[mythtv-users] Re: Choice of Linux distro?

Torsten Schenkel torsten.schenkel at web.de
Fri Jan 9 11:37:08 EST 2004


On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 15:41, martin north wrote:
> Thomas Rokamp writes: 
> 
> > Hi! 
> > 
> > Next week I'll start setting up an installation of MythTV. 
> > 
> > The basic configuration will be this: 
> > 
> > Amd Duron 600MHz
> > 384mb RAM
> > 80gb hd
> > Hauppauge PVR-350 
> > 
> > What Linux distribution would you suggest for a first time installation?
> > I'm planning to use apt-get and install the whole suite.
> > Most of my Linux experience comes from RedHat. Will there be any 
> > difficulties using that? 

If you are used to redhat you can use is very well with mythtv. There's
an excellent install guide by Jarod dealing especially with Redhat and
Fedora. Maybe Fedora would be the better choice of redhat flavour since
redhat will stop support for rh9 in the near future?

There were some problems compiling the ivtv driver (for the pvr) with
redhat, but there are redhat module rpms for the driver which seem to be
updated frequently. Not bleeding edge, but they support the tv-out for
the pvr.

If you feel a little bit more adventurous, you can also try debian, I
put up an installation walkthrough for this. Have a look at my sig. I
have to admit, though, that it it not nearly as polished as Jarod's
guide and needs an update soon to include David Engels patches. (Or
maybe not, I wanted to update it on sunday and I guess by then David's
patch will be in CVS). But I'll look over it on sunday anyway.   

My walkthrough is intended for the Epia line boards, but you can easily
adapt it for your Duron, as I don't use any specifics of the board. Make
sure to adapt the kernel config to match your AMD. I don't think it'll
like being called VIA C3/Cyrix ;-)

In contrast to Jarod's guide, most of the mythtv related stuff is self
compiled in my guide, so be warned.

> > Next - I plan to change the setup later. I will change the mainboard 
> > with the VIA Epia M60000. Does nyone know how the 667 MHz VIA CPU 
> > performs compared to Duron 600?

Overall performance will be a bit slower I guess, due to the basically
non existent cache (64k). But it does fine with the pvr350's h/w mpeg2
capabilities. With an xv-capable X server it can also play 640x480 divx
files. I hope the pvr350 will be able to display those in the future as
well. At the moment I transcode on the file server/workstation. 


> > And would the above setup be able to be used with "live" tv (time-
> > shifting)?

Certainly.

> I started off using Redhat - and got myself tied up in knots with failed 
> dependencies, and a general bad experience. I have rebuilt with gentoo and 
> it is much better. 
> 
> I am running it on an EPIA-M6000. I haven't got things fully working yet, 
> since i'm using DVB. But you really do need to get the CLE266 MPEG decoder 
> working. I have found life is much easier in the Gentoo world than Redhat if 
> you want to use the reverse engineered cle266 drivers. 

My experiences with redhat for the mythbox weren't that good either (had
to start using redhat because of the cle binary drivers, but switched to
the pvr350 and back to debian). But I am a long time debian user and
don't like some of the concepts in redhat. But you have to admit, that
it's much easier to set up a redhat system compared to debian (or
gentoo). Once it's up and running, maintenance seems lots easier with
debian to me. But if he's used to redhat, why not?

Torsten
-- 
Walkthrough: MythTV on Epia with PVR350 using Debian:
http://www-isl.mach.uni-karlsruhe.de/~hi93/myth/mythtv_debian_epia_pvr350_walkthrough



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