[mythtv-users] Gee, I THOUGHT I was a linux fan.

[Jesse Guardiani]

Richard Bronosky wrote:

>Apparently, I've hardly ever used Linux.  I once built a few servers
>running RedHat 7.2, and I use various versions of Unix at my job. 
>(HPUX, FreeBSD, Mac OS X)  But, when it came down to setting up my
>MythTV box this weekend, I failed big time.  I chose KnoppMyth for it's
>illusion of simplicity, but was made to feel like a complete idiot. 
>Even worse than when I used a Mac for the first time in about 1998.
>  
>

I don't think KnoppMyth is easy to use by any means either. It took me 
literally a week to get
my setup off the ground, and my wife and son were out of town all week, 
so that's like, 3 weeks
under normal circumstances?

I ran into and had to push through brick walls at many checkpoints:

1.) Get Hardware capable of actually running PVR-350 & KnoppMyth
     (The first box I tried was way too weak. The current 700mhz box is
     barely adaquate.)
2.) Get network drivers up and running
3.) Get SSH & NTP configured.
4.) Get PVR-350 working.
5.) Get NFS configured for remote NAS server
6.) Get Sound working (had to buy extra cables and such)
7.) Get Programming Information working. (failed first two tries due to 
not reading the
     correct documentation, eventually found what I needed and moved on. 
Recently
     figured out how to remove channels I don't have from my lineup so 
Myth won't
     try to record programs on channels I don't have, so this was 
ongoing...)
8.) Get IR Remote working (ongoing still as I find missing functionality 
in various programs)
9.) Get DVD playback working (libdvdcss, xine vs mplayer, XV under PVR 
350, etc...
    still not perfect due to underpowered CPU. This took a ton of time.)
10.) Get Gallery working over NFS (had to copy data to my new NAS array, 
basically)
11.) Get Music working over NFS (had to copy data to my new NAS array, 
basically)
12.) Get Apache-SSL installed & MythWeb working.
13.) Resolve cooling issues so my two tower cases fit in the bottom of 
my computer
       armoire without overheating.
14.) Much more I'm forgetting, I'm sure.

So you see it's not plug-and-play by any means. There are some open 
source projects
that ARE plug-and-play, like m0n0wall and smoothwall, but those projects 
deal with
old, established, and heavily standardized hardware. MythTV deals with 
very unique,
different hardware. So it's understandable that KnoppMyth has difficulty 
automating
the above setup items.

BTW, a good chunk of my time was spent learning Debian (again). I'm 
normally a
redhat/gentoo guy, so it took a while to remember how things are done 
under Debian,
but I definitely think Debian was an excellent choice for KnoppMyth 
(ignoring the
fact the Knoppix is Debian, so there wasn't really much choice in the 
matter). Another
huge chunk of time was spent familiarizing myself with the PVR 350 and 
it's various
software drivers and utilities. And yet another large portion of time 
spent just learning
the Myth way of doing things.

So... don't feel stupid. It's normal to have a ton of trouble. It's 
worth it if you press on,
but if you don't enjoy spending countless hours tinkering with Linux, 
then perhaps
you'd be happier with a Tivo. :) I certainly wouldn't recommend Myth to 
anyone with
less than Intermediate level Linux admin skills. I consider myself a 
highly skilled
administrator/programmer, and it still took me forever.

Good luck!

-- 
Jesse Guardiani
Programmer/Sys Admin
jesse at wingnet.net