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I have a NUC running as a home theater PC running Kodi (was previously known as XMBC), and I'm using a Windows Vista Media Center remote to control it.
A persistent problem I've encountered is that not all of the buttons on the remote are recognized by Kodi. I tried various flavors and versions of Ubuntu as the base OS, but none of them allowed the remote to function completely. Until yesterday.
I had installed Ubuntu 18.04 (again), and had stumbled on a web site (Make LIRC work in Ubuntu 18.04, so that you can use your infrared remote in Kodi – Two "Sort Of" Tech Guys[^]) that listed a bunch of steps to address the problem, and wonder of wonders, it freakin worked!
I also completed the monumental task of getting all 1047 movies back onto the media server.
The next task is to set up a backup mechanism for all other machines on the network. At that point, I can finally migrate my and my wife's desktops to Linux, and with sole exception of the Win7 VM for writing Winblows code at home, I will be Redmond-free.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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We found that going back to an old version, specifically LIRC 0.9.0, is the answer
That is both what I dislike and like about Linux - some bozo breaks an open source project, but hey, we can go back to an earlier version that works!
I don't know how people manage to deploy actual applications on Linux. Yeah, in Ruby on Rails, there's a YAML file where you can specify exactly the version dependencies. And is one of the reasons I loathe NuGet. 
Latest Article - A Concise Overview of Threads
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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In the case of LIRC, it doesn't appear as if the devs involved in the project want to admit to having borked up their code, and don't appear to want to fix it. Ubuntu has also known about the problem for at least two years, and refuses to address it. Someone suggested that an interested dev fork the version that last worked.
I don't know if the problems only exist in Ubuntu (and it's various flavors - I tried all the 18.04 flavors, and NONE of them work), or if it's more pandemic among Linux distros. The version that works was part of Ubuntu Xenial Xenus (16.04), which is curious, because I installed 16.04 in an attempt to fix the problem, and it still didn't work.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: Someone suggested that an interested dev fork the version that last worked.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer interested dev
Socialism is the Axe Body Spray of political ideologies: It never does what it claims to do, but people too young to know better keep buying it anyway. (Glenn Reynolds)
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"Yikes! Vista!", he exclaims, while running rapidly away 
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It's hardware, and thankfully is in no way subject to it's unfortunate OS reference in the name.
It's commonly referred to as a "MCE Remote" (Media Center Edition).
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Just as a side note, I know it's not Linux, but Kodi is available on the google play store and will happily run on any Android TV. All you need is a couple of USB hard drives and you can have the media center in minutes.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xbmc.kodi
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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My TV is an android TV, but I haven't been able to get the sound from the TV to the home theater receiver (I connected the HDMI cable to the appropriate ports on the TV and receiver, but no joy).
Beyond that, I don't really want to connect my TV to the internet if I don't have to.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Well, with an Android TV you have the HTPC built in backed by the google software competence. I kind of prefer it to the Linux chaos
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Chaos is my middle name.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I thought your middle name was death and destruction. I am clearly mistaken.
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See? Chaos.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Slacker007 wrote: death and destruction
That's a synonym to Chaos.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Uh Uh (think "Car 54 Where Are You?" for pronunciation.
I loaded my nuke w/Ubutu 16.04 as it was "intel certified" and it did just work out of the box.
Suppose I want to put in (the latest?) Ubuntu or Kodi - any gotcha's waiting for me?
- - - - - -
Aside: As the room is small, a wireless mouse/keyboard circumvented the IR remote problems - and it means, in it a strange way, one less remote to have laying around.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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As long as you follow the instructions on that link for making your remote work, you should be fine, even on the latest Ubuntu/Kodi combo.
I have a wireless mouse/keyboard on my NUC for those times when I have to do stuff at the command line or want to do something on the web from the couch. I use a Logitech Harmony remote (replaces five separate remotes).
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Sorry - I didn't make myself clear.
I was wondering about the install of the Ubuntu 18.04 and Kodi, not the remote (yet).
Does that have any gotcha's ? Even though 18.04 was available when I got my NUC, they recommended 16.04.John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I use a Logitech Harmony remote (replaces five separate remotes).
I should look into this - I don't have super media stuff - but still, way too many remotes. Replacing the lot of them, in each room, including the Roku remote, would be nice - interestingly, a remote for a different (LG) TV has more functionality on my TV than the one that came with it! Access to the "Guide", for example. I didn't even know the set had it until a two-year-old grandson was playing with what I thought was a junk remote. He somehow synched it to the TV and up came the guide, as well.
Anyway - I'll look up that remote. Especially since I may just install Kodi if the install is not a horror show of its own.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I experienced no problems installing Kodi on Ubuntu 18.04. A simple sudo apt-get -y install kodi was enough. BTW, if you're going to use smb shares, you have to install samba on your Kodi box as well.
Personal Nits Regarding Kodi
0) I take issue with Kodi's method for adding media sources. There are WAY to many forms to navigate to get where you want to go.
1) There also seems to be some problem with the way they scrape a movie info site for movie info. At one point a few years ago, I was working on my own media center app, and had GOTTEN as far as scraping the very same site, and I seem to recall that the site returned a number of possible matches. It was then up to the app/user to select the most appropriate info. Kodi doesn't seem to do that. Apparently, if there is no exact match, it doesn't accept any info at all, and the movie doesn't show up in your list of selectable movies (Star Wars Episode 4 seems to be problematic, for instance).
2) The main Kodi menu gets in the way, and I don't know (yet) if there's a way to hide it until I actually want to see it.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Maybe then, the Ubuntu upgrade is for me. Although the NUC's life was planned to replace my Patriot media box, it was nice to have an extra PC around - (also a way to gently accustom the Mrs. to Linux).
On the other hand - I have no interface expectations - so Kodi may not bother me as much. Partly, it's my needing a block of time to do any number of installs until I like one. Some have recommended Mint.
Aside: we seem to share the idea of not wanting to connect our smart TV's to the internet. Uncle Samsung may be watching - perhaps literally.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I have Ubuntu on my laptop, and Mint (based on Ubuntu) on a desktop. Mint is the more Windows-like of the two. I don't think you'd be unhappy with either one.
I've been reading recently that the X11.org window manager is going to be deprecated in favor of something called Wayland, and Ubuntu is leading the charge there. Gnome and KDE are being ported to it right now.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Thanks. I'm looking to Ubuntu distros but I don't like how they keep resembling a cell phone more and more. I don't want my cell phone to be my computer; and visa-versa. As thought the world gives a damn what I think.
Alas - "resistance is futile" as it becomes ever more ubiquitous in life: one is expected to live with their cell-phone and worship the app-god. Still, going down without a struggle is not in my nature (unless the young ladie's quite attractive, but that's not KSS).
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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You could try Lubuntu (LXDE/LXQT) or XUbuntu (XFCE), or even Kubuntu (KDE). The first two are supposed to be less resource hungry than using Gnome or KDE, but you have to add more if you want a more complete system.
We've all heard the mantra from the Linux zealots that Linux will run fine on less hardware, such as a two-slice toaster, or a coffee cup warmer, but don't kid yourself. If you want a decent desktop experience (regardless of your selected distro), you need at LEAST a dual core CPU and 4GB of RAM. If you want to run another Linux distro in a VM, you should probably run a quad-core CPU with at least 8GB of RAM. For a Windows VM, 16GB of RAM (or more) is a better idea, with 10-12gb dedicated to the VM. In all cases, your system should boot from a SSD. 250gb SSDs are cheap nowadays.
Keep in mind that I insist of better than "average" performance, and my hardware reflects that paradigm.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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one difference I found with linux is looking for help on the internet can take a little longer but it's usually there.
i.e google: "how do I do I make ABC work"
linux: will net around 10 - 20 results, nearly all will say something like "you need to set x=y," yet only a couple will be complete enough to actually tell you where stick it.
windows: hundreds of results:
starting with the (guess who owns us) utube answers and they all gotta have some awful theme music, and self promotion and after 2 minutes may finally get to the friggin point but more often then not the same shite as the next 2 below...,
then the sites with "to fix ABC download our fixer-upper-and-faster-makerer and huge red download button and "pick me, I'm clean" popups ... "are you sure you want to leave?"
followed by the ms 'spurt-exchanger' fanlemmings "run sfc/scan, if that doesn't work then reinstall windope" (FFS, windows 10 and that's still advice they give, ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) me!)
finally, if you've stuck it out that far a few real results.
I'm glad I've gone linux, yeah the experts are wankers who will only give you half the answer and let you figure the rest out for yourself - back to the good old days of RTFM
but at least unlike windows almost none of the bullshit you get with windows: pricks stroking themsel their own ego, trying to sell crap you don't ever need and followed by gaggles of gaggeling idiots that believe quoting the ms vomit they had to choke down to get a 'ms certifiable' certificate makes them smarter than the average left hand fully reversible screwdriver socket holder.
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Wow, you're channeling your inner JSOP with that rant. I'm proud of you (with the possible exception of bowing to public pressure to use the elephant icon instead of just saying "f*ck"). Still, you're pretty close. KUDOs, and have a 5!
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: with the possible exception of bowing to public pressure to use the elephant icon instead of just saying "f*ck"
Cause the elephant is real nice and reminds me of the time when I asked Tantor to give Maria Sharapova a little bedroom visit and I got banned 3 times from the one post.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Oh my - I'm on your sh*t-list now! I am he who requested the icon.
Now - to try to win back some points, for Q&A, there's a little thumbs up image on the '5' side. I'd really go for having a little middle-finger up image on the left side.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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