Devices
What is a Device?
For the purpose of consistency throughout this documentation, hardware equipment will be called "hardware device". The generic term "device" is used to refer to the software object in LinuxMCE that enables DCE communication between hardware and software components in the LinuxMCE system.
The LinuxMCE Core is a router that LinuxMCE system components use to communicate using the DCE protocol. Hardware devices and software without DCE capability can not send and receive communications over the DCE bus. LinuxMCE solves the problem by creating software "devices" that connect to the DCE bus for the purpose of translating hardware and software native communications into DCE. At the moment, no hardware is manufactured specifically with the DCE protocol. To control a hardware device with LinuxMCE, a corresponding software device is created as a component of the system. Each LinuxMCE system component has a corresponding "device" that it uses to communicate in DCE with the other LinuxMCE system components.
A device is a software object in LinuxMCE that connects a software or hardware component to the DCE bus to enable it communicate with the other LinuxMCE system components using the DCE protocol.
A device enables communication with other system components by translating various hardware and software communications into DCE.
Device administration
These wizard pages are used to add devices to your installation.
The "Interfaces" section is for devices that interface with some sort of master control, or devices that control other non-DCE devices. For example, a lighting control system, a security alarm panel, or a home automation master controller are all interfaces. These devices will connect directly to your LinuxMCE system via some interface, like RS232, and then they will control their own devices which are connected to them, such as a light switch, motion detector, etc. Interface Modules, like the Global Cache GC100, are also added in the "Interfaces" page.
After you add the interface, then you can add the other devices that will use that interface. For example, you may have some X10 light switches in your house. These are not LinuxMCE DCE Devices--LinuxMCE cannot control them directly. LinuxMCE can only control them using an X10 interface module. So, before you can add the X10 light switches, you must first go to the interface section and add an x10 lighting interface. Then you can go to 'lights' and add lights that will use that interface. Similarly if you have a normal, infrared controlled TV, that TV does not communicate directly with the LinuxMCE system. It needs an interface module like the GC100 that LinuxMCE does communicate with, and which then sends the infrared codes to control the TV. So before adding the TV in the AV Section, first add the interface.
The "AV" section is for all your audio/video devices, like TVs, DVD Players, Stereo Receivers, Satellite Boxes, etc.
