[mythtv-users] MythTV + Distro

[Stroller]

On 9 Feb 2007, at 15:29, David Campbell wrote:
> Cole Brodine wrote:
>> I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I prefer Gentoo ...
>>
>> Probably not the best distro to start with on Linux, but it will  
>> force
>> you to learn quite a bit.
>
> With respect in my experience all that Gentoo teaches many people  
> how to
>   cut and paste from a wiki or other source.

With respect, I think one should add "YMMV" to this statement.

I'd agree with Mr Brodine's statement that it's "probably not the  
best distro to start with on Linux" and add that Gentoo is therefore  
probably not the best distro for the OP, but I learned far more in a  
weekend of installing Gentoo than I did in two years of other distros.

I think the reason I learned so much from Gentoo was my previous  
experience with Mandrake & whatnot, but I think it's unfair to say  
that Gentoo only teaches you to cut & paste. Under Mandrake I had  
compiled my own kernels & leafnode, I had configured a bootloader and  
various other software, and chased down issues with KDE & DCOP (??),  
but so many of these experiences were stressful and difficult.

On other distros I followed the instructions I found on the web and  
at a certain level I understood what I was doing, but I always felt  
that I was only looking at a fraction of the picture.

When I installed Gentoo, everything just fell into place.

All of a sudden, following those instructions and copying & pasting  
from the wiki I appreciated what different parts of the system were  
doing, how they interacted and why I was doing each step.

I think there's a lot of people who come to Linux from Windows who  
can't differentiate the window that you click on to drag & drop files  
in your home directory from the o/s itself. Microsoft would have you  
believe that the desktop is part of the operating-system, and I can  
understand why that's a useful way for my mother to think.

I am not promoting Gentoo for the OP, but when I finished Gentoo's  
install and found myself able to log in to a terminal & get a bash  
prompt a lot started to make sense to me. Thereafter I understood the  
difference between `emerge kde` and `emerge gnome` much more deeply  
than I would the difference between the Ubunutu & Kubuntu distros.

When I read of Linux "n00bs" who are having difficulty and who say  
"I'm going to format & start again" I just think "aaargh! that won't  
solve anything", but it makes a lot of sense if you've come from  
Windows. Windows doesn't give you the same quality of tools to  
examine which driver modules are loaded into the kernel or to change  
them or to determine the actual vendor & device ID of your PCI cards.

I don't know, maybe we should have a page on the wiki for this topic,  
it just seems to keep coming up time & time again. Or maybe even a  
summary page and a separate page for each distro. I get the feeling  
that many experienced, competent & technical Windows "power-users"  
are rejecting Knoppmyth & Mythdora because these distros are billed  
as "great introductions" and "ideal way to get started" - is it  
possible they feel that such distros can't be powerful &  
sophisticated enough for them?

Perhaps the answer to "the best Distro for MythTV" is "if you have to  
ask then it's Knoppmyth or Mythdora"? Because the evidence is that  
configuring Myth is quite enough on its own without having to learn  
about package-managers & repositories, `ls` and file-permissions,  
window managers & modelines.

> I'd say [K]ubuntu as it's a single command to install (but not
> configure) myth

Indeed, as it is with Gentoo and surely many other distros.

May I ask - had you never installed anything else on [K]ubuntu before  
you installed Myth?

Stroller.