[mythtv-users] After the crash: Mythdora or something else?

[Nick Rout]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Anthony Korsman <manak at primus.ca> wrote:
> Thanks everyone for your advice! I thought I'd give an update on what I did.
> I looked over the various steps for cloning my LVM/disks on to the new
> hardware and I guess I just got nervous about the unknown, as I had never
> cloned a boot disk before. More importantly, I did not know how long the old
> disk would last as it took  about  a dozen tries to get it to boot. I
> decided copy the data and reinstall MythDora 12.23
>
> In hind sight, I probably would have been better off following the advice
> and done a clone, because as a minimum, I would of learned a few more
> things..But it could not have been any worse.  :-)
>
> Anyway, with the new hard disk formatted ext3 and mounted, I copied all the
> video/recording and db onto a new disk. Ten hours later, I breathed I big
> sigh of relief.
>
> Time to re-install  MD 12.23!! It came up looking great and mostly
> functional. (Mythdora is great for that!) The remote works, capture card is
> working, the IR blaster from CommandIR is working. WOW! That was easy, we'll
> be up and working by diner. Boy was I wrong.
>
> Next, comes the nvidia drivers. I just grabbed them from Nvidia and started
> the install. Not so quick.. There is no cc present. Ok. Time to yum gcc.
> "All is well," I'm thinking "Start the nvidia install again"
>
> Now the kernel source was missing. No problem, that's what yum is for.
> Except, I could not find the kernel source for the installed version. So,
> after searching everywhere, I thought I'd try a slightly newer version of
> the source. Nvidia did not like that! (No surprise, but I'm trying not to
> change anything!)
>
> On top of that, the cable box is disconnected from the TV, and getting at
> the cables will take half an hour of emptying a book shelf.  And now the WAF
> is falling every time she walks by and sees the PVR in pieces on the floor
> in front of the TV.  Definitely, she is not happy about the mess.
>
> Back to the PVR. It's time to upgrade the kernel. Again, it's only a small
> change. But a professor  of  mine was famous for saying, "There is no such
> things as a small change" ie : small changes in software can have huge
> impacts.  Oh well, take a deep breath.
>   yum update kernel
> And it rebooted fine.  Install the nvidia driver. All is well in the world.
>
> Now, we just got to get sound. How hard could that be. Well, the mplayer
> works, fine, vlc works fine. But nothing from mythtv. Check the logs and I
> find this:
>   "Mixer unable to find control PCM"
> WTF!  A number of reports, but no clear solution that I could see. And after
> trying all the possible fixes, that did not work. I went back to what was
> working before: spdif via my reciever
>
> I try a number of different things with no success getting sound via the
> spdif/reciever from mythtv, vlc, or mplayer. WAF is gone. And now my 11 year
> old daughter, with big puppy dog eyes, is wondering if she can ever watch TV
> again. The sofa is looking like a good place to sleep at this point :-)
> Anyway, for some reason, I thought, "Do I have a good connection?"
> I don't know why I thought that, but I'm glad I did. There was no software
> solution needed. I just needed to plug the spdif cable in!
> Yah, that's embarrassing. I guess it got pulled when the new drive went in.

LOL your story got me chuckling, and reminded me of the time I
rebooted a machine several times (along with grepping logs, removing
and loading drivers, and kicking the damn thing) trying to figure out
why it did not get a dhcp address. Got really annoyed, pulled the
machine out to install a pci ethernet card to replace the obviously
borked one on the motherboard and discovered the ethernet cable was,
errr, disconnected. It worked better when plugged in.