Hello everyone.

I've signed up here looking for help with installing Linux MCE. The reason I haven't posted on the Linux MCE forums is because they don't allow Gmail addresses to register.

I'm experienced with Gnome and KDE in a few ways, but I still regard myself as a Linux newbie.

Anyway, on with my query:

I intend to build a HTPC in the near future. I think I've pretty much decided on parts, and it will be very similar (although not identical obviously) to my current system spec, so I want to take the opportunity before buying the new parts to test drive Linux MCE.

My current system specs are as follows:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.8GHz 5600+
RAM: OCZ Vista Platinum, 5-4-4-15, although Memtest returns a CL of 6
Graphics card: Powercolor 512MB HD 4870
Hard drives: 120GB Maxtor DiamondMAX 8 7200rpm PATA with 2MB cache (model no. 6Y120L0); 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm PATA with 2MB cache (model no. ST3160021A); 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm SATAII with 16MB cache (model no. ST3750640AS)

My questions are as follows:

1. I prefer a graphical install wizard. When installing from the DVD (AMD64 RC2), the menu appears with options to install and change language and boot from first hard disk etc. When I select a graphical mode, I end up with a blinking cursor in the top right corner and nothing happens. How can I get round this problem?

2. If it's not possible to install using the graphical installer, it is possible to proceed using VGA mode. If I do it this way, I am asked which hard drive to install to. I want to install to the 160GB drive. This drive already has a 75GB partition on it which is used for backup purposes. The rest is unallocated space. I would rather not lose my backup partition. However, the install insists that it remove all partitions from the drive. Is there a way round this? All three drives have content on them which I'd like to keep. I do have Ubuntu and Kubuntu on other DVDs if a workaround is possible by installing those first.

Thanks in advance. Help is most appreciated.

akaCol

There is a #linuxmce irc chatroom on freenode, many of the devs hang out there, that's probably your best bet. They could help you with registering for the forums.
While I have installed LinuxMCE successfully to a spare hard disk, I haven't done much with it due to time restrictions. But, one thing I remember is that installing to hard disk wipes the disk and uses the whole disk for install. At least it was that way 6 months ago.

Ask on IRC, and have fun, it is a great distro/app/media center.

You're right,it wipes all the hard disk and there's no way to install it otherwise,at least it's what it's happened to mee to some time ago with the 7.04 version but i don't know which version is up now and how it works so you'd better ask the irc people

So if you plan to install other distro you will have to partition again with gparted..but if you do by this way tou could then make troubles and lose your boot so the best way is to use an old pc for LinuxMCE,i had done so with an old Pentium 4 1.6 Mhz with 1 512 mb ram and a Radeon 9200 i have in my country-house while at home i have other pc with other distros

Good luck !!!

You'd better copy all your backups to an usb hd,remove the usb hd,install it on an entire hd and then eventually try to install other distros in the others hds,if you follow this way you should not encounter problems

good luck

Hi guys. Thanks for the replies. I'll get on the IRC channel hopefully today if I'm not fiddling around with Myth for too long. Someone on another forum suggested I try Mythbuntu first, which I did, because it has a live disc environment where I can try it first. What's annoying me with that though is that I got stuck setting up the frontend, even after following the manual to the letter at http://www.mythbuntu.org/documentati...stallation.pdf. The backend runs from the same machine, obviously, which is one reason why I can't understand why I'm having trouble with it. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, because I've copied the details from /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt as it says to do, and have even changed localhost to my own IP address, which it says to do. When I click on Test Connection, it fails, and if I click on Start Session or Save and Start, it says it failed to login.

Any ideas?

hi every one, am new to linux am wondering if anybody could help am trying to install linux mce dvd version but the install fails,error comes back. Could it be a bad iso image,or some thing else ave copyied the error screen if that helps. Thanks Mark3200


gzip:stdin:invalid compressed data--crc error
tar:child returned status 1
tar:error exit delayed from previous errors

Could be faulty ISO, check MD5 checksums from the site you down loaded from, or recording, try the same iso with slower write speed, the other thing it could be is memory or dma. Run a memory tester and look up how to change the default dma settings on your distro.