For years, one of my pet projects has been to create a low cost (below $20K) central solution to store and serve my massive media collection. I have thousands of DVD’s, Video, Audio, Pictures, etc. ( Click to see about 2/3 of my DVD collection )
I also want a central location to serve up my TV/Satellite feeds etc. I have played with probably every possible combination of OS, Hardware, Embedded, Software, etc that I could get my hands on.
Lately, you all know that I have been on a Linux kick (yet again). I was beginning to play with MythTV but that would just solve the issue of serving the media to MythTV frontends. I was playing with several DLNA servers but the issues I ran into with those was one of transcoding, most linux DLNA servers don’t transcode. (transcoding is taking media of one type, say WMV and serving it up another type, say MP4, so your device can play it properly) So for now, I kinda put DLNA on the back burner. Read the complete Post.
I got the moblin/hildon desktop running in a Xephyr window on a Gutsy Tribe 3 desktop. It has promise, but in this Tribe 3 phase, it’s not ready for prime time.
I downloaded Tribe 4 this morning and will play with it over the next few days. We’ll see how it goes.
Well, I am fascinated by the stuff that’s coming down the pipeline. I have been playing with the moblin stuff ( www.moblin.org ). I really think that this is the direction mobile devices should be going.
Now, the extent of my knowledge in the Unix/Linux world is mostly command line based and server knowledge. I am fairly new to display managers and how they work. I downloaded a base gutsy distribution to play with the Ubuntu Mobile stuff and am anxious to play with this interface.
I have gotten the image creator to work and have seen the mobile-ubuntu stuff working in gutsy but in a window. I would really like to put it as the native or default desktop on my UX280P. From what I have read through my google’s, this is a possibility.
I will continue my search and once I learn how it is done, I will post a ‘How I did it’ here.
The search begins!
PS If any of you know if there is a Howto out there already, let me know.
Some of you have asked to see my setup and what it looks like. I have decided to post pictures. Currently, we’re staying at our 20 year old condo in transition. We’re going to be splitting time between Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Costa Rica once I get my act together. 
Anyways, Here are some pictures of My Desk, Entertainment center, where the girls work, and Andrew’s ( www.hoodyhoo.com ) setup.
My stuff and setup August 2007
12 Photos
I have been working on yet another lanbox to replace my HP s7700n that I have been using as a home server. (more on this soon) I use VMWare stuff heavily at home and had installed VMWare Server via Automatix and apt-get/aptitude. However, in Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty, I can not connect remotely. So, I found How to Forge’s HOWTO on installing from tar.gz.
The install goes great, but when I run the server I get the following error:
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)
As far as I can tell, the libpng12.so.0 that gets installed to the /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0 directory is the wrong version, your system should have a current version installed. To fix this just delete or rename libpng12.so.0 from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0
Voila!
I got the “there is no input plugin to handle the location” error when I try to play a media file using Ubuntu and Fedora wile accessing the file through a Samba share.
I googled and it seems to be a pretty known error. I tried various things but one thing worked.
apt-get remove totem-xine
apt-get install totem-gstreamer
This was from the following forum post http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2544196#post2544196
I have been working diligently on getting this box the way I want it. I have made some modifications and added some ideas.
I originally had the Abit motherboard with an Intel E6600 processor in the box. I also got the Abit Airpace PCIe wireless adapter and gave the box a go. Oh, I had ordered the screen and had it delivered overnight. I installed that and installed Ubuntu.
I did an lspci and lsusb to see what it recognized. OH BOY, 90% of the devices were unknown and half of the things installed were not working. Oddly enough, the touch screen WAS recognized, but it needed serious calibration. Read the complete Post.
I have decided with my trips between Las Vegas and Los Angeles becoming frequent, that I will build a portable server that will travel with me. At first, this box will be a basic server running debian or ubuntu (I have not decided yet - a lot depends on what works with the least amount of configuration) Eventually, I want this box to also act as a mobile router/access point for my laptops on the road (including my car).
I have decided on the following hardware: Read the complete Post.
Yesterday, my buddy Andrew and I went to the LVLUG meeting and one of the guys there went to town on my UX280p and installed Beryl. This made me want to go home and try it out on our other systems.
It was pretty F***ing Painless Read the complete Post.
I am a “I just want it to work” kind of guy. I have two laptops with built-in Cingular WWAN, I was paying the $59 per month for each of them. I also had a Cingular 8125 with an unlimited data plan. Well, I figured hell, I might as well get a UMTS/HSPDA capable phone and cancel my WWAN since it doesn’t work under Linux and use the phone’s internet.
I went out and got a Treo 750 (I love this phone BTW). I canceled my data plans and at the time was still using windows and found that the bluetooth tethering just ROCKED! Very fast and easy to use and it was almost seamless connectivity.
Read the complete Post.
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