Linux Media Center Edition

Linux Media Center Edition is a full home entertainment solution for your PC. It combines many existing Linux programs such as MythTV and Pluto into one complete package. Not only can it play your DVDs, Music, Pictures, and TV, but it also includes home automation. When you start playing a movie, LinuxMCE can automatically dim the lights. If you have media PCs in multiple rooms, LinuxMCE can track which room you are in by tracking the location of your cell phone, and have your media follow you from room to room. If you have a home security system, LinuxMCE can integrate it so that you can view your security cameras, converse with someone who is at the front door, and unlock doors.

Unfortunately I am not blessed with all of these systems in my house, but the following Youtube video (in two parts) demonstrates several of these features:



LinuxMCE 1.0 had some difficulty integrating properly with Ubuntu, mainly because of trouble with Ubuntu's compositing engine. The LinuxMCE team found that KDE fully supports compositing, so LinuxMCE 1.1 is built on Kubuntu and is better integrated. Version 1.1 is still in beta mode right now, so downloads are only being offered through bittorrent. The link on the LinuxMCE homepage eventually leads to a 404, but I managed to track down a working download site for the tracker at this location.

If you have any difficulty with setup, or if you are interesting in contributing to the project, the Linux MCE website has a wiki and forums.

Be forewarned, however, that LinuxMCE is not completely up to par on hardware support. ATI users in particular have difficulty with installation. Be sure you have several hours free before attempting it.

UPDATE: As with any beta software, be sure you have a good backup before installing. LinuxMCE 1.1 beta2 inexplicably unmounted my home partition to replace it with its own home folders. This was easy to recover from, but it is likely that more potentially damaging bugs exist. For now I have to recommend staying with version 1.0 if you are installing LMCE over an existing Ubuntu installation. If you are performing a fresh install, then I recommend 1.1 beta2.