I have an old Socket A (XP2400+ CPU) comp with 1GB RAM and a Hauppauge Nova T-500 PCI card in it and I want to make a media center PC out of it.

XP Pro was totally and utter fail due to eHome Infrared Transceiver support.

It's a low spec machine but I thought I would give Vista 32 a shot (and disable Aero). That was even more fail. I made it to the prompt 'Completing installation' where upon my computer spontaneously shuts down. I removed all hardware except bare essentials (CPU, HDD, RAM, CD-ROM) and reset the BIOS defaults, and same happens - so that's essentially a no go.

So now I'm thinking the Linux path. Unfortunately I was hoping for the Media PC to be a basic emulator for N64, PS2, SNES as well.

So I'm digging into the knowledge that is AusGamers and asking:

1. Linux suggestions? Was thinking Kubuntu with MythTV or Freevo.
2. Emulation on Linux for SNES, etc? On such a low spec machine virtual machines aren't an option.

Peace.

Weird that XP didn't have support for an IR remote, it's pretty much the staple OS for that kind of stuff. Have you tried event ghost? http://www.eventghost.org .

For the best mix of performance and compat I reckon XP is going to be your best option. Anything Linux is going to involve way more tinkering to get everything working, even more if you're not familiar with the OS.

Well firstly.....is your Infrared transceiver supported on linux? If it's not on XP i doubt it's gonna work on Linux!

What are you going to be watching on the machine?
I have a 2.6ghz celeron, 128meg 6600gt and 2gig ddr2 ram. And it can't handle 1080p or blu-ray (need a better graphics card), and I can basically only run certain 720p eps in VLC media player, otherwise they chug too much.

I have an IR thing with my dvico card, under XP I have to install the "Fusion Remote transceiver" program but once I have it can control everything, media center, media player, etc.

Also as for mythtv, I found that in the add/remove programs thing in ubuntu and decided to give it a whirl but after complaining about some mysql error and not starting when I click on the icon I just deleted it and went back to watching tv using kaffeine or whatever it's called. I didn't try the remote though.

How does your remote reciever plug in? Mine's USB and detects as a human interface device.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/windows-media-center-edition-mce/635030-installing-ehome-infrared-transceiver.html

Thanks for the replies.

Ok, so I tried XP Pro (not MCE kos, although might give that a shot) - and in device manager my IR remote device had that yellow question mark which shows that a driver is missing, and I just couldn't get rid of the bastard. Didn't help that the installation disk that came with Hauppauge Nova T-500 was only half-baked (I think it was an OEM version) - but they helpfully provided a slip of paper with a URL on it and I managed to get up to date drivers - but still didn't help for the remote.

My IR receiver is USB as well, and detects as HID too AFAIK. The setup installed about 5 HID devices, f*** knows what they all actually are.

Interesting stats Fireblood - thanks for that. Yeah, I have no idea what the piece of s*** is capable of yet, but I'm not holding my breath. I have a decent HDMI projector so I always planned to buy a new box if I'm happy about what the media center can do.

Ok, so I'll stick to XP still for now based on that feedback. I'm all over linux, I've used it a lot and I'm a software dev/engineer. But yeah, drivers are a pain.

I'll look up Fusion Remote Transceiver - thanks for the hot tip whoop.

You won't f***ing believe it. As I was typing that post my 10th install of Vista 32 worked.

The problem - Microsoft USB mouse.

Man, I tried everything. I was down to the onboard video device and all!

Thanks for the help lads, should be a piece of cake now!

Edit: (or at least it would be if Edit Post wasn't broken on the ausgamers forums - TROG)

furthermore...
1 Dbl click the (Hotfix) file WindowsXP-KB912024-v2-x86-ENU.exe
2 control panel/system/hardware/device manage and open the properties for the IR remote device
3 Select re-install drivers.
4 Click Option "yes this time" then next
5 Select automatic update.

or failiing that

1) Download the Windows Update "Update Rollup 2 for eHome Infrared Receiver for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (KB912024)" from microsoft. It is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en.
2) run the downloaded executable. When the Hotfix install wizard appears on the screen... STOP!! do not continue with the installation wizard.
3) run notepad, and open the file named kb912024.log that is located in your windows system directory (usually c:\windows\).
4) on the fourth line of this file you will find the path to the update executable (ie: c:\0d5602f37f532d2198a162164df6\update\update.exe) .
5) Open Windows and navigate to the root of this path (ie: c:\0d5602f37f532d2198a162164df6). There you will find SP2QFE. Navigate to this directory.
6) In the SP2QPE directory you will find the irbus.sys file. In the "ip" directory will contain the irbus.inf file.
7) Copy these two files to a temporary directory of your choice.
8) Go back to the Hotfix install wizard and select CANCEL. The wizard will ask if you are sure... answer yes. The wizard will clean up after itself.
You now have the native Microsoft eHome receiver drivers needed to install your MCE compatible remote.


There's a bunch of stuff about getting those remotes to work on XP all over google, sadly, it looks like this much effort really is going to be the avenue of least messing around (ie. using XP as opposed to linux).

Hah fair enough, yeah the update they keep talking about is just a general XP hotfix and many pages are actually talking about it fixing XP, not just MCE so it would be the same thing.

Well give it a go if Vista runs like balls on that PC. :P

last edited by kos at 23:18:50 12/Nov/08

Yeah, I tried that auto update feature. I let it run for an hour, and then reset, haha.

Thanks for the help kos. Got the bastard now working it looks like.

If you are playing lots of xvids and stuff you can't go past XBMC as a media player. Its really bloody awesome, and comes in all sorts of OS flavours.

Dare I say Media Portal?

nope too far

If you want to look at linux try Mythbuntu - a remix of Ubuntu that has mythtv already to go. Be warned that remote controls can often be finicky to get working on linux though.

Personally I recommend getting an MCE remote; its super easy to get working with Windows or Linux.