Difference between revisions of "Installing MythTV on Fedora"

Revision as of 05:22, 5 January 2010

This "How-To" guide is for installing MythTV on the latest release of Fedora.

Introduction

This guide is shamelessly based on Jarod Wilson's how to guide which you can find here. Jarod no longer maintains his guide, however.

Fedora provides updates for a release until two releases after that(N-2). The current release is Fedora 12, which means support for Fedora 10 was discontinued a month after it was released. Thus, it makes sense to update to the latest release at least every other version, if not every verson.

You are welcome as a MythTV user and general wiki participant to add and modify this document that will help the community the best way possible.

Getting Fedora

ISO images

The latest version of Fedora can be downloaded from the Fedora Download Page.

Physical media

CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs can be purchased from online and local vendors.

Installing Fedora

Anaconda is the Fedora installer program and will launch a GUI by default.

Filesystems

Among the MythTV community it is highly recommend to use a custom partitioning scheme rather than auto-partitioning, with a dedicated /video (or similar) partition for storage of all your recordings. If possible, for best efficiency, the video partition should be on a separate physical drive than the operating system partitions. Software RAID and LVM for your video partitions will only slow it down and should be avoided. LVM is no longer necessary for MythTV due to Storage Groups.

Previously, XFS was the recommendation for the file system to use for such a purpose, but with EXT4 now the default in Fedora and other distributions, many have migrated to using it as the partitioning scheme. Barring that, XFS is still an option, as is JFS, or even ReiserFS. An example partitioning setup can be found below.

At the Installation Type screen, you want to choose a Custom installation (rather than Personal Desktop, Workstation or Server), because none of the defaults give us everything we need and/or add junk we don't need.

On the Disk Partitioning Setup screen, choose to Manually partition with Disk Druid. A suitable custom partitioning setup is as follows (assuming a single IDE hard drive):

Note that there's really no point in using anything but ext4 on / and /boot.

Network configuration

On the Network Configuration screen, it is highly recommend setting a static IP address (could either be truly static, or a statically mapped DHCP address). It really isn't a huge deal if you only have one Myth box (though you probably don't want MythWeb to be a moving target), but it could cause major headaches once you have more than one machine, since non-primary systems wouldn't know where the master backend was anymore if the address changed.

Package selection

Required

On the package selection screen, select (at least) these package groups:

• Desktop Environments
  • K Desktop Environment (KDE) or GNOME Desktop Environment

If you enable options under the install to install from additional repositories, you'll also have alternate desktop environment and window manager options such as XFCE, fluxbox or ratpoison, which are more lightweight and thus may be better for a dedicate frontend.

• Servers
  • MySQL Database
  • Web Server — if you want to use MythWeb

Optional

Some other packages that might be of interest, but are not required:

• Applications
  • Graphical Internet (includes Empathy and Firefox)
  • Sound and Video
• Development
  • Development Tools — if you want or need to compile anything
• Servers
  • Network Servers (under details, select vnc-server)
  • Windows File Server (includes Samba)

First boot

At this point Anaconda will ask you to remove the disc from the drive and reboot the system. Once your system has finished rebooting you will be prompted to accept the license agreement and a few more installation configuration options.

Firewall

A basic MythTV box should not have any problems running with the firewall turned on however you will probably save yourself a lot of headaches if you disable it completely. This is especially recommended for new users. If you do need to enable the firewall, you will at the very least want to enable SSH, Secure WWW (HTTPS) and WWW (HTTP) checkboxes to enable those services.

If you plan to run separate front end and back end servers you will need to allow those ports through on under "Other Ports". Add TCP ports 6543 and 6544 to allow the MythTV protocol access through the firewall, and TCP 3306 for mysql.

SELinux

It is strongly recommended that SELinux is disabled or run in "permissive" mode. There are a few things that will not work properly if you set SELinux to "enforcing" such as the MythWeb plugin. If you think you might want to run with SELinux in enforcing mode in the future, choose the permissive mode which will only warn you of problems. This will enable you to quickly and easily set SELinux to enforcing mode at a later time. Fedora Core 6 comes with the excellent setroubleshoot tool which will notify of denials whilst permitting you to leave SELinux enabled on your system.

If you insist on running enforcing SELinux with mythweb, the following two commands may be helpful:

$ /usr/sbin/setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect=1
$ /usr/sbin/setsebool -P httpd_ssi_exec=1

Date/Time

Here you should adjust the date and time of the machine to the current date and time. Once you have done this, select the "Network Time Protocol" tab and select the "Enable Network Time Protocol" checkbox. Making sure the system is running to the correct time is important for timely scheduling of recordings.

Display

The Setup Agent should have detected your video card and your monitor. Select the screen resolution that is best for your monitor.

Switch user

Create a user on the system with the username "mythtv". You can set the password for this user to anything you want. This should be be a Strong Password that is different than the root password.

Fedora setup

The next section will require you to be logged in as the mythtv user. Some commands will need to be executed from the command line. In GNOME, this is under Applications > Accessories > Terminal. Under KDE, you can run commands with the "Konsole" program. To start Konsole, right-click on your desktop and select "Konsole..." and a new Konsole window should appear.

Some commands will need to be run as mythtv and some commands will need to be run as the root user. The boxes below will indicate with a prompt which user a command should be run as. Commands with a "$" prompt should be run as the mythtv user. If you see a command that starts with a "#", you will need to use the su command to become the root user.

To execute commands as the root run "su -" and enter the root password you set when you installed Fedora.

[mythtv@machine_name ~]$ su -
Password:
[root@machine_name ~]#

Notice the way the username changes from mythtv to root and the prompt changes from "$" to "#". Be sure you run all of the following commands as the correct user. If you do not, you will likely run into problems sooner or later. To become the mythtv user again, type "exit".

[root@machine_name ~]# exit
logout
[mythtv@machine_name ~]$

Your screen should clear, and your prompt will be a "$" sign again. If this is not the case, keep typing "exit" until it is.

Set $KVER variable

To make life simpler after we've rebooted and are prepared to start installing drivers for some of our hardware not supported natively by the kernel, we're going to set up a custom environment variable, KVER, that will help avoid problems from typos, user error, confusion, and so-forth. Simply drop a file in /etc/profile.d, like so:

# echo "export KVER=\`uname -r\`" >> /etc/profile.d/kver.sh

(Note: those are back-ticks, not single-quotes.)

Now you're ready to reboot into that new kernel and start installing kernel modules for your tuner card(s), remote, and so-forth.

# reboot

Add a few important yum packages

yum-fastestmirror

To ensure that yum always uses the fastest available mirror for a repository (if it has more than one mirror) you can install the package yum-fastestmirror. This will decrease the time for downloads in many cases.

yum install yum-fastestmirror

If the above command does not work you get something like this: (this was using Fedora 8)

yum install yum-fastestmirror
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 21830.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

Yum Priorities

Optional: To prevent packages from the Fedora repositories from being overwritten by ones from secondary repositories, edit the /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo and /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo files by adding a priority=1 line like below:

[fedora]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch
failovermethod=priority
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/$releasever/Everything/$basearch/os/
mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=fedora-$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY
priority=1

Add a priorities line to the secondary repository, giving it a lower (higher-numbered) value:

priority=10

Configure package repositories

A very helpful guide is available here: [http://www.howtoforge.com/managing_packages_repositories_yum_yumex_fedora7 yum repositories on fedora.

Configuration of yum is needed to use ATrpms or RPMFusion package repositories. Both offer MythTV packages, but you must use either one or the other as they do not work together. ATrpms tends to be updated more frequently though. Pre-configured files can be downloaded and run from the desktop. Follow the links below and install the RPMs for the latest version and correct architecture.

ATrpms

   http://atrpms.net/install.html

RPMFusion

 http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

Note: You will need to download the packages rpmfusion-free-release and rpmfusion-nonfree-release and install with rpm -ivh *.

Generally, any problems encountered with ATrpms and ATrpms packages should be addressed on the atrpms-users mailing list before being taken to the MythTV list. You can subscribe to the ATrpms lists here.

Many MythTV installations require additional kernel modules to make all the hardware work. The ATrpms repository offers a package which downloads new kernel modules when the stock Fedora kernel is updated. You should wait a few days after the new kernel appears to update, giving the packagers time to create kernel module rpms. You can get this package with the following command

# yum install yum-plugin-kmdl

As with any other mailing list, please search their respective archives first.

NVIDIA

Binary NVIDIA drivers can be installed from NVIDIA or use yum to get them from ATrpms. The first step is to choose the proper version. Use the NVIDIA website to determine what the appropriate version is. The new drivers (177.80+) will NOT work on "legacy" cards like the Geforce 4 MX series. For older cards you'll probably want the 96 series (96.43+). You can also try the version 71 series. The latest drivers are version 190.53.

We recommend you try to secure a card that supports VDPAU for video acceleration.

yum install nvidia-graphics

Note that this command will install the latest version. To install legacy version 96, do yum install nvidia-graphics-legacy-96xx. If dependencies are missing you will probably just have to wait for them to be created. Try yum install nvidia-graphics-legacy-71xx if version 96 doesn't work.

Sound setup

Fedora uses PulseAudio by default, as do many Linux distributions. MythTV does work with Pulseaudio, however, if you wish to remove it, you can run the following command to revert to using ALSA only.

yum remove alsa-plugins-pulseaudio

===Install MythTV===

Now, here's why we '''really''' like yum… MythTV has numerous required dependencies to function correctly, which are automatically taken care of with one simple command, using either repository:

<pre>
# yum install mythtv

You may run into some problems with dependencies. These can usually be resolved by removing the offending package and re-running the above command. Dependency issues can be mitigated be keeping additional (third-party) repositories to a minimum. MythTV on Fedora requires only the default repositories plus ATrpms and Freshrpms to fulfill all requirements.

Note for Fedora ...

ATrpms has a dependency issue that requires removing python-imaging that was installed by default with the distro. After removing python-imaging, mythtv installed smoothly.

Setting up drivers/Modules

Install capture card drivers

Some capture card drivers have been included by default with Fedora. The IVTV drivers required for the PVR-150/250/350 and the drivers required for the Hauppauge HD-PVR 1212 are included, for example.

Install LIRC

Note for Fedora 12 + users the default LIRC socket file name has changed to /var/run/lirc/lircd , so you will need to update MythTV Settings -> General from /dev/lircd ->/var/run/lirc/lircd and then restart mythfrontend.

Check first if lirc is installed before proceeding below...(eg find / -name lircd)

# yum install lirc

This will install the Linux Infra-Red Control package. This is a daemon which translates infra-red key presses into keyboard events, therefore you will need to configure your remote control accordingly. Some examples of the lircrc file can be found under /usr/share/doc/mythtv-$VERSION/

Update Fedora

To get your system fully updated, simply run the command:

# yum update

When you see the Transaction Summary, you will need to press "y" to begin downloading the packages.

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install      20 Package(s)
Update      79 Package(s)
Remove       0 Package(s)
Total download size: 902 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y

Since this is your first upgrade, you will also need to import the GPG key when prompted. You should only need to do this once.

Retrieving GPG key from file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
Importing GPG key 0x4F2A6FD2 "Fedora Project <fedora@redhat.com>"
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Key imported successfully

Kernel upgrades

• Note: Fedora is shipped with a specific kernel, over time bugs are discovered and corrected in new versions. If possible update your kernel to the newest one.

Among the packages upgraded just a minute ago with yum should be your kernel, to the very latest errata release. Additionally, your boot loader should have been automatically updated to use the new kernel, so all you need to do is reboot to start using the new kernel, which you'll want to do in just a minute. As of this writing, 2.6.24.3-12.fc8 is the latest released errata kernel. You should be using at least this kernel if not a newer one.

Generally speaking, you should always install the latest errata kernel, shortly after the release of which Axel should have all the needed kernel modules available. Kernel modules are not maintained for older kernels, because of two things. First, a new kernel from Red Hat usually fixes some flaw in earlier kernels (security hole or bug fix), so it is good practice not to use the flawed kernel and second, building kernel modules for every kernel would take forever and a day and cause assorted other headaches for Axel. To make providing kernel modules feasible, only the very latest one or two kernels are supported

Setup MySQL

We'll need to enable MySQL to load at startup, set some passwords, and create the MythTV database, which we'll populate shortly. The population of this database is handled by mythtvsetup in the next step, and all MythTV add-on module database additions must be done after running mythtvsetup at least one time.

# /sbin/chkconfig mysqld on
# /sbin/service mysqld start 

Set the MySQL root password.

mysql_secure_installation

Now we create the MythTV database (called mythconverg) to get us started:

$ mysql -u root -p < /usr/share/doc/mythtv-docs-0.22/database/mc.sql
Enter password:

At this point, enter the password you just set above (ROOT_PWD) when prompted. Also note, "mythtv-0.22" refers to the version of MythTV you are have installed, in this case version 0.22.

Again, all subsequent database population for MythTV's add-on modules must now be done after running mythtvsetup at least one time. It's worth customizing some parameters in /etc/my.cnf for optimal performance with MythTV.

These adjustments to my.cnf under the [mysqld] section improve performance with both MythTV (especially in the GUI) and MythWeb:

key_buffer = 16M
table_cache = 128
sort_buffer_size = 2M
myisam_sort_buffer_size = 8M
query_cache_size = 16M 

Setup MythTV

Recall what your video device was set up as (likely /dev/video0). Note that the actual device number is not what determines what order MythTV will use your cards in. What matters is the order that you enter them in mythtvsetup, so your best card doesn't have to be /dev/video0. Set up /dev/video8 first, and it'll be the first card used for recordings.

If you are in the US, you will need a paid account with [schedulesdirect.org]. The current pricing is $20 per year. This will give you television feed data that your myth box uses for scheduling once you have localized your acct to your zip code, chosen a content provider service and then set your channels from the webpage. There are a few other ways to get your data, but these are outside this document support scope and the lsitings are not as accurate or as reliable.

Now on to launching the MythTV setup utility. For this part, you need to have an X session started up, as the setup utility is an X application. Fire it up like so:

$ mythtv-setup 

I'm told that non-U.S. folks may have issues correctly getting through the tv_grab_xx/xmltv part of the setup if "focus follows mouse" is already set (in KDE's Control Center), so keep that in mind. Just set "focus follows mouse" when everything else is already configured.

chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/libmyth*.so*

Those using a dedicated /video partition, per my example, should obviously set /video/recordings for storage of recorded shows. However, you can do pretty much whatever you like here, such as recording to an NFS or Samba mount, a software RAID array. Just make sure your mythtv user has permission to read and write to whatever location you choose.

It is highly recommended that you go through the setup steps in order. Follow the on-screen instruction, with aid from the MythTV website's documentation on this page:

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-9.html

Note: your system may appear to hang at step 3; give it time, it isn't locked up, that part just takes a while!

Once you've gone through the setup, you have to populate the MythTV database with some program info. I spent a good long time tweaking my channel lineup on schedulesdirect's site to remove all the junk channels I didn't really care to have show up. Once you have your listings to your liking, you're ready to fill your database with programming info. You must start up the backend first, we'll set it to autostart later.

$ mythbackend &

Assuming all goes well and the process doesn't exit on you (if it does, check out the troubleshooting section below), lets get some guide data:

$ mythfilldatabase 

If you're using a guide data source other than SchedulesDirect (i.e., anyone outside the U.S. and Canada), you may well need to add a "--manual" flag to the end of that command to get it to work. Look at the output of "mythfilldatabase --help" for more clues if you have problems.

Also, be patient! This step can take a fairly long time, depending on your internet connection speed and how many channels your service provides... To get automatic updates of programming data daily see below for configuration in mythfrontend.

Now start up the MythTV front-end (I recommend doing this in a separate shell window, so you can distinctly see the different output for the backend and frontend processes)...

$ mythfrontend 

There are various options within mythfrontend that you can tweak...a lot of this is covered by other parts of the wiki.

It is recommended to use the built in features of MythTV to have mythfilldatabase updated automatically. After starting up mythfrontend, enter the Setup > General screen and advance to "Mythfilldatabase", the fourth screen. Select the checkbox, then complete the options as you see fit. If using SchedulesDirect for programming data, selecting the option to allow the scheduler to recommend the next mythfilldatabase option and changing the allowed update time to be from 0 to 24 is best as it allows SchedulesDirect to balance the load on their servers. After setup the mythbackend program will now run mythfilldatabase for you.

Configure startup

The necessary init script for the MythTV backend to automatically start at system boot is already in place for you, just simply turn it on:

# /sbin/chkconfig mythbackend on

If the backend isn't already running, save yourself a reboot and issue this command:

# /sbin/service mythbackend start 

You can list which scripts are started by issuing the command:

# chkconfig --list

It might be worthwhile to kill a number of scripts that you not used. Each script in /etc/init.d contains a short explanation of what they do. You can prevent the scripts from starting by issuing the command:

# chkconfig --del <name>

Now, because I have a few things that don't seem to want to play nice anymore (i.e., nvidia-settings don't load like they should, alsa volume levels aren't restored), I decided to create a quick little shell script in ~/.kde/Autostart/myth-load.sh to handle loading up all the extra goodies I need/want to auto-start, as well as force stubborn things to work. This script loads my nvidia settings, restores alsa volumes, launches irexec for my little power button script (on the Tips 'n' Tricks page), then launches mythfrontend, all in one fell swoop. Just copy and past all this into ~/.kde/Autostart/myth-load.sh (adjust accordingly for different desktop environments):

#!/bin/bash

# Only do this stuff if we're on the main display
# (i.e., don't do this in a vnc session)
if [ `echo $DISPLAY | grep -c ":0"` -ge 1 ]
then
    # Load nVidia driver custom settings
    nvidia-settings --load-config-only &
    # Restore audio settings
    /usr/sbin/alsactl restore
    # Launch irexec for myth power button stop/start
    irexec &
    # Launch myth welcome 
    mythwelcome &
    # Disable dynamic power management (screen blanking)
    /usr/bin/xset -dpms
    # Disable screen saver
    /usr/bin/xset s off
fi
exit 

Don't forget to make it executable:

$ chmod +x ~/.kde/Autostart/myth-load.sh 

You'll also have to set autologin for your mythtv user. You'll have to get a root terminal open then:

Add the following lines to /etc/gdm/custom.conf

[daemon]
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=mythtv (or whatever user you want)

If you want a timed login, try:

[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=true
TimedLogin=mythtv
TimedLoginDelay=1 (Or however long you want to wait)

Fedora Version Specific Tips

Fedora 12

If analog sound doesn't work, try changing the audio device to ALSA:front, and change the ALSA:default mixer to control the Master control rather than PCM.