Installing MythTV on Debian Etch
This is a Tutorial to install MythTV on a Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 ('etch') machine.
Contents
Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 ('Etch') Base System Installation
Download the netinst disk for your favourite platform from http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ or one of the mirrors.
- Boot the target PC from the Debian CD
- At the Debian Boot Screen, hit enter
- Choose language, Country or Region, Keyboard Layout
- Choose a servername and domain.
- Accept automatic partition changes
- Install GRUB to the MBR
- Reboot
- Debian start its post install configuration routine
- For Time Zone, I chose Eastern
- IMPORTANT: do not use the username "mythtv". The user "mythtv" is reserved for use by mythtv
- Enter your new root password and a new user account,
- Add ftp.debian.org
- Uncheck Desktop; Check Web Server, SQL Server, & File Server
- Configure the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) by accepting the default settings
- The Debian Netinst installer should now leave you with a login screen.
MythTV Installation and configuration
MySQL
become root
su -
now at first we need the mysql server:
apt-get install mysql-server
now set the mysql root user password
mysqladmin -u root password yourpasswordhere
Sound
For sound, I ran
apt-get install alsa-base alsa-utils alsaconf
IvTV driver packages
If you need ivtv for your TV Tuner, then run (NOTE: The following command is one line long. The `uname -r` part is placing your specific linux kernel version, so you may run into trouble if you have compiled your own kernel, in which case you should run 'apt-cache search ivtv' and find the correct modules for your system. You will also need to keep an eye on the 'linux-source-2.6.18' package, and be sure that you are getting the correct version.)
apt-get install ivtv-utils ivtv-modules-`uname -r` linux-source-2.6.18 linux-headers-`uname -r` module-assistant
Note: If ivtv-utils is not found in apt, you may need to add the contrib packages to your sources.list file
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch contrib deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch contrib
If you are using a Hauppauge PVR-150 TV Tuner, then get latest pvr-150 firmware from http://dl.ivtvdriver.org/ivtv/firmware/ and put the *.fw files (except the usb-related files, indicated by their filenames) in /lib/firmware, then run
modprobe ivtv
Please note: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 comes with IVTV version 0.8.2. If for some odd reason you need newer IVTV drivers, then the two options are:
1) Grab the latest greatest out-of-the-box packages from 'sid'.
2) Build the IVTV drivers from source as described on the IVTV wiki page
Both are not explained in detail over here.
Linux Infra Red Remote Control lirc
Please see LIRC_on_Debian_Etch.
Graphical User Interface (GUI): X.org
In order to run X, I ran (The last entry, fluxbox, is the window manager. It is up to you to decide which window manager you want to run.)
apt-get install xfonts-base xbase-clients xserver-xorg xfonts-75dpi fluxbox
After installing X, you will need to modify your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
Getting MythTV
Out-of-the-box packages
Add two more sources to /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ etch main deb-src http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ etch main
Before we can use apt, we must import the gpg keys for the site
gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv-keys 1F41B907 gpg --armor --export 1F41B907 | apt-key add -
now we can get the rest of the needed package to build myth via:
apt-get update apt-get build-dep mythtv
Now you can get mythtv:
apt-get install mythtv
and if you want extras you can search for them with
apt-cache search mythtv
Building from source
If you really insist building yourself:
add your user to the staff group so you get write permission to usr/local now after logging in as a user (DON'T USE ROOT) do this:
svn co http://cvs.mythtv.org/svn/trunk/mythtv
This creates a folder called mythtv where the actual sources are in.
cd mythtv
and compile it with something like:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --arch=athlon-xp --enable-dvb --enable-dvb-eit make make install
The configure line above is only an example. In this example, the installation is configured to be under /usr/local. If you want to put it somewhere else, you can alter the --prefix argument. Run ./configure --help to see what options are available and necessary for you.
You will probably want to be root to run the "make install" part, though, because that target invokes ldconfig to set up shared library paths, and usually nobody but root can do this.
Starting MythTV
Set the mythtv user's password:
passwd mythtv
Log in as the mythtv user, then start an X session:
startx
Open up XTerm and run the MythTV Setup program:
mythtv-setup
After configuring MythTV, you can start the MythTV Backend:
sudo /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start
You will then need to pull your channel information:
mythfilldatabase
