Revision as of 20:43, 8 February 2011

THIS IS STILL WORK IN PROGRESS. WHAT YOU SEE HERE WILL GET YOU STARTED BUT WILL NOT COMPLETE IT JUST YET, PLEASE HELP FIX THIS PAGE WITH YOUR OWN INPUT

Advantages of running LMCE in a Virtual Machine

Virtualization is a good way to take LinuxMCE for a test drive before spending any money on new hardware, or running a virtual core to serve multiple media directors without dedicating a new machine. USB and serial devices are accessible to a virtual machine so USB-UIRT and other popular devices should be usable (note pci cards cannot be use in a virtual machine as of yet). Another advantage is the ability to save working LinuxMCE setups (snapshots) which you can revert to in case you break your LMCE install.

Virtualisation is also useful from the point of view of running the MDs themselves; for instance, you may have a "normal" desktop in a given room that you don't want to dedicate to LMCE (and you don't want to buy extra hardware). A VirtualBox MD allows you to run an MD in a window on the desktop machine.

Instructions for Core Installation

Different types of install

DVD Install

LinuxMCE 0810 DVD (2010/03/16) installs relatively hassle free in a virtualbox. Some erratic behavior with the wizard and media director in the virtual machine but all features seem to working to spec. Confirmed boot of virtual diskless MDs and real diskless MDs.

CD Install

LinuxMCE 0810 cd install seems to have some problems with AV Wizard.

Download and Install VirtualBox

(updated for Virtual Box 4.0.2)

1. First grab the latest VirtualBox from here VirtualBox download page Right click and save as
2. Install VirtualBox on your machine
3. If you are a Linux user make sure that
   1. your username is added to vboxusers (installed should do that automatically)
   2. Log off and back in.

Create your new VBox

1. Start VirtualBox.
2. Click New
3. Click Next
4. Name it whatever you want and choose Linux 2.6
5. Click Next
6. Give your machine at least 1024
7. Click Next
8. Make sure Boot Hard Disk is checked, and choose Create new hard disk and Click Next
9. Click Next
10. Check Fixed-size and Click Next
11. Allocate at least 50GB of space and Click Next
12. Click Finish to Create your HD. This may take a while. Go grab a Beer! (20GB took 6 min)
13. Click Next to use your new virtual drive
14. Click Finish

Setup your Virtual Machine

1. Select your VM and Click on General on the right or settings up above.
2. Click System
   1. Check CD/DVD-ROM in the boot order.
3. Click Display
   1. Give as much memory as you can for video. I did all 128MB.
      1. Note: Do NOT check Enable 3D Acceleration before you have installed the OS as it can cause the OS to not boot.
4. Click Audio
   1. Check Enable Audio and choose ALSA Driver
5. Click Network (still testing how these settings work on the network)
   1. Changed Adapter type to the Intel NIC
   2. Change NAT to Internal Network
   3. Under Network Name type, vboxnet0
6. Click Ok

Installing Kubuntu 10.04

1. In the power settings for the host OS disable the screen saver and set it to not go to sleep.
2. Insert your Kubuntu 10.04 install disk or download an 32-bit .iso image of Kubuntu 10.04
3. Start the virtual machine and Click next at the First Run Wizard
4. Choose the drive that your disk is in under Media Source

or

1. Click the folder icon to the left of the media source drop-down menu and browse to the .iso image you downloaded earlier
2. Click Finish and let the Install disk start and click Install Kubuntu.
3. When the installer comes up DO NOT click update this installer.
4. Go through the installer choosing the options that best suit you.
5. I had trouble with the installer finishing so i skipped the files at the end, it gives you the option to skip around 80% (im going to do more testing to figure out why)
6. Reboot
7. When kubuntu is loading and the screen turns teal you have to hit esc once and then let it go until the login comes up.
8. Bring up a terminal and enter:
   1. sudo apt-get update
   2. sudo apt-get dist-upgrade <--takes a while, go eat something.
   3. sudo apt-get install dkms
   4. sudo apt-get install build-essential
   5. sudo apt-get remove plymouth-theme-kubuntu-logo
9. Reboot
10. Under the Devices menu at the top click Install Guest Additions
11. Open a terminal window and enter:
    1. cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_4.0.2_69518/ (the numbers may differ for you, just check the name of the cd that was mounted)
    2. sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
12. Open the system settings window, click on the advanced tab then on desktop search and uncheck Enable Nepomuk Semantic Desktop. (this will make it less slugish at boot)
13. Now is a good time to take a snapshot by going to the Machine menu at the top and clicking Take Snapshot, as you should have a fully functioning OS.

Installing LinuxMCE

1. Start your VBox and boot the DVD
2. Follow the instructions. Sit back and have another beer :)

Configure LinuxMCE

1. Step 1. Choose, vga and 800x600'. (as of this writing, they were the only modes i could get to work).
2. Step 2. Static images (I only tested that since i wasn't having luck with other resolutions. Please report if you get others working).
3. Step 3. Click Ok.
4. Step 5. Analog Stereo.
5. Step 6. Adjust the volume if you want. Click ok.
6. Step 9. Click I Agree (Yes i can count but it skips steps 7 & 8 due to it not being available)
7. Now we wait for Sara!
8. Once she appears, click Next
9. Tell her you don't want to use a remote
10. Enter in your name and click next
11. Click Okay
12. Click Next
13. Click Next (unless it didn't select the right country)
14. Enter your zip and hit next. If it doesn't find it, just hit skip and hit next.
15. Select your rooms and click next.
16. It now detected itself as a file server. Click on it to use it and select where it is.
17. Continue without setting up light,alarm and voip setup.
18. Choose MythTV
19. Click DOne
20. Click on Media Player
21. Select where you are and choose to not control my TV
22. No receiver
23. Click Next
24. Click Done
25. Click Done
26. Click Next
27. Start using the system. That was easy wasn't it?  :) :) You might have to wait until it's finished downloading all the crap it needs to download.

Instructions for MD Installation

There is a simple howto for a VirtualBox MD installation here.

Troubleshooting UI2

If you are getting "failed to initialize OpenGl" when choosing UI2 for the orbiter, try the following It seems that the libglx.so.195.36.15 somehow does not give OpenGl in virtualbox a quick work around:

Replace /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so with the one you can download here [1]

At this point you will only have Software rendering which is very slow and laggy, to get better performance do the following

rm /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
ln -s /usr/lib/nvidia/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa /usr/lib/libGL.so.1

After this reboot the machine and it should be fairly smooth

Special thanks to commsbyte for figuring this out

Example Scenario's

Various scenario's and example situations. I will work out this situation on the wiki, I will update the below situations with links.

1. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce Core in VM
2. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce Core and MD in VM
3. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce Core in VM, serving network
4. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce MD in VM connected to Core

Additional links

Forum - vbox + lmce 0810-alpha + ui2 = working