Paul Barker

From MythTV

Paul Barker

Email: [mailto:myth@sixtimesnine.net]

About a year ago my VHS box became very unreliable, I had numerous DIVX / XVID / MPEG / <insert random format here> movies to watch and had a network MP3 player (SliMP3) to play my music.

Then I heard about MythTV. Now my life is calm. (Well except for the couple of weeks it took me to persuade MythCVS to compile and run with Unichrome support on my EPIA 10000 ;-) )

Myth rocks (but you all probably know that). I'm a full time Sysadmin on HPUX, Solaris and Linux for a major Telco in the UK and I spend almost as much time tinkering with my Linux boxes at home. I try to contribute to the Myth mailing lists whenever I can and I'm more than happy to help out other Myth users and generaly spread the word.

My current set up:

Backend: Athlon 2000XP with 512Mb RAM, 2x80Gb boot drives in RAID 1 config, 4 X 160Gb drives in RAID 5 config for data (music, movies, pictures, etc) and 1 X 160Gb standalone for LiveTV and recordings. PVR-250 hooked up to dedicated Sky DigiBox with homebrew IR channel changer.

Frontend 1: Athlon 1800XP with 512Mb RAM, GeForce4MX with TV Out, 80Gb drive for OS and application. Homebrew IR reciever and All for One remote. Onboard network and sound. Xine and mplayer for movies and DVDs.

Frontend 2: EPIA M10000 with 512Mb of RAM. Mythtv compiled with Via hardware decoding support. Currently destined to replace FE #1 as soon as I can be bothered to work the bugs out of the netboot. (This machine will not have a local hard drive once installed).

Everything's running FC2 and all connected to my 100BaseT wired ethernet.

I've learned a lot whilst using myth. How to replace my LNB and install a second digibox without paying the exorbitant Sky upgrade fees, more about ALSA than I wanted to know, and never to say "I'll be right up" to your wife whilst trying to fix that "little" glitch. It's a lie and you both know it ;-)