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OS for Linux PVR box

destrekor

destrekor

Lifer
Well I will be getting a system from an eBayer here shortly:
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512mb ram
160gb hdd
WinTV PVR350 (have a PVR150 of my own, will be selling since I am getting a better model)
all in a MSI Mega 180 system

what I am curious about, is what distro of Linux should I use? For those asking why I want to use Linux... well, before you ask, its because I want it. Plain and simple. More stable and speedier and won't require me to have to make sure the system doesn't flake out at random points.
so, distros I have looked at include Fedora Core 5 and Gentoo. Will the extra speed provided by using Gentoo (since it compiles everything specifically for the system its on) be a big enough difference to make it that much of a big deal? I am looking for something not to terribly complicated to install, but that part doesn't matter as it pales in comparison to the requirement of being easy to maintain. Having to compile every damned upgrade and patch doesn't sound like something I want to do when this thing is hooked up to a tv in my dorm. FC5 sounds like it is relatively simple to keep up to date. Is there too much of a loss of speed? I am not worried about encoding and decoding tv playback, its more about having the speed to transcode into a much smaller format.

Speaking of transcoding, is there xvid transcoding for Linux?

will I be able to use my MCE remote and usb receiver in Linux? I have seen there is support in lirc for the usb receiver, but howabout the remote? The simple and common functions are all I am looking at. Making sure the power button (to set up to kill and start up MythTV) and all the playback buttons work and the direction arrows is all I am really looking at.

here are two guide's I have looked at:
http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_MythTV

the FC-MythTv combo actually seems to have more configurations but if it results in an easy-to-use system that is stable and the picture quality is great, than I wouldn't complain.
 
i used Fedora with MythTv using wilsons guide. I am going to redo it probably next weekend using ubuntu and this guide:
http://hyams.webhop.net/mythtv/myth_ubuntu.html

but when I did it with Fedora it was easy enough to follow the instructions.

There is some sort of transcoder integrated into mythtv, I'm not sure if its divx, xvid or what. I only used it a couple of times. Good luck
 
Originally posted by: Steelerz37
i used Fedora with MythTv using wilsons guide. I am going to redo it probably next weekend using ubuntu and this guide:
http://hyams.webhop.net/mythtv/myth_ubuntu.html

but when I did it with Fedora it was easy enough to follow the instructions.

There is some sort of transcoder integrated into mythtv, I'm not sure if its divx, xvid or what. I only used it a couple of times. Good luck
Click to expand...

how did it turn out with the FC-Myth guide? why do you want to redo it? Just curious as to there is something I am missing and I should just go head-on into the Ubuntu one.
 
oh and what makes ubuntu so good? i am familiar with reasoning for debian, slackware, gentoo.. but not ubuntu, not even familiar with ubuntu at all.
 
oh and what makes ubuntu so good? i am familiar with reasoning for debian, slackware, gentoo.. but not ubuntu, not even familiar with ubuntu at all.
Click to expand...

The fact that Ubuntu is based on Debian but keeps a more consistent release cycle. They also focus a lot more on making the default Gnome desktop more usable, but if you know how you want to setup your desktop anyway that's a non-issue. I don't use Ubuntu because I don't see a reason to since I use Debian sid, but a lot of other people seem to really like Ubuntu.
 
is there any reason I should use anything over FedoraCore besides a performance increase that I won't see? If its a huge increase and makes it worlds different, I might be up for it, but FC5 seems good enough and easy enough to work with for the most part. Is it any less stable?
 
I go with what ever distro has the best community support for the package. I installed ubuntu for the first time on a mac lappy this morning, and it seems OK. I tend to use debian more now, but I have built myth boxes on RH9, debian, freebsd, and knoppix.
 
Ubuntu's advantage is it's large amount of packages aviable from their 'unsupported' repositories.

Otherwise they are about the same. It's mostly a matter of taste. The extra packages don't matter if your using it as a dedicated box.

If your setting up a box specificly for mythtv I'd go with Fedora core simply becuase of the above mentioned guide. Mythtv is a lot easier then it used to be, but it is a beast to setup. There are dozens of little gotchas and pitfalls that happen that most people don't mention in their guides that your expected to know enough to work around, which isn't usually a problem for experianced Linux users, but is frustrating for new ones.

The guide for Fedora Core is aviable at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
But the ubuntu guide may be good. I am not sure.

My suggestion is just to dive right in and start hacking away.
 
is there any reason I should use anything over FedoraCore besides a performance increase that I won't see? If its a huge increase and makes it worlds different, I might be up for it, but FC5 seems good enough and easy enough to work with for the most part. Is it any less stable?
Click to expand...

Because FC is a PITA to work with and there's virtually no packages in the base repositories.

There are Debian MythTV packages in the repositories at [1]. I haven't used them myself, but the maintainer of the repo is a DD so the packages are of the same quality as those in the main Debian repositories, that's not something that can be said of most of the 3rd party FC repos.

[1] http://debian.video.free.fr/
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
is there any reason I should use anything over FedoraCore besides a performance increase that I won't see? If its a huge increase and makes it worlds different, I might be up for it, but FC5 seems good enough and easy enough to work with for the most part. Is it any less stable?
Click to expand...

Because FC is a PITA to work with and there's virtually no packages in the base repositories.

There are Debian MythTV packages in the repositories at [1]. I haven't used them myself, but the maintainer of the repo is a DD so the packages are of the same quality as those in the main Debian repositories, that's not something that can be said of most of the 3rd party FC repos.

[1] http://debian.video.free.fr/
Click to expand...

well the wilsonnet.com howto details how to configure FC to use 3rd party repos, specifically ATrpms & FreshRPMs
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
is there any reason I should use anything over FedoraCore besides a performance increase that I won't see? If its a huge increase and makes it worlds different, I might be up for it, but FC5 seems good enough and easy enough to work with for the most part. Is it any less stable?
Click to expand...

Because FC is a PITA to work with and there's virtually no packages in the base repositories.

There are Debian MythTV packages in the repositories at [1]. I haven't used them myself, but the maintainer of the repo is a DD so the packages are of the same quality as those in the main Debian repositories, that's not something that can be said of most of the 3rd party FC repos.

[1] http://debian.video.free.fr/
Click to expand...

Also Debian is the platform that I think most Mythtv developers use.

Trouble is is with the Mysql stuff. Debian sets it up with extra protections for mysql.. mainly that it's forced to listen on localhost to prevent network access. So stuff like that is confusing. And there isn't much usefull documentation. I use those packages with Debian for my setup and they are pretty nice. Although you have to do the driver stuff and firmware items yourself.

The fedora stuff is how I learned to setup and use Mythtv.

IMO good documentation trumps packages for Mythtv. I don't use Fedora anymore for this stuff, but in my experiance the Mythtv setup for Fedora is nice and the packages and such were at least originally created by the same fella that wrote the documentation.

I am sure Ubuntu is nice also.
 
Originally posted by: destrekor

how did it turn out with the FC-Myth guide? why do you want to redo it? Just curious as to there is something I am missing and I should just go head-on into the Ubuntu one.
Click to expand...

It turned out very well. The only reason I want to go Ubuntu now is thats what I have been running on my laptop and I feel more comfortable with it now than I did back then. I want to redo it for that reason, and I have a second tuner and a larger hard drive I want to put in. I had problems when I tried to add the second tuner before for some reason and I couldnt get that fixed. The IVTV drivers wouldnt update properly and I was stuck at a pre pvr150 version. I also want to try to get an LVM setup. I also had trouble with that in FC. If the PC would crash I was unable to remount my partitions which were JFS and got aan error to the effect of a Bad or Missing Superblock?. Would have to reformat the LVM to get it to mount. I'm hoping XFS under Ubuntu doesnt give me these problems.

So I guess I have had a couple problems but they are most likely because I am new to linux and mythtv. Aside from those 2 things it is working perfectly.

As far as updating goes I think you have to watch what you are updating since some of the stuff is reliant on the version of the kernel you used, so if you go and update the kernel you will have to redo a bunch of other things as well. Someone correct me if I am wrong on this, but I am 90% sure that is the case.

Also, if anyone would happen to know why I had my problem with LVM's please PM me(dont post it in here please) I would love to know why.
 
well the wilsonnet.com howto details how to configure FC to use 3rd party repos, specifically ATrpms & FreshRPMs
Click to expand...

Yea, but I really don't trust 3rd party FC repositories. The only reason I trust that one for Debian is because it's maintaine by a Debian Developer.

 
I ordered a PVR350 Sat. night.

I am looking at Ubuntu right now......because I have been using it for a few months.

Found this MythDora while looking into MythTV.
MythDora has a Unichrome verision. So I may go this way instead.


Kwatt

 
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