Revision as of 22:09, 9 March 2009

Pnuts Introduction to LMCE

Prior to ever hearing about LMCE I had an extensive network that was based around Windows systems with a Windows XP MCE in the living room and an xbox 360 acting as an extender on my media\office room. Other than briefly touching Linux here or there, I know very little about it but have always wanted to learn more.

A coworker of mine heard about my setup at home and was looking into doing something similar himself. He had read\heard a lot about LMCE and mentioned it to me. Hearing Linux and being a fairly complete Windows user, I did no bother to look into it at all. Several months later, I was talking to the same coworker about possibly setting up webcams in a home i recently purchased to make my own low budget security system and was looking for software to do it with. He again mentioned LMCE and quickly shot over a link to this LinuxMCE Video.

After watching a minute of the video, I was hooked. I went about researching what i would need to do and planning out how to do it. Now here I am starting a Wiki page of my experiances from start to finish, or rather where i currently am in the setup, who really is ever finished. So here I am. I will update this page as I build out the network so check back for updates.

The Complete Home System

Here I will break out each system that is on my network and touch on any issues or problems i have or have had while getting everything up and running.

The Core

A Dell Optiplex 755

Specs

Mother Board: Intel B875PBZ
CPU: Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading
RAM: 2gb RAM
AGP: ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition Radeon 9600
PCI: 3com Fast EtherLink XL
PCI: Creative Sound Blaster
Sata0: Samsung 250gb
Sata1: Samsung 250gb
Pata: DL DVD+-RW

Installation Issues

I will break out any issues I encountered with the above system here

Onboard Raid Controller

Instead of the Kubuntu using the settings I choose in the preboot raid setup, Kubuntu is detecting each drive independantly and not as a Raid. If you would like more information on why this happened, please read this link: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto Perhaps in the future once I become more knowledgable with Linux, I may attempt this.

Media Director 1 (not yet installed)

A Dell Optiplex 755

Specs

CPU: E6550 - Dual Core @ 2.33
RAM: 4gb RAM
PCI-E 16x: EVGA Nvidia 8600 GS 256mb
PCI-1: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500
PCI-2: Empty
PCI-E 1x: Empty
Sata0: Western Digital 320gb Caviar drive
Sata1: Seagate Barracuda 250gb drive
Sata2: Seagate Barracuda 250gb drive
Sata3: H+L DVD Recorder DVD+-RW

This machine is a Windows XP Media Center that will PXE Boot occasionally. Hopefully one day it will become a dedicated MD

Installation Issues

I will break out any issues I encountered with the above system here

Network Layout