Smart Home Blog

Yesterday I installed LinuxMCE RC1 on my home PC. Unlike previous version Beta 2 it was installed without any problems. IP was not lost during installation. The process of configuration became more pictorial. Each step is illustrated by video. So, you can get useful information without reading manual direct from your TV.

LinuxMCE is really run as separated KDE desktop. To switch back to KDE from the Orbiter there is a specified button. Stop, start and manage LinuxMCE properties can be via its control panel.

So far, LinuxMCE works fine except one strange thing. If LinuxMCE run my USB hub LEDs are blinking. It seems that USB port power is OFF and ON continuously.

On the LinuxMCE is posted a new brief howto about configuration of Asterisk SIP trunk. I did the same but for private SIP provider under Plutohome. Since LinuxMCE was forked from Plutohome project that approach should work for both.

For configuring SIP trunk in my Pluthome installation I used that article. It describes clearly how to do that. Moreover, its author used AMP the same as in Plutohome.

Based on my experience with configuration of SIP trunk under Plutohome I wrote that brief howto. Hope it’ll help people.

Two days I tried to understand why SlimServer doesn’t start under my Plutohome system. It worked fine till power was down during a couple hours four days ago. I saw in the log following output:
05 07/15/07 23:37:22.992 Trying to connect to SlimServer at address: 127.0.0.1:7890
10 07/15/07 23:37:22.993 We can't connect yet to the server. Waiting!

When I run the SlimServer manually I saw that it was killed by some reason:

dcerouter_1:/usr/pluto/servers/SlimServer# ./slimserver.pl --audiodir /home/public/data/audio -cliaddr 127.0.0.1 --cliport 7890 --d_protocol --d_cli --d_server --d_mdns
2007-07-16 12:52:21.6547 SlimServer OSDetect init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.6549 SlimServer OS Specific init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.6550 SlimServer saving pid file.
2007-07-16 12:52:21.6551 SlimServer settings effective user and group if requested...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.6552 SlimServer settings init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.6759 SlimServer strings init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7731 SlimServer Setup init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7803 SlimServer setting language...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7805 SlimServer IR init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7851 SlimServer Buttons init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7867 SlimServer Graphics init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7914 Old SLIMP3 Protocol init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7922 Slimproto Init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7926 mDNS init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7927 mDNS: Initializing..
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7928 SlimServer HTTP init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7998 mDNS: Adding service: SlimServer - _http._tcp - TXT - 9000
2007-07-16 12:52:21.7999 mDNS: Adding service: SlimServer - _slimhttp._tcp - TXT - 9000
2007-07-16 12:52:21.8000 SlimServer CLI init...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.8003 mDNS: Adding service: SlimServer - _slimcli._tcp - TXT - 7890
2007-07-16 12:52:21.8004 mDNS startAdvertising...
2007-07-16 12:52:21.8006 mDNS: stopAdvertising()
Killed

Finally I found in the .slimserver.conf (it’s placed in the /root/bck/root/) that the cache directory is /root. I changed it to /var/cache and after that the SlimServer started successfully!

See also:

• SlimServer Specification
• SlimServer Logfile and Logging

This is a good news for all MotoQ and Treo owners. According to that post on Pluthome forum next release (I hope) will include a Mobile Orbiter (PlutMO) for those Windows based smartphones (and maybe for all the rest) which will work over WiFi. Originally, those phones don’t have built-in WiFi adapter but they allow to use miniSD WiFi card. Currently Treo can be used as Mobile Orbiter with Bluetooth dongle. MotoQ uses different Bluetooth driver. As result, it doesn’t work with PlutoMO.

Support of Symbian 60 3rd edition is also pending task of Pluto developers. The latest phones use that OS. But PlutoMO doesn’t work with it. Developers promised to add support of latest Symbian soon (I’m afraid it wont be 2.0.0.45).

Currently following mobile phones can be used as PlutoMO:

• phones with symbian series 60, 1st ed ONLY;
• smartphones with windows mobile 2003;
• Treo 700W with windows mobile 2005.

P. S. If MotoQ and Treo will communicate with Pluto via WiFi the cool media feature ‘Follow Me’ will be lost.

Since the Nokia770/N800 Orbiter for Plutohome 2.0.0.44 works fine I started to port my changes to coming 2.0.0.45 version. The good opportunity to do that was request one of Plutohome user who built 2.0.0.45 from the sources and would like to test Nokia Orbiter there.

I was very surprised when I started compile the Orbiter. I didn’t see any warnings about unusable variables or wrong type casting! Respect Plutohome developers for cleaning their code. This is a sure sign of coming stable version because the current one is still beta with all the ensuing consequences. Also, the logger functionality was changed. Probably, it’ll make logging process more efficient.

If you managed to build and run Plutohome 2.0.0.45 you can download the latest Orbiter (currently for os2006 only and as TAR file), test it and send bug-report. Good luck!