It aint so hard after I had all the stuff necessary in one place. KDE desktop is a good for flashing your Nokia with necessary images (i used 2006 OS, NOT hacked one), i couldnt flash Nokia from my PC box, Nokia sotfare installer was giving me error, saying my PC clock isnt syncronized. Make sure to check the box THIS ORBITER USES WI-FI when adding a new ORbiter, and to set your swap on Nokia to at least 48MB and you wont have any problems using it as Orbiter (when swap is set under 48MB i had problems in Video, got stuck and resterted the application). Here is a picture of my Nokia 770 running as an orbiter. Resolution is 640x480, couldnt find Nokias original resolution (i think it is 800x480). Will try to update that. Picture isnt the best quality but soon i will document it all with a good video.

Update (06.11.2008) Found out how to change to Nokias resolution, follow the instructions from here [5], in 3. step its all explained.

WebDT 366

Ordered WebDT 366 over ebay for 145$ with shipment to Croatia. I have been waiting to get my hands on it. I was thinking of using it as WebORbiter and still use it under Windows CE, for web browsing, emails and stuff, but LinuxMCE guys came up with PadOrbiter. Basicly its a "OS" for WebDT, making WebDT 366 the real Orbiter, not using WebOrbiter or Windows CE Orbiter software, but the one i ordered has Windows CE on it. I ll lookup and see if there is any way to transfer it to my unit. Tkmedia on linuxmce forums can get you webdt 366 with preloaded PadOrbiter.

Update (21.03.2009) Received my Web DT366, but it only has 256MB of space so it cant fit PadOrbiter. Tryied it as WebOrbiter and it works great but it was designed for PadOrbiter. In progress of buying 1GB flash module but there seems to be some trouble with fitting it in. Seemd like DT used special made flas drives to fit them in. Will report back any sucess.

Update (21.03.2009) Messed around with it under Window CE, found out that actually HAS 512MB flash. It had 2 partitions so loaded UBCD on my USB stick, deleted those 2 partitions and made jsut one. After I just flashed it with PadOrbiter and it all works as a charm. BE CAREFUL, WebDT works only with WEP protection and recheck twice if You are using MAC filtering (i forgot i was using it so i spent entire day going crazy and figuring out why it wont boot and announce itself to the core:)

Uploaded a video of WebdT in action. See it here[6]

PadOrbiter

To use PadOrbiter u have to have 1GB stick and at least 512MB flash drive in DT.After downloading it, open KDE on Your LMCE, then Terminal windows, be sure You are in the right directory and execue DD comand. Take a look here: [7]

IP Cameras

Got my hands on D-Link DCS-900 for about 135$ [8]. Followed the instructions to set it up using Motion wrapper and after a few clicks it works like a charm. I can use it on any Orbiter, Media director, even acces it from Web Orbiter over the Internet. Camera has no zoom or Pan/Tilt options. Will try to create some Respond to Motion events, to try and see will LinuXMCE notify me on any orbiter when it detects movenent on camera.

Telephony

Bought Linksys SPA3102 over ebay, got it shipped really quick. Basicly You can connect your old PSTN phones to existing LMCE network, make outgoing and receive incoming calls on any of them. I will report back what i have achieved.

Update (01.04.2009) After following instructions from wiki, look here [9] all works as it should. It took me about 5 mins, after some troubles with Linksys getting IP from the core (make sure You plug in ethernet cable in Internet port on SPA3102). After restoring it to default settings all went ok. Telecom feature is amazing, i cant believe that my old POTS phone works inside this amazing system. For a test call i used my cellular phone. On my On-screen-orbiter of my Hybrid immediately popped a message of incoming call, offering me to answer it there or any other On-screen-orbiter. After 3 rings, answering machine answered my call, offering me choices (to call anyone in the house, one of any other users). Overall, Linksys SPA3102 is by far the best investment in LMCE, just my 2 cents.

Adding NAS to LMCE internal network

Added FREEnas for testing purposes and some other stuff, so have a look at updated house setup. Adding Freenas went without any problems. FIrst let the core detected after just plugging it in internal netowrk, core gave Freenas IP 192.168.80.254 but didnt do anything with it. I manually chnaged IP adress of Freenas to .150 then core automaticly autodetected it, asked to mount shares and stuff. After a few hours of playing with it i came to conclusion that core deals great with Samba shares, not any problem using it. This was just a test before i plug in my NASLite box (around 1.2TB of media on it). Will report any progress with it when i test it.

Adding NAS to LMCE external network

Since i still have some PCs on external network, which require stuff from this NAS, i couldnt afford to put my NAS (based on NASLite) in internal network. So I added it from external LAN. Doing so was pretty straight-forward, just had to add 2 child devices, put in IP, MAC, username and password. All beyond that was Plug and Play as LMCE autodetected it and asked to mount the shares. Here is a complete wiki on how to do it [10] (thanks to tkmedia who first wrote about that on forums). For all of You who want it done quickly, here is how (copy-paste from that page):

  1. In the Web admin select "show devices tree".
   2. Select CORE from my devices.
   3. Create child device.
         1. Use the file server device template.
         2. Put in its IP Address, username and password, and save it. 
   4. Now select the file server you just made and Create child device.
         1. Use the "Windows share" device template put in its sharename, username and password and save it.
         2. If you go the an Orbiter's KDE desktop, open Konqueror to /home/public/data/other , you should see 
something like "Windows Share [55]". 
   5. Now let it automatically sync the files. Takes a while (even to get started, then syncing is slow).
You can go resync the files using the web admin but if you have a lot of files just let it sync overnight on its own.

After playing with it for more then 2 hours, i didnt see any problems. Since i have a lot of stuff on NAS (around 1,3TB) it didnt syhncronize all of the stuff, but the ones it did were playing without a flaw.

Using floorpan feature

Here is a Youtube video of using a floorplan feature [11]. On my Core/hybrid I dont have speakers so thats why i dont have sound. Spekaers will be added in near future.

MythTV features

Since TV wasnt my number one priority i havent had the time to deal with it, up until now. I live in Croatia and we dont have EPG here, just teletext. But using xmltv i was able to have all of data for all of my channels. BRowsing them in LMCE was much more user friendly after setting it all up, not to mention some great features of MythTV, like automatic recording of all episodes of one show, You dont have to think when they are showing up, LMCE does it all for You. You can always pause Live TV when You have to do something and continue when YOu are back....For all the steps needed to make xmltv and MythTV working, take a look here: [12]. Here is a picture of MythTV web page after setting up with xmltv[[13]]

Problems and errors

• Core crashes randomly and for undetermined reasons. I have been suspecting NIC, read on this wiki about Realtek chipset not functioning properly. Since i am Linux newbie i dont know where to search for some system logs...Anybody can help on this? No NIC problems, just one problematic 1GB DDR module. Cant beleive it went all the way and installing LMCE without any problems. After MemTest I took it out and since then i had no crashes at all
• I would like to access my File server (see my Home setup, File server is running NASLite OS) which is in other subnet, dont know how to manage that. I dont want to put it in LinuxMCE subnet because my other PCs require its contest. Done that,look under Adding NAS from external network
• Fiire Chief remote seems to be kinda hard to operate; cursor "jumps" up and down and its not easy to navigate menus with it, using UI2.
• MythTV shows picture in 4:3 format. My setup is 720p which is clearly 16:9 format. Dont know where the problem is, and seems that MythTV doesnt have apsect ratio option, to change ratio during live TV. Maybe the problem is in my cable provider who servers me 4:3 format media. Problem solved, MythTV has option to change signal to 16:9 or any other format

Future improvements

• Hoping to update my networking to 1GB very soon, in process of buying 2 10/100/1000 switches.
• In process of managing a few MDs, low noise, hopefuly fanless, diskless
• Adding HVR-1110 tuner card (it has analog and digital tuner) to see how Core can manage 2 TV tuners at once, one for recodings and other for LiveTV
• Home automation MAYBE, since there arent many modules for Europe and my power lines are very crappy (i live in a 110 year old flat) Ordered Seluxit dongle, Tricklestar remote and Merten plug switch for testing. Kinda expensive but if it works as I expect it I will try to find something little less expensive
• VOIP MAYBE, since there arent providers here in Croatia..more interested in intercom service, which i still have to explore. Ordered Linksys SPA 3102 from ebay so i will conect my ordinary phones to LMCE Telecom service
• In process of closing a deal for Cisco 79070G phone. Nice touchscreen is ideal for another orbiter and VOIP functions i still have to figure out. Update (31.03.2009) Since i got Linksys SPA3102 i will put on hold 7970G phones, although i like pretty much the idea of an Orbiter on the phone.
• In process of uploading new picture of House setup, and some new videos of LinuxMCE

Total investment in LinuxMCE

• The Core / HYbrid--->had it from before so cant really tell. Around 750$
• Fiire Chief and extra dongle--->180$
• Nokia N770 over ebay--->130$
• Camera D-Link DCS-900--->135$
• WebDT 366 over ebay--->145$ (scratched and almost unusuable)
• 2*WebDT 366 from tkmedia (loaded with PadOrbiter)----> 375$ with shipping (they are also scratched and dented but they work flawless)
• Aeon Labs Z-Wave Interface with built-In Inclusion Remote----> 100$
• Everspring SP103 Z-Wave PIR Motion Detector-----> 65$
• Compaq Presario 900EA--->50$
• Few switches, UTP cables, RJ-45 connectors...--->75$
• Linksys SPA3102--->90$ with shipment

Overall around 2100$ over a period of 20 motnhs. Not much i guess:)