camos

As others have mentioned, I have no use for FB or any other social media site. VR.org excepted of course. I got an old, not so smart, iPhone 3G for $50 and bought some minutes from 7-11 which uses the Rogers network. It will connect to Shaw WiFi at a lot of access points around town for free. Good for email and browsing the Web. Use it to sync with my Outlook calendar, track the weather, play FreeCell but mostly to keep my shopping list. Beats the heck out of using paper. Might use the iPod music feature eventually on the VR but haven't got there yet. Seems worth the price to me. I went one less than you. Bought 25 minutes for $25 five months ago. One phone call and three text messages later and still have 15 minutes left.

I did not set up anything because the Linux install does not complete. This is going on an empty HD as in it is not dual booting. I could boot to DOS and have a look at what files are on the HD but it's Linux and I would not know what to look for. I have to ask, is two tons of fertilizer leaner than Linux?

Oh really Brian! Define monitoring. I have stated before that if I decide to run Win7 on this box the hardware will need to be upgraded. Re-read the thread you just answered and you will see I only installed Win7 to see if all the components were working. The fact that it did work, if not particularly adequately, does prove at least the hardware is operational. Since it is operational one would think Linux could at the very least be installed and probably run "better" than Win7. This box as it stands did a credible job of handling XP Media Center back in 2006. I have 2 GB RAM kicking around here somewhere, unfortunatly it is in a safe place for now. Besides it is more like a half ton truck.

SSH in from where? When at the flashing cursor the MediaCenter PC can not be seen on the network so I cannot do it from my workstation. It definitely does not get that far. There are an endless number of chances for me to be confused but I don't think this is one of them. Read this page which is where I got the "minimal" terminology from. That would be my understanding too. No need to apologize. Following your suggestions and possibly a few others that I come up with has taken me a fair amount of time. Last evening I got unetbootin and created an XBMCbuntu package. A little different but essentially the same as Rufus with the the same result in the end.... flashing cursor. After that I d/l the Ubuntu desktop version and put that on the flash drive to install. That possibly got me close to a desktop but it errored out and suggested I click on an icon to continue installing Ubuntu but nothing apparent happened. That takes me to 11pm when I had the brilliant idea to try installing Win7. Didn't finish until almost 3am. A totally bone headed move. Anyway, it installed OK and ran, very slowly of course with only 500MB RAM. When I opened MediaCenter it said it needed 64MB video RAM to operate properly. So it was a given that to run Win7 MC would require some upgraded hardware. The point of this exercise was to see if Win7 would install at all. Since it did that it seems to indicate all the hardware is working as well as it can and should run XBMC or Linux even if not optimally. I have not yet tried installing Mint but will get to it. It is very helpful and I very much appreciate the time you have spent helping me. It's not over yet and I still hope to get some flavour of XBMC up and running. As a side note, I found the original XP Media Center 2005 that was installed on this box. Not the disks, unfortunately, just the .iso's that I had backed up in my storage system. Stupid me, I did not think at the time that I might also need the install key so they may not be of any use. Oh well....

I'll check that one out. Thanks for the heads-up.

Yah, can't help you much there since so far all I can get is the flashing cursor. The XBMCbuntu is, I believe a minimal, version of Ubuntu that is enough to run the XBMC Media Center. Essentially the XBMC is the desktop but is designed to use the Microsoft Media Center remote control in place of a mouse and expects to be viewed on a 16x9 TV rather than a monitor. The Linux command line, if I recall correctly, is more than just a flashing cursor. Like a DOS command line but with a minimal prompt. There are quite a few cool things that can be done with the DOS prompt to ramp it up. The Linux prompt seems to be only a greater than > although I never really looked into doing any customizing of it. I used to be a DOS person before Windows developed into something useful and never really got into Linux mostly because it is so disorganized. I probably have a corporate soul. I don't think there is much, if any, difference between a server and a desktop version of Linux except the GUI which is not of much use on a server and the clutter of drivers and other stuff that is necessary to run desktop apps. Like you, I've been wrong before. But only once.

I have two motorcycles, one of which is my only transportation while I attempt to keep the Venture from disposal. I used to be a computer nerd until I re-discovered motorcycles. While I'm not much of one anymore, my computer and the Internet are my only entertainment which does cost about $60/mo. After that I do have almost $0.00 left for further entertainment which would include the cost of cable. All of that is somewhat off topic but as it is the reason why I'm attempting to put a Media Center on an old-ish computer without spending any/much money it may not be too far off the topic. Huffy isn't good, glad to hear you are not.

This post is getting rather long with all the quotes. I'll try to answer all your question though. Answer for #1: No. So far I have not tried to access a virtual console. I'm not exactly sure how to go about doing that. The flashing cursor does not allow keyboard input. When booted to the flashing cursor I can not see the MediaCenter computer on my network from my Win7 machine so I can't SSH in from Windows. Answer for #2: XBMCbuntu is XBMC and Ubuntu combined and is a bit different from each package when individually installed. The XBMCbuntu.iso is a live package and an installer combined. There is the choice to either run it off the CD or flash drive or to install it to a HD. I believe XBMC is supposed to act as the desktop in this case. This is where I got the XBMC package. http://xbmc.org/download/ Click on the XBMC AMD link which will D/L xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso. First I spent an hour or so exploring the live package but did not do any testing to see how well it worked with media such as movies or music because it was quite slow running off the CD. Then I installed XBMCbuntu from the CDROM and got the flashing cursor thing. After that I tried running a newer version of XBMCbuntu from a flash drive with the same results as the previous attempt. After that I tried installing a minimal version of Ubuntu without XBMC and still got the flashing cursor on first boot. This could very well point to a video issue as the cause. As you suggested, perhaps I should next try installing a complete Linux package and see if that will load to the desktop.

Now Brian don't go getting in a huff. Although it is not out of the question, I don't think there is anything wrong with the HD. So my preference is to explore other options before ... ... if you know what I mean. Between my stupid Venture and my forever home renovation I have close to $0.00 available for entertainment. It's rather difficult to come to terms with the current state I'm in but there you have it. I'm not looking for a challenge and if I have to start spending money I'll most likely upgrade the hardware and install Win7 MediaCenter which was perfectly adequate in the past when running XP MediaCenter. XBMCbuntu just seemed like it would be a good thing to try at this time. I do appreciate you input and I thank you kindly for your effort.

I don't know how long I need either but going from my very bad memory the shims are probably 4"-6" in so more length would be better. Still worth a look.

I'll check at our Sears. One never knows, I might get lucky.

Yes, I saw that thread. Well done! Thanks for the heads up.

The CT ones are a bit on the short side. When I googled it, Sears appeared to have a fairly long set but the Sears in my area carries hardly any tools but I haven't been there yet to actually see if they have them.

How long were the ones you looked at? The set at Canadian Tire are somewhat short.

My air gun? Hahahahaha... well if I had an air gun I would definitely give it a try.

Already tried just the magnet but it wouldn't move the shim.

No I didn't do a checksum, didn't think of it. Did D/L versions 11.0 and 12.0 of XBMCbuntu though just in case one was bad. Downloaded the files on my Win7 machine. Ran Rufus to create the bootable .iso on the flash drive. There are so many variables its difficult to pin this down. Could but don't really want to do that. If I can't get this linux Hoo-Haw stuff working I can upgrade the hardware and run Win7 MediaCenter on it. Yes I could go the HTPC route with Western Digital or Apple TV or similar but they are both too limited while some of the other options are, I think, mostly subscription based. Anyway, I wanted to give XBMC a shot first.

The one I installed is xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso which is the latest stable release. I used Rufus 1.3.2 to create a bootable .iso on the flash drive. Prior to doing that I installed the 11.0 version .iso from a CD. Both ended up after the install with the flashing cursor syndrome. During the install process the HD is chosen by me and then formatted by the installer. The primary partition drive is a 160 GB IDE with controller on the MB and there is a 1TB SATA as secondary slave drive with a PCI controller. The SATA drive will not boot. Tried it with both WinXP and with XBMCbuntu. Successfully installed WinXP on the 160 GB drive, also tried installing with only the 160 GB drive connected but no difference. MB is an Asus A7V400 MX with an AMD CPU but can't remember which one it is at the moment. The install completes successfully to the point where it say to remove the USB drive and reboot which is when the flashing cursor thing happens. There is nothing on the HD except XBMCbuntu. If I re-install, the previous OS and version is recognized so it is definitely going on the correct drive. I have a couple of MCP's in Windows and administered a linux WebServer for a year. Mostly concerned with the web side of things though. Probably forgotten most of what I knew but could likely follow instructions.

That method was my first thought but since it appeared to be somewhat time consuming I thought I would see if someone had a better way. Never heard of them before but they look like they would probably work better than a screwdriver. Thanks for the suggestions.

The other day I attempted to remove one of the shims from the valve bucket, or whatever it is called. The slot kept rotating to an inaccessible area when inserting the lift tool. Any suggestions on how to go about getting those little suckers out?

So far I have only tried the XBMCbuntu bundle because it is XBMC that I'm interested in rather than Linux itself. While $20-$30 for a 160 GB HD is not very expensive in itself compared to the cost per GB of a SATA drive it is expensive. Add to that an extra $30 or so for shipping across the border plus possible duty it is relatively quite expensive. So my re-install effort this evening had the same negative result. Perhaps there is something wrong with the .iso that I d/l. Perhaps one from a different mirror will work better. Failing that, I could install a straight Linux distribution then add XBMC on top of it. There are options that have not yet been explored.

From what I have been able to find out a broken grub seems to be the most likely problem as there is a known issue with Ubuntu and the flashing cursor syndrome. At this moment I am redoing the XBMCbuntu.iso install on the flashdrive so I can give it another try. The boot order in the BIOS is correct with CDROM and USB coming before the HDD. There is only one IDE HD in the system so no confusion with that. Getting a new HD is problematic since the MB has only an IDE controller and new IDE HD's are expensive, if they can be found. I put in a SATA controller and HD but while the BIOS sees it the boot process does not. In my other computer setting the boot to SCSI worked to boot off the SATA drive but not this one. Working...Working...Working..........

I think the hardware is reasonable, a bit short on RAM but it should run XBMC. It did run off the .iso which was mounted on an old 2gb flash drive. Last night I installed a minimal version of Ubuntu without XBMC. On reboot it did the same as the other install, nothing but a blinking cursor. I did have XP installed and running so I know the computer works. Linux doesn't seem to like something though.

This installation has the two bundled together. I would be quite happy with the Win7 Media Center but unfortunately the computer I want to use does not have the resources to run Win7. Don't have the couple hundred $$$ it would take to upgrade the hardware so thought I would try XBMC.

Installed XBMCbuntu Media Center this evening. It ran OK off the .iso, slow of course but after rebooting to the HD all I got was a flashing cursor. Anyone familiar with this distro of Ubuntu and XBMC have any suggestions on what went wrong or what I can do to sort the problem out?