User:Pw44

Initial Hardware Setup:

Asus M3N78-VM with AMD 955
SPDIF expansion card (Asus SPDIF OUT/COA+OPT)
2 GB DDR3 800 Mhz
3 500 GB HD in a RAID 5 conf (mdadm)
1 320 GB HD boot (1 partition for LMCE, 1 partition for Kubuntu 8.10, both having access to the RAID 5 /dev/md0)
Gyration Keyboard and air mouse
USB-UIRT with a Xantex 284D
Intel Pro 1000 NIC card (internal network)
Bluetooth dongle - Motorola
Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE Edition
Wiimote remote
Philips 37" LCD TV
Yamaha DSP-A1 amplifier
Linksys SPA-3102
Linksys PAP2T-NA (x2)
IP Cam XWP (www.MayGion.com)

Software

Prior: LMCE Beta 1 issues:
- TV overscan (solved)
- Subtitles (not solved)

Now: Beta 2 - time to start all over again - learned with Beta 1.

Installation:

Kubuntu 8.10
-> apt-get update.
-> apt-get upgrade.
-> apt-get dist-upgrade.
-> update Alsa to Alsa 1.0.21-4
All done with the VGA monitor.
LCD TV is also connected to the mobo's HDMI video output.
Running nvidia-settings, LCD TV identified.
After all is done (installations and reboots), KDE shows up, i disconnect the vga cable, hit CTRL-ALT-Backspace and the video output is redirected to HDMI.

First problem: video overscan.
-- Solution: nvidia-settings shows an overscan ruler. Save conf to ~/.nvidia-settings-rc
HDMI Sound works (KDE welcome sound) - it plays on TV speakers.

Second problem: network interfaces are switched - the mobo interface shows as eth1 and the Gb Intel interface shows eth0.
-- Solution: edit file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and change eth1 to eth0 on first entry (mobo interface) and change eth0 to eth1 (Gb Intel interface) - after reboot, it works like it should.

LMCE Beta 2
connect optical cable from the SPDIF Expansion card (the mobo's SPDIF does not shows up) to the Yamaha optical in.
install from internet.
Reboot.
AVWizard: HDMI / 720p / UI2 / Optical Spdif.
Initial setup (Sara).
Ready to use - ksmserver not found.
Monitor attach to VGA, CRTL-ALT-F1, sudo apt-get install ksmserver, dolphin, konsole, and much....
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop - what was still missing, is back again.
also need to run post-install.sh (from new-installer).
Reboot.
LMCE starts again, KDE works... but HDMI sound is gone, but the sound via optical is great.

Third problem: some files does not play sound.
-- Solution: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=9194.msg62958#msg62958.

Fourth problem: overscan rises up again....
-- Solution: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=9567.msg65417#msg65417.

Fifth problem: disk access stucks, freezing the system.
-- Solution: none, because it was my mistake... i didn't realize that the RAID 5 needed time to resync after i transfered almost 450 GB of files, so in fact, it was not a problem. After resync, no more read/write delays.

Sixth problem: SUBTITLES - DOES NOT WORK. Digging the forum and asking, the trick should be rename / symlink the .srt file to avi.srt, i.e., file.avi and file.srt. file.srt will become file.avi.srt (sorry, IMHO it's pretty stupid way to handle.).
Well, it does not work. So i decided to install kaffeine and vlc. Trying kaffeine or vlc on KDE, i get subtitles, but no sound.
Back to the LMCE interface, Media -> Videos and tryed again the file.avi. It works! How? No fuc*** idea. But it works.
Well, if it works, let's symlink the srt files for mkv, and others. Trying to Media -> Videos file.mkv. No fuc*** subtitle. So, i renamed the file.mkv to file.m2ts. Trying to play, video and subtitles works, but sound is gone.
-- Solution 1: none, because i simply don't understand what is going on and can't get a reasonable explanation.
-- Solution 2: reboot and select the Kubuntu 10 only partition and watch my movies and tv episodes with subtitles AND sound. Let's wait until LMCE gets more mature in this matter.

TODO:
MythTV setup with my PVR-150 MCE
Interface the IR remote control so i can switch on/off, source selection and control the volume of my amp.
install the SPA-3102 and PAP2T-NA as extensions.
Install the IP Cam and configure motion wrapper and action triggers.
Install Windows CE orbiter on my Ipaq.

LMCE has a fantastic interface, it's a really great project, but trying to reinvent things don't make sense, like renaming / symlinking srt files. And stripping features that already works on the originator package (i.e. xine) does not make sense for me. If it's goal is to become an appliance like solution, things must be easier or transparent.

to be continued.

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