[mythtv-users] Hard Lock

David Brieck Jr. myth at brieck.com
Thu Jan 22 11:24:25 EST 2004


MythTV-at-C4L wrote:
> I'm not sure I agree that Gentoo will really help you with this.  If
> it's a kernel/Myth/ivtv issue, merely changing the distribution
> shouldn't fix the problem.  Isn't the same kernel no matter who's
> distribution you use?
> 
> I think the thing to do, is to find the right kernel combination and ID
> the holes in ivtv/myth that cause the memory leaks/lockups.
> 
> Dave

I would agree that changing distros shouldn't make a difference, 
however, I switched from Mandrake to Gentoo and have eliminated the 
aforementioned lockups. I messed around with Mandrake for over a month 
and still couldn't get it to work without crashing. I switched over to 
Gentoo and 4 days later I had a working Myth box. Gentoo gave me the 
results I wanted without having to spend an additional month getting it 
to work without crashing.

Also, it's not the same kernel that each distro shares. Each distro 
patches their kernels to include features from 2.6 that us 2.4 users 
aren't will to switch to 2.6 for yet. Everyone does it. If you want a 
stock kernel without any patches you need to download from kernel.org.

In some cases this just isn't going to cut it since not everyone is 
comfortable compiling and installing their own kernel. But, that being 
said, Gentoo is not for everyone. It's a tough install and if someone 
can't compile their own kernel in Mandrake they are going to have a 
tough time getting past the installation.

I'd really like to see the problem with Mandrake be fixed since it's 
such a nice distro to introduce newbies to linux with. I didn't have the 
patience myself nor the debugging skills to actually do the work or else 
I would definitely tried to find the problem.


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