[mythtv-users] Had an idea? Would a more experienced person shareinfo?

shredder shredder at thannet.com
Sun Aug 10 21:51:58 EDT 2003


I take onboard both of what you say, and can understand fully. I may be
newbie (Wished I was in age) and have been a network engineer since
about 1984, Most of Linux can be followed (I got as far as I did with
Jarod & Co's docs. However things started to go wrong for me with MySql,
my fault because I could not understand the syntax of the line to change
the password! And made a typo and locked myself out.

Having followed a number of doc's with my install, the excellent one
from Jarod and another who's name escapes me was for a Red hat 9.0
install. 

I think perhaps that a reference system may not be such a bad idea,
settle on a small machine (Mass appeal) and cards that will be
supported. That way a newbie would know that his hardware is right (I
made the mistake of buying a WinTV-350, and have yet to confirm if it
works) with a large number or people with identical hardware, surely
most bugs would be ironed out?

I think Myth will take off beyond belief, when I mentioned it in our
office, two other engineers also decided to have a go. Just think what
will happen when more media coverage is made?

Regards Paul.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Cooper [mailto:mythtv-users at mcooper.demon.co.uk] 
Sent: 10 August 2003 19:27
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Had an idea? Would a more experienced person
shareinfo?

Cedar McKay wrote:
> 
> On Sunday, August 10, 2003, at 05:23  AM, shredder wrote:
> 
>> Seeing as I am well and truly a newbie, to both Linux & Myth, does 
>> someone who has setup a system (Jarod & Co come to mind as I have a 
>> Pundit)Wish to work along side me and make the documentation easy for

>> the first time user. I am sure it wouldbenefitmany people, I can
think 
>> of two who are struggling as much as I am.
>>
>> Others could contribute variations on a theme,i.e.graphics
cards,Linux 
>> versions. I would also be willing to host this information as I have
a 
>> spare site sitting doing nothing.
> 
> Documentation is really trickier than you might think. It is great to 
> write docs targeted to a "newbie" but you will quickly discover than
you 
> must make some compromises. If you wanted to make something someone 
> really green could follow, you would have to really narrow down your 
> hardware and software, perhaps down to one specific hardware 
> configuration and a particular distro. You might only be able to
address 
<SNIP>

I think the only sort of 'documentation' that would suit a 'true newbie'

is only going to come from a company such as O'Reilly! What is being 
asked is no small feat!! Your asking to be taught how/what Unix/Linux is

for a start which is slightly beyond your average HOWTO or FAQ ;) If you

cannot follow Jarod's excellent document ion, then perhaps I would 
suggest that what you need is an appliant-ized version of MythTV ( a 
bootable, auto-configuring MythTV CD ) which a number of people have 
talked about on this list.

> One approach that I think could work would be customized wizard type 
> docs. You are asked questions about your hardware and software config,

> and docs are generated that suit you. However, that would be a ton of 
> work, and I don't think anyone is up to that right now.

I've tried to gather a number of Install Guides for as diverse a 
hardware/OS configurations as possible at 
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=install_guides
,but again a 'true newbie' would probably be better off with a MythTV CD
:)

Having said all that, I've no idea what the state the various attempts 
at a CD image are at, anyone?

-- 

Mark Cooper
http://netmangler.sourceforge.net - Network Management with Attitude
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org - Open Source PVR Hardware Database




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