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What is LinuxMCE?

LinuxMCE is the only solution seamlessly combining:

1. media & entertainment with a server for music, movies and tv shows, plus a PVR and DVD Player,
2. a home automation system to control everything in the home with touch-screen tablet and Bluetooth mobile phone controllers,
3. a phone system with video conferencing,
4. a security system that feeds you live video on your mobile phone when something happens, and lets you speak to visitors through your stereos, and
5. a home PC solution.

A typical LinuxMCE system consists of a Core: one PC acting as a dedicated server and interface with all the sub-components. The Core includes our own plug-and-play back-end so it listens for and auto configures all sorts of devices like network audio players (such as Squeeze Box), IP phones and cameras. The Core automatically exposes a network boot for any other PC's or thin clients you want to use as Media Directors, which you hook up to your TV/Stereo's to use as set top boxes, complete with a media player, PVR, video conferencing, intercom, and a GUI to control everything in the home. All Media Directors work together seamlessly as a total whole-house solution.

In addition to the usual infrared remote controls, LinuxMCE includes remote control software that runs on Symbian Bluetooth mobile phones as well as Linux, Windows and Windows CE devices like webpads and pda's. They all feature cover art, interactive maps and floor plans, and let you control any device in the house. The UI is skinnable and multi-language. The mobile phone has a "follow-me" feature so your media and other settings follow you from room to room. It switches from Bluetooth to cellular gprs/wap when you leave the house you're always in control.

Features

LinuxMCE is an all-in-one solution for your home that seamlessly combines media & entertainment, home automation, security, telecommunications and computing. Browse the features page, along with What can I do with LinuxMCE? to see the possibilities available from LinuxMCE.

Screenshots

UI2 Main Menu

UI1 Media Files Browser

UI1 Phone Dial Pad

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Download

To get Linux MCE, please download and install Linux MCE installer from the main page of website. After this, please start the "Linux MCE Installer" application - it will download and install required packages.

Getting Started

This section has moved to Getting Started.

Support

User's Manual

This section has moved to User's Manual.

Mailing List

Support beyond that contained in this wiki can be found via the official LinuxMCE forums and through the available mailing lists.

Configuring LinuxMCE

Configuring LinuxMCE

Users' Documentation

FAQ

• What hardware I will need
• Development status for all modules
• What does an appliance solution like LinuxMCE cost?
• Is LinuxMCE an appliance or software solution?
• Do I need LinuxMCE? Can I use the projects by themselves?
• How do I login to a Linux console?
• How are media files organized?
• I can't access my media files over the network
• Reset the password for the LinuxMCE Admin site
• What if you don't have a driver for my home automation device
• What scenarios are created automatically?
• I'm a Linux user already. Should I use LinuxMCE's distribution
• Why doesn't LinuxMCE support encrypted DVD's?

Troubleshooting

• svn default properties
• Adding new computing apps
• Installing on a new platform
• Installer for Windows
• Installer Problems

Development

Author's Information

Information regarding author information can be found on the LinuxMCE contacts page.

Programmer's Guide

There is a great deal of documentation on the LinuxMCE platform available in the Programmer's Guide. This guide provides an overview of the LinuxMCE architecture,

Software Used by LinuxMCE

LinuxMCE is often called a platform for developing smart home modules constructed by a variety of open source projects. The integration of these open source projects, such as Xine, Mythtv, and Asterisk, can be found in the LinuxMCE Software Documentation.

Documentation by Device Templates

doxygen diagrams

LinuxMCE is an open source project and uses open source software. More information regarding LinuxMCE's relationship to open source can be found on the open source information page, the license information page, what to do if you're an open source developer, and LinuxMCE's open source strategy.

Report Bugs

Bugs may be reported via the bug tracking system, Mantis.

Source

LinuxMCE is a pretty big project. Not counting GSD devices, LinuxMCE's own code is already well over a million lines in hundreds of modules, with over 1,000 pages of online documentation, and in addition LinuxMCE also incorporates lots of other big open source projects like Asterisk, Xine, MythTV, Firefox, VideoLan, SlimServer, etc., all of which have special LinuxMCE 'wrappers' to allow them to work together seamlessly as a total home solution. For the brave of heart, you can also download modules by hand, and see all the dependencies and compatibility for each module.

You can browse the web based repository viewer. Or you can you do an anonymous svn checkout as follows:

svn co http://linuxmce.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/linuxmce/trunk/modulename

You can checkout all the software with if you use http://linuxmce.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/linuxmce/trunk/ as the repository location for the module name, or go to the repository viewer to find the name of the SVN directory for the module you are interested in.

Here are short instructions if you want compile your module with svn sources : Building_From_Source.

Versions

The current version of Linux MCE is 0704, as of August 07, 2007.

Short Howto on Wiki

This section has been moved to Short Howto on Wiki.