Latest revision as of 21:44, 25 October 2010

Heavily "borrowed" from GnEeErKd setup page, as it is a very good guide and is similar to my setup. This mostly just for my own refernce to track the steps in my setup/installation.

Core/MD Hybrid needs edit

• CPU
• RAM
• HDDs
• NICs

Peripherals and Accessories needs edit

• TV
• Z5500
• bluetooth

Software needs edit

• LinuxMCE 0810 beta2
• lmce-activate-orbiter-plasmoid
• kubuntu-restricted-extras
• VNC/Remote Desktop Viewer

X10 Devices needs edit

Controlling

• Controller: CM11A

Controlled

• LM465 is dimmable x2

 Device Code | Module | Description
      B1     | RR501  | 
      B2     | LM465  | 
      B3     | LM465  | 
      B4     | LM465  | 
      B5     | AM466  | 
      B6     | AM466  | 
      B7     | AM466  | 
      B8 ------------------------------------------
      B9     | RR501  | 

LMCE 0810 beta2 Installation

first thing after installing Kubuntu 8.10 NICs mixed up, follow guide http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Internal_and_External_networks_swapped/not_working to fix

1. Follow the internet installation instructions located here with added step after sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

install latest nvidia (180) driver

1. Upon reboot, temporarily hook the monitor to VGA to go through AVWizard
2. Choose DVI output, 1080p, 60 Hz, OpenGL with Alpha Blending, stereo sound, 100% volume, and hit I Agree
3. Upon finishing the AVWizard, there is a grey screen with large text displaying each package that is installed
4. This continues until it gets to the Orbiter Regeneration
5. After the orbiter regeneration, I receive the infamous grey screen with a cursor
6. Use Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get to tty2, and log in
7. Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file as seen in the configuration files section
8. After rebooting, the Setup Wizard starts up which steps through the rest of the install process
9. That's it, after some more big text, MCE starts up fine and begins displaying Flickr pictures on the screensaver

Auto-start KDE desktop behind MCE on boot

• By default, the KDE desktop environment only starts if you click "KDE desktop" on the OnScreen orbiter
• To get certain programs and services to run, it is easiest to have KDE startup behind the OnScreen orbiter on boot

1. Edit /etc/init.d/linuxmce to contain the line shown in the configuration files section

Activate Orbiter Button

• Once you go to KDE from the on screen orbiter, there's no good way to go back besides reloading the router or clicking on OrbiterGL on the taskbar which rarely works
• The plasmoid might work, see those instructions here
• This did not work for me, so I did this instead with much more reliable results:

1. Open terminal and type 'sudo kate ~/Desktop/Activate-Orbiter.sh'
2. In the window that appears, paste in the file from the configuration files section
3. Save and exit this window
4. Now run 'sudo chmod 755 ~/Desktop/Activate-Orbiter.sh'
5. Right click on an empty area on the Desktop plasmoid and click "Link to Application"
6. Replace "Link to Application" with "Activate Orbiter"
7. Click the ? icon to choose an icon (I made it tux)
8. Go to the "Application" tab
9. In the "Command" box enter "~/Desktop/Activate-Orbiter.sh"
10. Click OK
11. Click on the newly created shortcut to bring up the OnScreen orbiter
12. Drag onto the desktop to make it act like a plasmoid

Disable Phone Systems

• Since this system doesn't do any phone system control, they can be disabled to save time and resources

1. Web Admin > Wizard > Devices > Core
2. Uncheck the "Telecom Handlers" box
3. Click Update
4. Web Admin > Wizard > Scenarios > Telecom Scenarios
5. Uncheck each scenario
6. From the OnScreen orbiter click Advanced > Advanced > Reload & regen all orbiters
7. Telecom scenarios should be gone
8. On reboot, core should not try to start the phone devices any more (except the orbiter embedded phone, which seems to regenerate itself if you delete it)

Get DVDs to play

Instructions grabbed here

1. Open Terminal
2. 'sudo apt-get install -y kubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdread3'
3. 'sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh'

MKV playback

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Play_mkv_files

X10 interface and lighting setup

Set lighting scenarios

Internet Radio Channels

Instructions grabbed here

• If you have a few favorite internet radio stations, you can set them as their own scenarios
• I will use http://di.fm, but other radio stations should work very similarly

1. Web Admin > Wizard > Scenarios > Media Scenarios
2. In the description box, type the name of the channel (Trance)
3. In the Entertain Area, select the Bedroom(Master)
4. Choose the Xine Player device
5. For type, select "LinuxMCE Audio file"
6. Click Add
7. Click Edit to the right of the new scenario
8. In a new window go to the radio station of choice and download the channel playlist (the playlist provides links to each mirror)
9. Go to that file on that computer and right click > open with
10. Choose a text editor
11. Copy the URL of one of the file names (http://scfire-ntc-aa07.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1003)
12. Paste that into the File Name field of your scenario
13. Click Save
14. From the OnScreen orbiter click Advanced > Advanced > Reload & Regen All Orbiters
15. Once that is finished, there should be a button for that station under "Media" on the orbiters

Set alarm clock scenarios

Disable the Firewall

• Since this is a single-nic installation, I don't find the firewall very necessary, and it makes other features easier to get working if it is disabled

1. Web Admin > Advanced > Network > Firewall Rules
2. Check the "Firewall Disabled" box
3. Click OK on on the warning dialog

Access Features outside of the Network

1. Create an account at DynDNS.org
2. Register a host name for your Media Center using the free DNS service
3. Web Admin > Advanced > Network > Dynamic DNS Settings
4. Enter the information you just registered with DynDNS.org
5. Check the "obtain IP address from the web" box
6. Click Save
7. Web Admin > Wizard > Security > Outside Access
8. Check "Allow outside access on port: " and specify port 8080
9. Click "Update"
10. If the Media Center is behind a router, port 8080 will need to be forwarded to the Media Center's IP or name

(This process is slightly different for each router but in my case, the router configuration was located at http://192.168.200.1, Most home routers will have the IP 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1)

1. On a computer with internet access, you should be able to go to http://<your-dyndns-hostname>:8080 and bring up the Web Admin

• Sometimes attempting to use http://<your-dyndns-hostname>:8080 while on the same local network won't work, so have a friend test it out or try it on a web-enabled cell phone
• If that isn't working, maybe MCE needs a router reload or a computer restart

Enable the Web Orbiter

Instructions grabbed here

1. Web admin > Show Devices Tree > Core
2. Create Child Device at the top
3. Pick Device Template
4. Device Category: Peripherals
5. Template ID: 1748 (Generic Web Device)
6. Pick device template
7. Wait until orbiter generation is finished (progress can be seen at Wizard > Devices > Orbiters)
8. Quick Reload Router
9. My proxy orbiter had problems starting up, so I rebooted the whole machine to get it all working nicely
10. Access the web orbiter by going to http://<core_ip>/lmce-admin/weborbiter.php or clicking the link on the login page of the web admin on any computer on the network
11. Orbiter settings and preferences can be set at Wizard > Devices> Orbiters and then regenerated accordingly
12. Assuming previous steps to "Access Features outside of the Network" were followed, web orbiter can be accessed by any computer on the internet by going to http://<your-dyndns-hostname>:8080 and clicking on the link on the login page or by going to http://<your-dyndns-hostname>:8080/lmce-admin/weborbiter.php directly

Enable remote desktop

1. Go to the KDE desktop on the Media Center
2. K Menu > Applications > Internet > Desktop Sharing
3. Click "Configure"
4. Click "Security"
5. Check the "Allow uninvited connections" box
6. Check the "Allow remote connections to control..." box
7. Uncheck the "Ask before..." box
8. Enter a password
9. Click Apply and OK
10. Use VNC or Remote Desktop Viewer from another computer to control it

Enable Network File Sharing

• This seems to be enabled by default in LMCE 0810 beta2 so just get on a network computer and connect to \\dcerouter and login
• map network share locations such as "download" and "Music" on windows machines

Wiimote

Use your own pictures for the screen saver

• Default installation grabs pictures from Flickr and makes them the screensaver, if you want to add some of your own pictures or get rid of the Flickr pictures and use only yours, you can

1. Copy the pictures you want to use to /home/public/data/pictures/ this step is optional
2. Web Admin > Files & Media > Screen saver
3. This should bring up a file tree on the left side that allows you to choose any pictures under the /home directory, and set them as screensaver pictures (that's why the last step was optional, but I recommend it for organizational purposes)
4. Once you find the pictures you would like to use as your screen saver, they should appear with thumbnails and a checkbox beside them
5. If you check the boxes beside your images and click "Save" at the bottom, they will be added to your screen saver
6. You may have to click "reload screensaver" at the top or quick reload the router before you start to see them on the screen

Get rid of Flickr pics

• If you don't want the Flickr pictures to be there at all, they can be deleted and instructed not to download

1. Web Admin > Files & Media > Screensaver
2. On the page that comes up, there is a button labled "Disable flickr script" that can be clicked to disable the future downloading of Flickr pictures
3. There is also the option to delete the pictures that have already been downloaded using the next option on the page
4. The default path should be right, change it if necessary...then hit remove
5. Reload the screensaver and possible the router if necessary

RSS feed facebook pics for screensaver

work in progress

contextual dynamic screensaver on music playing

purely coneceptual at the min hope to use id3 tags and last.fm API to display images of the artist currently playing

How do I save my login details, web orbiter

On your core (or ssh into it, see "Logging In") we need to edit /var/www/lmce-admin/weborbiter/login.html. But first, let's make a backup...

cp /var/www/lmce-admin/weborbiter/login.html /var/www/lmce-admin/weborbiter/loginbackup.html

Should you need to, restore the original file using...

cp /var/www/lmce-admin/weborbiter/loginbackup.html /var/www/lmce-admin/weborbiter/login.html

Once you've made your backup and are ready to make the changes, open login.html in your favourite text editor...

sudo nano /var/www/lmce-admin/weborbiter/login.html

And look for the following line...

<input id="username" type="text" name="username" value="" /></p>

Add your username to the "value" part, between the quotation marks...

<input id="username" type="text" name="username" value="YourUsernameHere" /></p>

Then find this line...

<input id="password" type="password" name="password" value="" /></p>

Add your password to the "value" part, between the quotation marks...

 <input id="password" type="password" name="password" value="YourPasswordHere" /></p>

Save, exit, and that should be it!

Torrenting

• By setting up a torrent client with a web interface, you can tell the media center to download what you want, and have it download in the background and magically appear in your collection when it is done!

1. K menu > Applications > BitTorrent Client
2. Settings > Configure KTorrent
3. Under Plugins, check the "web interface" box and click apply
4. Now in the left column, select "Web Interface" at the bottom
5. Choose a different port because MCE uses 8080 (I use 8081)
6. Make a user name and password and click apply
7. Go to the "Application" section on the left column
8. Check "Move completed downloads to" and direct it to a folder in the public home folder (you may have to 'sudo mkdir /home/public/data/other/torrents' first)
9. Click apply and ok
10. I had to 'sudo chmod 777' the directory where I wanted to put torrents as well
11. If you want to be able to access this interface from the internet, you must also forward this port as discussed in a previous section
12. Add KTorrent to the startup:'sudo cp /usr/bin/ktorrent /home/matt/.kde/Autostart/'
13. Now you should be able to access the web interface on any computer by going to http://<media-center-ip>:8081 inside the network or http://<media-center-domain>:8081 on the internet
14. Download away!

MD2

• Asus B202
• external 7.1 usb sound card with optical out

MD Setup