How can I stream content from my windows 7 pc if Auto DHCP fails when installing XBMC live

[SBD]

As the title really, I have installed XBMC Dharma RC1 install when fine apart from the network setting, it failed when trying to auto detect my network settings.

The machine running XBMC is an old AMD 939 socket PC which ran with windows 7 fine and seems to run even faster in XBMC But all my content is stored on my main PC (running windows 7).

I have connected the PCs together only using an Ethernet cable. I have tried finding out which settings I need to enter but for the life of me I can not figure it out

Also could someone tell me how to find out if the Ethernet controller works with Linux can I "bash" something in? This is my first time using Linux so I am a little bit lost but once I get this sorted I will be a happy guy

Thanks all!

 

[jack.mitchell]

Hi SDB, welcome to Linux.

Your problem initially seems a simple one. First off I would open a terminal and enter:

sudo ifconfig

This command should list all your network devices. If your ethernet card has been picked up correctly then it will list eth0 somewhere on the list. For the configuration, do you have a DHCP server running on your Windows 7 machine? If not, the easiest way to link two computers is via static IP addresses. For Linux, you can do this through the XBMC live interface I belive, for windows there will be multiple guides on google to show you how to do it.

Any problems report back!

 

[SBD]

Hi jack,

Cheers for the warm welcome

I haven't managed to get anything sorted yet and for some reason I didn't subscribe my self to this post

Anyway I have two things when I type in sudo ifconfig, being eth0 and lo which I assume is good and the drivers installed

Now I have changed a lot of setting using something like sudo nano /etc/config/networking

Or something similar and replaced what I had with:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.65
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.254
dns-nameserver 192.168.1.254

Now all of that looks great but I don't understand most of it so I am betting that it isn't working because I am using the wrong IP addresses as not ever PC is going to thave the same settings. I understand that I can type on my windows 7 PC in cmd ipconfig and get a list of all sorts of things but again I am not sure what I should be doing with these settings.

Seems silly that I know so little about networking as I am currently building a server which is going to host my media too multiple PCs / XBMC

 

[jack.mitchell]

I have never personally used the XBMC live cd so I can't comment on how to configure it but the above looks ok. Can you not edit the network settings directly in XBMC from the settings menu instead of using terminal and config files?

Can you post the output of 'sudo ifconfig' to see if the settings have applied correctly?

For the Windows 7 box, you want to set a static IP address like this:

http://blog.mclaughlinsoftware.com/2009/11/26/windows-7-static-ip/

Set the IP address to: 192.168.1.66
Set netmask to: 255.255.255.0

Don't worry about entering anything for the dns server or gateway, just leave them blank.

Once you have done this, open a cmd in windows and type:

ping 192.168.1.65

if it returns your ping with a time in milliseconds then you can see your xbmc box! Then do the same in XBMCLive with the IP:

ping 192.168.1.66

If it returns then they can both see each other.

Good luck!

 

[leigh123linux]

As the title really, I have installed XBMC Dharma RC1 install when fine apart from the network setting, it failed when trying to auto detect my network settings.

The machine running XBMC is an old AMD 939 socket PC which ran with windows 7 fine and seems to run even faster in XBMC But all my content is stored on my main PC (running windows 7).

I have connected the PCs together only using an Ethernet cable. I have tried finding out which settings I need to enter but for the life of me I can not figure it out

Also could someone tell me how to find out if the Ethernet controller works with Linux can I "bash" something in? This is my first time using Linux so I am a little bit lost but once I get this sorted I will be a happy guy

Thanks all!

Are you using a crossover lead?