Hi there.
I'll post here until I get everything working as advertised. In otherwords, until I have TV recording features, games, dvd playback and ripping, music archives, weather, etc. functioning properly, I will not consider the installation as working, so I consider it Tier 3.
Some background is in order.
This is precisely my second experience with Linux. My first was 5 months ago when I ran Slax LiveCD on a laptop for four hours. I have plenty of Unix experience however (IRIX, SCO) but very little admin experience. They wouldn't give me the root password in college no matter how often I stamped my feet and bawled "But I really want it!". Go figure.
This means that if you say "You have to set the permissions right on the file," I will know what to do. But if you say "Just update the drivers," I will look at you like you are slightly crazy.
I am very impressed with MythTv and the Knoppmyth in particular, and cesman or cecil should be proud of themselves.
Here is my present status:
TV Recording: under R5A10, the screen went black when I pressed "Watch TV". Under R5A12, I got static, but no tv stations. I set tuner type=39 in the appropriate file, and got reception (it's a crappy antenna, but that's not myth's fault. Or is it? You! Buy me new antenna!) REcording, pausing, etc. all work. Also, I set HorizSync to 30-50 and VertRefresh to 60 in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.
Program Guide: had to reregister with zap2it.com There's an old post in this forum that deep linked into a now defunct registration page. Just go to
www.zap2it.com and follow the links there. ALSO: you have to make sure the timezone is set properly, otherwise you'll be off by a few hours or even a day. During installation, set your timezone first, then set the time. This may be obvious to some of you, but for those of us who hear "awk"" and think birds, it isn't.
Weather: This wouldn't update until I picked a location and set it to Aggressive (I have DSL). Then it worked fine.
DVD/CD Playback/Ripping: Haven't tried yet. I'm sort of afraid, actually.
Web: works. Yay.
Games: Haven't tried.
TV-out on ATI card: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Kill me. I saw a post where some guy said he had it working, but I'm pretty sure he was hallucinating. I will keep trying, though, because I'm a masochist.
LIRC/Remote: Haven't tried yet. Note that my pvr-250 is not the one with the remote. So I bought a cheapo receiver off some dude on the street and we'll see how it goes.
So that's where things stand. If anyone can help with the the TV-out problem (by selling me a used GeForce 4, for example), I'd appreciate it. Also, I've had just about every problem discussed on this forum relating to tuner type, sync rates, screwy program guides, etc. and I have newbie-level details that may help you.
Also, any sage advice about DVD ripping that I should know about now, before I get into it and have to start drinking?
Thanks again for all the hard work, everyone.
THEY CALL ME PASTABAGEL