[mythtv-users] AppleTV with Linux

[Josh White]

I've seen videos on youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHP0Llu1AH0 )
of a guy running mythtv right from the Apple TV interface (it takes 10
seconds or so to load) but it looks to me like he's launching mythtv from a
menu called "applications" or something like that (I can't read the
menus...maybe others can).  I'm not sure if that's simply restarting the
entire machine, loading Linux and loading mythtv on startup, or if its
running on the Apple TV version of Mac OS.  If it's booting Linux, it's
doing it awful fast.

Anyway, if it works as well as he makes it look, I'd like to have that setup
some day.






On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Gerald Brandt <gbr at majentis.com> wrote:

> Has anybody tried an AppleTV with OSX and a myth frontend?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott D. Davilla" <davilla at 4pi.com>
> To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:10:39 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] AppleTV with Linux
>
> >This is great news.  A low cost, small, low-noise HD capable
> >frontend is like the holy grail.  Out of curiousity, how extensive
> >are the changes you made to a base kernel in order to get to this
> >point?  Meaning can someone with reasonable linux experience be able
> >to get a box to the point you have?
> >
>
> I'm currently backing out kernel changes that were made over the past
> few months in trying to resolve the glitch. I might drop that path
> and jump straight to the current MythBuntu distro kernel and restart
> with that.
>
> With my new bootloader, kernel changes are minimal and are isolated to;
> 1) imacfb (for console support)
> 2) realtek (for analog audio support)
> 3) IR support (there are two methods and I need to figure out which)
>
> If I do it correctly, I might not have to rebuild the kernel, just
> two or three kernel modules.
>
> nvidia driver is currently the current 169.09 but I think the
> previous versions will be ok. My gpu/vram clock adjustments using
> nvidia-settings can be done after the nvidia driver is loaded so it's
> just a script somewhere.
>
> Given reasonable linux experience, it's pretty easy once you get past
> the point of creating the proper gpt GUID partitions. There are rules
> and required gpt GUID formats which can only be created by a patched
> parted under Linux or under OSX.
>
> You do have to make a decision of A) using the original internal HD
> and resizing the last partition to add an ext3 root filesystem or B)
> replace the internal and install linux to the new drive. If you
> choose A) then backing up the original partitions is highly
> recommended.
>
> Since the AppleTV boots linux using a secondary bootloader that looks
> like a darwin mach_kernel, you have to keep the first three partition
> GUIDs intact to get boot.efi to load the mach_kernel loaded. In the
> past, one needed a bunch of OSX bits but I've eliminated that
> dependency. You don't actually need two of the three original GUID
> partitions but it seems to boot faster if they are present.
>
> For testing, I boot on a USB pen drive which has my rescue tools and
> sshd. From that, I have a script that does a kexec to the kernel on
> the internal drive. That way if I hose the internal kernel, I can
> recover quickly.
>
> My current internal drive has three gpt partitions formatted the way
> the appletv firmware expects. Then an ext2 for /boot and ext3 for
> root and swap. This is "old style" to make the two flavors of older
> bootloaders happy. The new bootloader will not require a separate
> ext2 /boot and everything can live under root. It should also be
> possible to boot using an external USB HD using the new bootloader.
> Then you would not even have to crack the box (which is pretty easy).
>
> The real easy way to install is to create the partitions using the
> patched parted and install a linux distro using an existing Linux
> box. Then add the bootloader bits to correct partitions and grap a
> copy of boot.efi from the appletv 1.1 update on the web. boot.efi is
> the only file that cannot be distributed. chroot into this rootfile
> system and rebuilt the kernel/initrd. Stick it in (or attach via USB)
> and go.
>
>
> Scott
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Scott D. Davilla                       Phone: 919 489-1757 ext 13 (tel)
> 4pi Analysis, Inc.                            Fax:   919 489-1487 (fax)
> 3500 Westgate Drive, Suite 403                email: davilla at 4pi.com
> Durham, North Carolina  27707-2534            web: http://www.4pi.com
>
>
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