Difference between revisions of "User talk:Bernz"

Revision as of 22:02, 14 July 2007

I discovered LinuxMCE via one of the newsaggs (I think it was reddit). I had been searching for a whole-home multimedia and automation setup, and this looks like one of the best bundles out there.

I'm slowly (and I stress that) building a multimedia extravaganza in my home. I intend to have everything automated as much as possible, mainly because it's possible -- I mean, we stopped living in caves, even though they were a reasonable form of shelter, right?

Anyway, I think it would be great to build a knowledge store about how well various hardware works with LinuxMCE. I call it the Suggested hardware page.

I am going to record my experiences installing Kubuntu Feisty (7.04) on an Epia CN100000EG Mini-ITX PC, with an LG 42LB5D LCD TV as the main display device, and a Harman/Kardon AVR245 receiver for audio. I'm starting to suspect the CN10000EG is a little underpowered for my purposes, although I don't intend to do anything much more CPU-intensive than playing DVDs, or digitized video or music. If you have a suggestion for a better motherboard that is fanless, please email me about it. Cheers!

Scratch pad:

• I browsed through /var/log/Xorg.0.log, and discovered a few modelines that are compatible with the TV, including one that looks promising:

  Modeline "1920x1080" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1124 +hsync +vsync

  If I can get it to work on the desktop, I'll be a happy camper.

Annoyances (and Maybe Solutions)

• The combination of TV and PC has resulted in the first (and maybe last) column of characters in text mode to be off-screen. This isn't horrible, but annoying to be sure.
  • There is an easy, sure-fire fix for this one: Menu (button on remote) -> Picture (option) -> Screen -> Position. Move the screen right (or wherever else necessary) to bring the hidden pixels into view. It is possible to center the screen perfectly; I leave it to your imagination to figure out a way (there's more than one ;-).
• Although the menu buttons on the remote feel good, and I often hit the right one accidentally when guessing (still learning the feel of it), and the menu layouts are pretty awesome, the one quirk I find is that when I adjust picture mode settings for User#, once I've reached a specific field, if I want to decrease the value (usually "arrow-left" on the remote), pressing left jumps back up the menu stack. I would prefer this solution (other ideas are welcomed):
  • (Suggested fix for manufacturer) Change the UI on the picture mode User1/User2 control panel (Contrast, Brightness, etc), so that "arrow-left" begins to adjust the selected item, just as "arrow-right" does. In addition, change "Press [MENU] to confirm" to "Press [ENTER] to confirm or [MENU] to cancel" and change/add functionality to match the new text. That would perfect the OSD UI!  :-)