Linux help for a Linux Noob

[HTM|Minion]

I'm looking to build a media center pc using "Myth TV" and I'm wondering if my ATI x850xtpe card is going to work with Linux?

I'm also wondering how the heck you install Linux, they keep talking about "compiling" and I'm not sure what that means.

And finally, is there any certain distro that I should use for this? I read somewhere about one called "Notmyth" that is made for MythTV, but then others say you can use any distro.

This PC will be used for recording broadcast TV with an Hauppauge 350 tv card and a P4 3.2 with 2 gig of ram.

[HTM~Par]

Ooo MythTV rocks!

I have a mythtv box set up right now on my old PC. There are some distributions of MythLinux (Mythdora, knoppmyth, and others) that work great and install everything you need. Personally, I use mythdora (http://www.mythdora.com/?q=download) I can try to help with the basic setup, but not at the moment. I am nearing finals time and have quite a bit of work to do, especially since I have to go to a Comp Sci conference in South Dakota Thurs-Sat (that cuts my time to do homework significantly, so my free time suffers).

I would be glad to answer any questions you have, Min, either in this thread or as a PM. I can probably answer the questions or at least be able to direct you to where to find the answer.

another MythTV user, yay!

As a small hint, once you do get mythtv setup and are confident with the basic use/setup of the machine and the linux environment, you will need a tvguide service to get the data if you want to set up auto recording of programs. The best, and most basic service (http://www.schedulesdirect.org/) cost $20 per year or $5 per 2 months, but I believe you can get a 7 day free trial somehow.

Another version of mythlinux to try is mythbuntu (http://www.mythbuntu.org/). I have never tried it, but I have heard that ubuntu is very user friendly for people who are new to linux.

Lastly, for general linux questions, I bet assraker knows a hell of a lot more than I do, and he could probably help you as well.

[HTM|Minion]

I'm downloading MythDora-10.21-I386-DVD, I'll let you know how it goes. Let me know when you are finished with your finals and I'll bother you then. Thanks Parl!


I loaded MythDora and all I can say is wow.. it installed super easy and looks great! I ripped a couple DVD's with it and one CD and it was like greased lightning.

I'm off to get my TV card now and get this thing connected to the HD TV.

[HTM|Minion]

Ok.. so me and Linux are not getting along so well. I finally gave up on trying to get my ATI card to work with the TV and switched to a 6200 Nvidia. Now I have TV support, but the resolution won't go beyond 1024 when I need 1920.

I'm also having issues keeping my settings in the config files for some reason so I can't get my remote to function properly. I'm loading it for the fifth time as I type hoping I overlooked something again..lol.

[Coyote]

Whew. Good luck with that, Min. I set up Mythbuntu a while back (~2 yrs ago) so I could transfer some old video on VHS to DVD. I eventually cobbled it together to get it working but it was troublesome to the extreme. After transcoding the few tapes I wanted, I shut it down never to run it again. I hope it's gotten a bit easier to use since then.

[HTM|Minion]

I've made a little progress, I discovered what was causing the remote to not function. Apparently I made a mistake when creating the mysql database, once fixed the remote functions great (yay).

Now I have more roadblocks, I get a "freedesktop.org.blah.blah.blah" error when I attempt to eject a dvd that has been previously mounted. This happens if ejecting from the machine or through the software. I swapped the dvd player but that had no effect.

I'm also having problems getting my resolution scaled properly at 1920x1080 for the tv, I see that I have to edit the "xorg.conf" file to accomplish this, but when I tried a few tips I found on the internet I royally screwed things up and now I have no TV display at all even after reinstalling..lol.

I'm updating the OS at the moment, maybe it will fix some bugs (while adding new ones I'm sure).

I'm not one to walk away from a challenge, but this thing has robbed me of sleep for the last 3 nights and I'm taking a break.... (after the update)

[HTM|Minion]

Victory!

I switched to "Mythbuntu" and this distro has a wonderful frontend to set up your TV-out settings. I currently have it set at 480i, and it looks pretty good (DVD quality). All the function including the remote (I'm using a Windows Media Center remote) function great.

I've ripped a few CD's so far and two DVD's ( some won't rip due to copyright protection) and all is well.