Tip #6: Add non-diskless media director
Generally LinuxMCE allows to create many diskless media clients – Media Directors (MD). They shouldn’t have HDD and they are boot from the core. That approach lets you possibility to have non powerful PC as Media Director. But if you don’t satisfy a boot speed or by some other reason would like to have MD with HDD it’s also possible. Just install Kubuntu 0704 on that PC and run there LinuxMCE installator. It’ll detect the core and offer you install just MD. Be sure that your core and MD are in the same network!
Linuxmce Hacks and Tips 
This may not be the correct site, but is there are good tech support site for LMCE. I can’t get the core to recognize my MD network boot.
Archie
December 10, 2007 at 1:20 am
Hi Archie, if you provide more details regarding to your problem I try to help you with pleaser. Be sure that the network adapter of your MD supports PXE boot.
nite_man
December 12, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Are there any disadvantages of doing a dedicated MD vs. PXE booted diskless MD?
Just curious? My MD are both amd x2 4000+ and the core/hybrid is a amd x2 6000+.
I mean I could install Mint on the two MD’s and just PXE boot as necessary. But it seems easier to me to make them full time MD’s since I would still have access to KDE. Still waiting for the 3.8gb 7.10 release.
DeadPenguin
January 2, 2008 at 5:50 pm
The advantage of dedicated MD IMHO is that. You can use hardware which doesn’t support PXE at all. Mac Mini, for example. It’s possible (theoretically) install there LMCE and use it as MD.
I’m also waiting for the next beta because there are a serious bugs in the current version. It’s impossible to add any devices via admin interface.
nite_man
January 4, 2008 at 8:52 am
Ok, I have installed Kbunutu 7.10 and after inserting the DVD, I don’t see any installer file for Linux. So how do I start the install from the DVD without booting from the DVD?
Kevin
February 12, 2008 at 1:52 am
Hi Kevin,
Actually, if you have a DVD all installation should be done from it. You have to install Kubuntu first only in case of installation from CD.
Note: DVD installation uses whole HDD. There is no way to specify desired partition for it. So, be carefully!
nite_man
February 12, 2008 at 2:27 pm
OK, so I downloaded the 2 CDs and downloaded the MCE installer, but when it started, it didn’t give me the option to just install the Media director. The two options it gave me are dedicated core or hybrid. I have a dedicated core already installed on another PC and the two PC are able to communicate so it should have detected the core on the network according to your post but if it did, I didn’t get any choices other that the ones you get when you install the first MCE. Any suggestions?
kevin
February 13, 2008 at 3:44 am
Do you have core and MD in one network? Usually core has two network interfaces: external and internal. So, be shore that your MD is in core’s internal network. In that case you should be able to choose installation just MD.
nite_man
February 14, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Hi I like the idea of a disked md, how do you actually make it run the setup and boot into lmce though?
on version 710 and have my core all happily set up and it detects the new md, but no matter what i do with restarting it i dont get the setup screen, the core says it needs to run setup, any ideas?!
Cheers,
R
3xca1ibur
July 2, 2008 at 9:54 pm
LinuxMCE developer team decided to remove possibility to add disked MD in 0710. Not sure that they’ll enable it in 0804. So, the only one option is to use diskless MD.
nite_man
July 3, 2008 at 6:11 am
ah well, will prob just put vista back on them then as a back up and do the diskless setup!
Cheers for he quick reply and good tips 🙂
R
3xca1ibur
July 3, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I came across this post while trying to set up my disked MD last night, so I just wanted to add that I *was* able to set up a disked MD no problem with 7.10RC2 (the latest version on linuxmce website right now) using the method described here.
Thanks!
jthodges
July 30, 2008 at 12:45 pm
That strange because the disked MD is not allowed since 0710 🙂
nite_man
July 30, 2008 at 1:35 pm