MythDora — MythTV 0.2 In a Box

peterdaly writes "MythDora 3 is the first MythTV 'in-a-box' style distribution to include MythTV 0.20. Based on Fedora Core 5, MythDora 3 is designed to format your hard drive then install everything needed for a fully functional MythTV System. Here is a walkthrough of the entire MythDora installation process, including screenshots and a screencast."

Um...KnoppMyth?

How, other than being based on Fedora, is this any different from KnoppMyth? It runs as a LiveCD and will then (if you want it to) install itself onto your hard drive, doing all the requisite steps.

I'm not panning MythDora, but it just doesn't seem totally unique, unless I'm missing some critical thing about it.

Re:Um...KnoppMyth?

Well, right now MythDora using Myth 0.20 and KnoppMyth (Which I use, and prefer) is on 0.19. Aside from the Debian vs Fedora, that's the main difference I think. The issue I had with MythDora was that it ships with a single-processor kernel, SMP disabled. KnoppMyth worked with my simple SMP rig right outta the box, no recompilation required. If you care and find yourself with nothing better to do, and trust me there are far better things to do, my read on it is on my website [yeraze.com].

Re:Um...KnoppMyth?

For a backend machine that will be performing recording, commercial detection, and transcoding, possibly of one or even multiple HD streams simultaneously?

MythBuntu would be cool

Nothing against MythDora, but after getting burned by Fedora far too many times I don't want to go near anything Fedora-based. Basing off of Ubuntu would rock.

Crazy kids and their (Myth)Dora

Enseñemos a nuestros cabritos a utilizar Linux con Dora!

Why does Myth think it's an OS

Why not just install Fedora and then "yum install mythtv"? Why has installation of Myth always been non-trivial? Now it's to the point where someone would rather format and install the entire OS...

Re:Why does Myth think it's an OS

There are many dependencies needed to provide a fully-functional set-top box affair - video codecs, players, DVD apps, games, tuner card drivers, version of X, fonts issues etc. Even an educated linux user can find a mythtv install daunting, so packages like this are a godsend.

Also I'd imagine that most mythtv installs are deployed on single-use machines - the set-top box that does TV and nothing else. Thus Knoppmyth or this example are very much useful. Just slap it on and go.

Re:Why does Myth think it's an OS

Because there are so many extra components you need. Outside media players, codec libraries, driver packages, various MPEG decoding/encoding libraries, etc, etc.

I tried getting MythTV installed from the Knoppix disc. Plenty of things didn't work. It took me a few days to track down DVD playback problems. I then had to mess with getting the NVIDIA binary drivers installed and xconf configured properly. And then after that I still didn't have sound support (lack of drivers for my onboard soundcard). Oh, and I still had to deal with subscribing to a program guide service (with a one month renewal process). It got to the point where it was no longer worth my time. $150 for Windows MCE, and $40 for the NVIDIA mpeg encoder and I was up and running with everything working within a few hours.

People who want to use MythTV or Windows MCE, for the most part want it run as a dedicated Tivo-like appliance. They are going to be doing little if any desktop computing on it. For that reason, it makes perfect sense to have a full OS configured specifically for it, with default large fonts and display in the GUI, drivers and codecs pre-installed for most media types, auto-boot directly into the TV/Media interface, etc.

Sure, it's nice to be able to install something like this on top of your pre-existing, pre-configured OS. But for most people who want to use this technology, they'd rather wipe the machine and start clean.

Re:Why does Myth think it's an OS

No you didn't. For simple TV viewing as you suggest, you can use the vesa X11 drivers and it'll output on every possible output

And how was I supposed to know this. Why wouldn't I assume that the NVidia drivers are going to be the best solution for my NVidia card? And knowing this obscure technical item doesn't mean I know the obscure solutions to the other problems, let alone the problems I anticipated having (like optical digital audio support or swapping out the analogue CRT TV for a digital LCD with HD) that I never even got to the point of being able to work on.

Sure, I could have spent a lot more time finding solutions to all the issues that I had. And I probably would have figured them out eventually and increased my knowledge of Linux at the same time. But there comes a point where I don't have time, and a commercial solution becomes much more attractive. I would have loved to have the OSS solution in place. And in the future, when I would really want some of the MythTV-only features (like one machine doing the recording/storage, and as many front-end devices as I'd like) I'll probably come back and take another look at it.

It's like the old adage: "Linux is only free if your time isn't worth anything."

My 2 cents

If you're willing to install a linux distribution in your living room you should give Pluto [plutohome.com] a try. It incorporates myth and many more from media to home automation and is a free as in beer Debian based Linux.

It's MythTV 0.20

Kudos to the Slashdot editors that totally screwed up the version... And for arguments sake, I hope this is not MythTV 0.20, I hope it's 0.20-fixes. Since the Myth devs never put out a release that's worth anything all of us distro packagers have to constantly keep on top of all the patches that are necessary to actually make MythTV function.

Nothing to see here... This is nothing newer then KnoppMyth but in a Fedora shell.

Maybe it's just because I have kids...

The first image that came to mind on reading the title was a MythTV box dedicated to recording episodes of "Dora the Explorer." And then my brain let out a primal scream, because if there is one thing I don't need in my house, it's more Dora.

(totally OT now)

I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map.....

I'M THE MAP!


*proceeds to play Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver*

Or simply yum it

I'm running mythtv on fc6 after simply adding atrpms to the repo list and doing a yum install mythtv*

DirectFB

Does anyone know if MythDora supports a DirectFB install? I can't seem to find any conclusive information on whether Myth 0.2 even supports this anymore.

MTIA

soap

Core 6 mythtv in my living room

I'm running a Fedora Core 6 box in my living that runs mythtv full time and is serving me as general purpose linux box. It's working out very well for me, (though admittedly I'm a bachelor and have no wife in charge of my decor). Twinview with myth on the TV and computer stuff on the monitor. With mythweb running, it can't be beat.

It's easy to set up. "yum install mythtv-suite" installs -all- the myth packages including mythweb and such. Pretty minimal configuration involved. I'd say that starting with a blank box I'd just built, it took me about 4 hours to install Fedora and myth both from scratch.

MythDora won't install for me.

I tried installing MythDora on a Dell XPS 410. Didn't work. Knoppmyth wouldn't install either.

The problem is that my desktop has no legacy interfaces. In particular, the DVD drive is SATA, and the keyboard is USB. Knoppmyth and Mythdora cannot currently handle installing from a SATA optical drive. Knoppmyth kindly popped me out to a shell when it couldn't find the installation source directory, but the drivers for the USB keyboard apparently hadn't been loaded, so I couldn't type anything anyhow.

I'm currently installing Myth 0.20 over Fedora Core 6 with the help of the MythTV on Fedora HOWTO [wilsonet.com] by Jarod Wilson. It's been very helpful, but I still find myself spending a lot of time tweaking things to get everything working correctly. MythTV installation is just plain hard.

A little off topic but...

It's great that there are projects out there to setup the software and all but I could use some help in picking the right hardware. I don't want a noisy box rattling away while I'm using MythTV.

Can someone give a few links that allow someone to gather the hardware that will look good, work well and be totally silent?

Myth is frustrating on every out-of-the-box distro

. . . and considering that Fedora 5 comes with 2.6.16 (at best) it's not likely to fare any better on current-generation hardware. I'd still have to download the vanilla kernel, track down any vendor-specific optimizations, merge those in if the process isn't too time-consuming, then figure out which combination of kernel modules/firmware/tuner settings work with each rev of each card. Combine that with the suck that is Hauppauge -- I bought a PVR-150, chose it over the PVR-500 because I was skeptical and now I'm glad I saved my money on the dual tuner card. With a 500ms or so delay on the display it renders the cable guide totally worthless -- and you have a recipe for a craptacular HTPC. I then ordered an uber-cheap-but-easy-to-configure MSI TV@nywhere, and I had that card up and running in literally five minutes, compared to 3-4 hours of trying various firmware and tuner setting combinations with the Hauppage. Not only that, the MSI does hardware MPEG2 encoding, hardware-assisted MPEG4, plus NO appreciable delay in the display. Not only that, the MSI works with standard TV apps like xawtv and kdetv, whereas the Hauppauge works ONLY with Myth.

Or, install Windows Media Center and have it all work out of the box. MythTV may be GORGEOUS and offer tons and tons of functionality Windows Media Center will never provide, but Windows Media Center can be installed and fully configured out of the box in a half hour to 45 minutes.

I like Myth, really, and plan to put time into getting it to work perfectly, but it's hard to put aside an entire day to devote to setting up a TV/PVR application.

Typical !

Here I am installing FC5 as I speak, specifically to set up MythTv.

I have tried getting my tv cards working on a currently installed FC4 but had no real luck, and didn't fancy ruining a perfectly functioning media server just to experiment. The cards definitely work BTW (dvb_bt8xx Zarlink MT352). I have a spare HD so I tried installing a live cd [tlm-project.org] version of PCLinuxOS which has been remastered to concentrate on MythTV. Unfortunately, the damn installer kept complaining that I needed to reboot to make the changes to fstab before I could format the drive. After every reboot the drive was still not set up, and the partitions had been rearranged. When run as a live cd the mythbackend can't write to the dbase because it's on a read only mount point ! So I gave up on that and decided to follow the instructions here [wilsonet.com]. I went for FC5 because I already had it on dvd. But the initial yum update was 700 MB and so it's still running. I haven't got much further yet, so I may investigate this new distro.

Mac Mini as PVR?

I don't want a big, noisy computer next to my TV. I've priced out the components for making low noise small form factor rigs, but it seems that a Mac Mini is cheaper. Could it be used?

Three tries for a quarter Slashdot Editors!

The version number in the topic is STILL wrong... first it was 2.0 and we all commented... now it's 0.2. MythTV 0.2 is several years old. They're on MythTV 0.20. Are you guys publish an article about Verizon being terrible with numbers?

iMediaLinux has had MythTV .20 for a while...

iMedia Linux [imedialinux.com], a division of mini-box.com [mini-box.com] has had MythTV .20 in their latest release of iMedia MythTV [mini-box.com] distribution for a couple weeks now.

And like many before me, what is so special about MythDora? If I want to do a MythTV install I'll use the iMedia distro (SFF / small install footprint) or KnoppMyth.

Now I wish I could get my Torrent Shows on Myth

I use TED to download the TV shows I miss, I wish there was a plugin for MythTV to have shows downloaded and added to my MythTV Box.

Re:Now I wish I could get my Torrent Shows on Myth

YOU CAN! Here's how I do it. Every Myth setup has a Video section. This is a file browser that will launch mplayer or your media player of choice. In the Video Setup secion, it will ask you to define the directory for video (this is separate from your Myth recorded TV shows). Specify a directory (mine is /video/movies). Then all you have to do is just place some media in that folder. If you're downloading a DVD rip of a tv show from BitTorrent, you will be downloading a folder containing mulitiple mpeg's or avi's. Simply tell bittorrent to save the files to your MythTV video directory and the files will automagically appear in the Video browser.

In my apartment, the MythTV system acts as my file server. The /video partition (where all of the mythv media sits) is shared out to the rest of my computers via NFS. Using the computer in my office, I can browse for torrents and download them directly to the shared folder and then enjoy them from the living room couch. This is also great for my mp3's and oggs. All downloaded or ripped music goes to the Myth box and then you can listen to music either at my desk with xmms, in the living room through the stereo system and MythMusic, or from the laptop in any room (or even outside while in range of my router). The great thing about Myth is that it is a server for ALL of your media.

The wonderful thing about distros

... is anyone can make their own. I just finished one based on Ubuntu Edgy. It's more hardware and configuration specific, though -- it installs MythTV 0.20 as a combined system, the pcHDTV-5500 drivers, the nvidia driver, and LIRC. It also pre-configures MythTV with the pcHDTV-5500 card.

No cablecard support = dead end for linux PVR.

Well, open source linux PVRs. Closed source Proprietary Linux PVRs like Tivo will be available for a subscription fee.

What we need is to hire some lobbyists to get the US government to mandate that the standard be opened up. Otherwise we're going to be stuck with Standard Def and over the air HD.

No Dish, DirectTV, or cable High Def.

I'd throw a couple hundred $'s in.

This is an incredibly bad installation...

There are three discrete steps separated by reboots. There are about twenty pieces of information that the system could either (a) guess defaults, (b) probe for hardware during setup, or (c) leave for a built-in configuration tool run ex post installo. If this is what passes for easy, I'd hate to see hard... Never mind, I've seen hard on Linux before.

The bottom line is if Linux folks (and make no mistake, I am one myself) keep deluding themselves about what's "easy", we're not going to gain acceptance for a long time. This process is not easy. It may be "easier" than taking a standard Linux installation and installing MythTV on it, but it's not easy.

Been down this road!

Having started with Knoppmyth, and then moved briefly to Mythdora, I settled in on a manual compile of Myth 0.19 on Suse 10.1. It was this configuration that worked best for me - because I had invested in 2 PCHDTV HD-5500 tuners. I could not get them working in Myth 0.20 at all, and finally made them work in 0.19. The feature set between the two is minimal, with 0.20 being a lot of fixes and optimizations, so there's not a lot of love lost.

Myth is not an easy thing for even the experienced admin to make work. Because of the dependencies and the hardware involvement, this is more than just installing an application and having it work. For people new to the Myth infrastructure, it's actually rather nice to have a live CD install everything that's necessary. For 90% of the folks wanting to try it, they're going to have a dedicated PC for it anyway. Of course, if you want to just throw in a tuner card and try it that way, you can compile it too.

If you're a Suse person, you can check out a HOWTO I put together for 10.1 and PCHDTV cards here [pchdtv.com]. It covers all the stuff one has to do to make a Myth box work with HD under Suse 10.1. While there are RPMs available for Myth 0.20 on Suse 10.1, the package doesn't support HD, which is what my project was specifically designed to be.

If you do plan on doing HD - be vigilant in your hardware selection! HD playback takes a considerable amount of computing horsepower. I really recommend getting an nVidia 5200 card for playback - not only are they super cheap, and sometimes fanless (read: noiseless), but they also support the nVidia XvMC playback driver, which accelerates MPEG2 streams, offloading decoding from your processor. It also does a fine job at Bob2X deinterlacing, required for watchable HD.

MySQL is t3h suck

Wake me when MythTV starts supporting Postgres.

Re:Typo: Myth is at .20 not 2.0

Typo: Myth is at .20 not 2.0

That's the same number, right [slashdot.org]?

Re:Linux 3.0 ANNOUNCED - ready b y Q1

what is this obsession with version numbers. FYI we went from 1.3 straight to 2.0. I consider current 2.6 to actually be a 2.0. the mapping is as follows

2.0 -> 1.4
2.2 -> 1.6
2.4 -> 1.8
2.6 -> 2.0

to get to 3.0 we have to have 5 more even numbered releases.

Re:umm? Easy!?

Have you ever actually set up a full MythTV system that is both a frontend and backend? Because if you have, you would reallize that yumming mythtv will only get you about half way. This command will put the mythtv software on your computer, but it will not configure your remote, it will not set up the mysql database, and it will not configure the software itself to recognize your cable service, picture settings, display type, etc. MythTv is by far the most difficult project I have ever undertaken in Linux. Plus, don't forget about all of the preparation before you even run that little yum command you speak of. There is lots of research to do and decisions to make. What kind of hardware? What Linux distro? How should you partition your hard drive, and what filesystems to use? Is this a frontend, a backend, or both?

For those out there considering a MythTV install, don't be misled. MythTV is a huge undertaking for even an advanced Linux user. But don't let me discourage you either. For those who like a good challenge and like to tinker, and like to create something none of your friends and neighbors have, it is a lot of fun and you will learn a ton. My suggestion is to do your homework in advance. Find out what hardware configuration will give you the smoothest install. Building your own computer from scratch where you have hand picked EVERY component will be the path of least resistance. The more oddball parts involved, the more difficult it will be.