Difference between revisions of "User:Jamo"

Revision as of 10:57, 22 June 2012

Hey-ho, here I am at last. Have had LinuxMCE on my to-do list for a long time and I'm finally getting it off the ground.

Hope to use this page to show my setup with plenty of detail and comments in case anyone would want to duplicate/ learn from it.

Current Setup

Core

• Chassis: FOXCONN TSAA-426 300WATT ATX
• PSU: incl in Chassis: 300w
• Mobo: FOXCONN H61MX-V DDR3 LGA1155
• CPU: INTEL CORE I5 2400 3.1GHZ
• GPU: onboard Intel Sandy Bridge chipset
• RAM: 8Gb (2x KINGSTON DDR3 4GB 1333)
• Cooling: CPU cooler, PSU cooler
• HDD: SEAGATE 320Gb SATA
• DVD: SONY +/- DVD WRITER 24+R,SATA

LMCE:

• 10.04

Cost:

Issues:

• Sandy bridge graphics chipset not supported out of the box in 10.04. This is not an issue at the moment as it's a headless core

but if I were to make it a hybrid: see Sandy_Bridge

Media Director 1: TV Room

• Chassis: HP compaq 6710b notebook
• PSU: integrated
• Mobo: ? Chipset: Mobile™ Intel® 965GM Express
• CPU: Intel Core™2 Duo Processor T7500 @ 2.2Ghz
• RAM: 2Gb
• Cooling: ?
• HDD: WD2500BEVT - SATA 232Gb
• DVD: MATSHITA DVD
• WLAN: 802.11b/g
• NIC1: Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet
• Bluetooth: Yes

Cost: ?

Remote: Nintendo Wiimote cheap knockoff using IR pointing

Issues:

• USB gamepad auto-install - on firstboot of MD the script got into an install loop adding lots and lots of these devices and I

don't even have one. Fixed that by hacking the gamepad_detect script. Now it only installs one but it keeps adding this device which interferes with the wiimote. Have deleted the devices from the web admin device tree but they keep being reinstalled unless I comment out relevant sections in at least 3 /usr/pluto/bin scripts. Working on fixing these scripts and figuring out why it is detecting this device on my system when I don't have it.

AV Equipment

TV - Hisense 40" LCD TV

• MD video Connection: VGA @ 1280x1024
• MD audio Connection: 3.5mm stereo jack from MD to computer audio in (3.5mm stereo jack) on TV
• Satellite Set-top box input: Composite video (PAL-I) and stereo audio - 3-way RCA input to AV1 RCA jacks
• Audio output: 3.5mm stereo jack from TV headphone out to DiVoom 2.1 Sound
• Remote: Manufacturer IR remote

Satellite TV - settop Box: DSTV PVR I (SD) with dual-view

• Dual LNB input (coax) from satellite dish
• Single RF output (coax) going to TV2 of tenant
• TV1 composite video/stereo RCA out.
• Remote: Manufacturer IR remote

Audio Receiver - Divoom 2.1 Stereo computer sound

• Connection: 3.5mm stereo jack in from TV headphone jack
• Remote: None.

Media Director 2: Kitchen

• Chassis: IBM Thinkpad T30 notebook
• PSU: integrated
• Mobo: ? Chipset: ?
• CPU: ?
• RAM: ?
• Cooling: ?
• HDD: ?
• DVD: ?
• WLAN: none
• NIC1: ?
• Bluetooth: No

Cost: ?

Issues: Failed to Setup X on first boot (see Troubleshooting tips below)

Media Director 3: Study

• Chassis: Dell Optiplex ???
• PSU: ???
• Mobo: ? Chipset: ?
• CPU: Intel Core™2 Duo Processor ????
• RAM: 2Gb
• Cooling: ?
• HDD: SATA 2Tb
• DVD: ?
• WLAN: none
• NIC1: ?
• NIC2: ?
• Bluetooth: No

Cost: ?

Issues: None as yet.

Media Director 4: TEST MD

• Chassis: HP Probook 6560b notebook
• PSU: ???
• Mobo: ? Chipset: Mobile Intel® QM67 Express
• CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2520M (2.50 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
• GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6470M with 512 MB dedicated DDR3 video memory
• RAM: ?
• Cooling: ?
• HDD: ?
• DVD: ?
• WLAN: ?
• NIC1: Integrated Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (10/100/1000 NIC)
• Bluetooth: Yes

Cost: ?

Issues: Can't PXE boot first time- some type of kernel panic. Assume it is related to Unrecognized_NIC. Trying to fix...

A/V equipment

• TV: Hisense LCD V86PE Full-HD 40"
• Amplifier: Onkyo TX-7440

ADSL router / modem

Trendnet 300Mbs Wireless N ADSL 2/2+ Modem router (TEW-658BRM)

Network Switch

D-Link 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch - DGS-1008D

Security Cameras

• El-cheapo IR camera: RMI-550WF / EasyN FS-603

Next step(s)

• Enable bluetooth on MD1 and try to use mobile orbiter on Nokia 5800
  • No dice: 5800 uses Symbian S60 version 5 which is not supported. Trying to recompile app for this release....
• Upload and organise existing media
  • Purchase and install dedicated hdd in core. Size? 500Gb?
  • May have to format...?
  • Use LINUX MCE directory structure= YES when prompted - this should craete the basic folders
  • [NOTE: need to do a folder lock when copying media en-masse or else the LMCE tries to autosync/tag. See wiki/forums for this ] Copy media into folders using network share from desktop computer ## Only copy media that is good to go, not intermediate rubbish, eg:
    • Music: id3 tag sorted out, no glitches in file, no duplicates- best of breed.
    • Photos: The keepers. Generally photos in the prints folder on gallery. Maybe we should have an additional "keep" folder or something
    • Videos: Dunno

Proposed Setup

still under construction....

Troubleshooting and tips

Troubleshooting

• Failed to setup X: IBM Thinkpad T30 MD CReation

At the "failed to setup X" stage of MD creation, drop to tty2 (ctrl-alt-f2 on md), log in, become root and do the following: [code] sudo apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri sudo reboot [/code] Should get to AVWiz. Background is that the fglrx (proprietory ati driver doesn't support the older radeon cards) and also inteferes with the open-source driver so must be removed and some of the open source drivers refreshed. See [url]http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=815355[/url]

• Fix networking after motherboard swap

Had to get my motherboard replaced under warranty. Eth0 was an onboard NIC so that was effectively replaced as well. When I brought up the system again, Eth0 (which was the external NIC that connected to my ADSL router and received config by DHCP) wasn't picking up an address - ie I couldn't get to the machine from outside. I could connect via Eth1 - 192.168.80.1, the internal NIC dhcp server. So I ssh in and ifconfig doesn't even show the second NIC (onboard). lspci shows it, though. So I ran ifconfig -a and that shows a new interface- Eth2! So I edit /etc/network/interfaces and change the settings from Eth0 to Eth2 and hey presto, it works after reboot.

Tips

• Nvidia card needs to be 6200 or better
• Sound on media directors: Look for cards/chips that deliver:
  • 16-bit 96KHz sample rates. This is the level of audio used for the 5.1 surround sound channels on DVD movies (or better).
• If you rip media to Private it won't show up in default Movies/Audio etc list - default options are to filter on Public. Find what you ripped by hitting "Options" on the file list when looking for the media and then include your username. You'll have to hit a pin to play the media, though. If you want to move it from private to public, physically move the file(s) to the public folder.
• To rip commercial dvds you may need to install libdvdcss2. Ensure this complies legally and with your conscience. It complies with my conscience because while I don't believe in copy protection, I will not rip a DVD that I do not own. As follows:
  • On the MD (or better still the core prior to diskless creation step): sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 w32codecs

Stuff to solve

• 2nd Web Orbiter
• shutdown and poweroff T30 and HPXW4100
• Security Camera to pop up in view on MD when triggered (motion)
• Security Camera "view" disappears after router has been running for a while
• How to control UI2 with just a mouse
• Screensaver doesn't work in UI1
• Screen on HPXW4100 doesn't auto configure

last edit: 06/06/2012