Talk:Installing MythTV on Fedora

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General

  • I added some notes to help with changes in Fedora 11 -Infiltrator 13:03 14 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Added some notes specific to Fedora 14. paulsid 04:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Can someone from the US update the schedules listing under MythTV-setup please? I'll move it for now under 'schedulesdirect'? --Darcy (talk) 11:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Split

Should probably split this into different docs for the different fedora releases.

  1. Hmm, but if there are no kernel modules or rpms for older versions what's the point?

Older versions past the previous version aren't updated, thus notes on the previous version are the only ones that should be kept. (This wiki should just be for the latest supported releases. Old version references should be removed (and have been) --Darcy (talk) 11:44, 16 September 2014 (UTC))

Add section to enable remote desktop access

Basically enable the remote desktop access, so that users can VNC into the box (Done for you --Darcy (talk) 11:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC))

Suggestions

ATRPMS

ATrpms can cause problems for a Fedora install, but it is one of only three valid ways to install MythTV. (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JohnMahowald/ATrpmsWarning), over come this issue by using the yum-priorities and setting the atrpms repos as a lower priority. (I have changed to RPMFusion to avoid all this --Darcy (talk) 11:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC))

MythTV for newbies

I am going through a new install of MythTV on FC10. I am a newbie to Fedora and had some difficulties following some of the instructions. Some things that would help newbies:

- Getting Fedora: by default, Fedora offers live CD packages. These don't allow some of the customizations recommended on this wiki. I would recommend to guide the user to the "Show me all download options page" (http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all) and download the full installation DVD. (Changed to only apply to the liveISO --Darcy (talk) 11:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC))

- The $KVER variable wasn't working for me (again, maybe because of my ignorance). I had to remove the '\' from the command line. Also, in most instances where $KVER was used, the intended package was not found. For example # yum install lirc-kmdl-$KVER yields the following error message: "No package lirc-kdml-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 available). (Removed this reference for clarity, not needed currently --Darcy (talk) 11:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC))

Where more help is needed, and advantages of some tests before continuing with setup

I, too, had difficulty with the instructions (under Fedora 12) and have some suggestions to reduce possible confusion:

  • I have a problem with the phrase "Recall what your video device was set up as (likely /dev/video0)" - there doesn't seem to be a point in the instructions where the video device name was mentioned. With digital tv tuners becoming more common (that will not have a /dev/video*) quite a lot more needs to be said here. I made a little change to the documentation to the effect that /dev/video0 is only for analog, but much more is needed. (Removed this to avoid the confusion --Darcy (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC))
  • The little section "Install capture card drivers" needs something said about how to know if the correct drivers have been installed, or how to work out what is needed. (Addressed this problem with lsusb / lspci and a link to linuxtv --Darcy (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC))
  • Before being told to start mythtv-setup I suggest two things are done:
    • some check to see if a card/usb device has been found and is ready for the next step. In my case I don't have any /dev/video* showing yet I do have dmesg lines that look encouraging (e.g. DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Afatech AF9013 DVB-T)...) but I see from a simple google search others have got stuck in a similar way to me, so it makes a lot of sense to have some quick checks (I wish there was a script to do them) that show up some of the more common problems before continuing, because you can waste a lot of time proceeding with mythtv-setup if things aren't right. (Added your suggestion about dmesg (connnected and initialized --Darcy (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC))
    • suggest reading the instructions (at http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-9.html or where ever) before entering the mythtv-setup command (because it takes over the whole screen and hides the next, important, paragraphs). (Will add a note but most users would have another computer maybe? --Darcy (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC))

There seems to be something missing in the documentation on that www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-9.html page - it says "Choose the appropriate settings for your particular tuner" without saying how to do that. That was the point that got me stuck for ages. I eventually went back and tried some things to see if something had gone wrong before then, and I can only guess that, if my AverMedia USB stick has been configured properly by the time I started mythtv-setup then it would display some menu of valid options for each question and so the advice to simply choose appropriate settings would make sense? I may have made some other mistake too, because the questions said to the be first asked were not asked first when I used the setup program. Maitchy 04:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC) (OK - I'll add this section in the next few weeks --Darcy (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC))

It is probably worth mentioning you need to install mythtv-docs to obtain the mc.sql required to create the initial database. I guess this is obvious to most people out there but why not make it as painless as possible an experience for total beginners. adante 30 Octoboer 2010

  • I did not require this step for mythtv 0.24-fixes under FC14, perhaps they fixed the dependencies. paulsid 04:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Under F20 the mythtv-docs is installed by default. I updated the path to the docs --Darcy (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Section Ordering

I just went through the instructions on FC14 twice (once for beta install, then again on my production drive) and if you discount the stuff that clearly is only for older versions they seem to hold up fairly well, though there is definitely room for cleanup. The biggest issue I think is that the ordering of sections could be significantly improved. Examples: package selection now occurs after boot; setting up secondary repos should be done before setting a priority on them, etc. Also some helpful steps could be added like exactly when is a good time to reboot with the new NVIDIA driver. I wrote down a detailed order on my second runthrough, and am totally willing to go through and update the page to match my experience, but I wanted to solicit opinions and/or suggestions first. paulsid 04:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC) (- I wasn't so polite. I agree and made the same changes you suggested, feel free to jump in if you're still around the traps --Darcy (talk) 11:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC))