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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:34 pm 
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Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:29 am
Posts: 2419
Location: Mechanicsburg, PA
the article wrote:
You can also install KnoppMyth to a hard drive, though there are a few other distributions better suited to that task.

Your best bets for a simple, quick, and fool-proof MythTV installation from CD are Mythdora and Mythbuntu,

Mythbuntu didn't work for me. Mythdora did, but it took about 45 minutes to install, and it asked me questions that it could have figured out on its own. Then I still had to configure it for my hardware. KnoppMyth was ready to watch TV in 13 minutes.

If we want to put an end to these fluff pieces where people build their uninformed opinions on other uninformed opinions, like a house of cards, we will have to start doing our own reviews.

See this for my previous attempt at a list of criteria by which all MythTV distros could be judged. Why don't we go from there, and then test each distro against those criteria, on several sets of hardware?

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:27 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2005 10:55 pm
Posts: 3161
Location: Warwick, RI
Hi,

I think the last two comments on Human's "here", the old link, are the best. The thought of a comparison chart would be a background leisure task but it is a shame to waste such valuable resources on something that would probably not do much for the friendly KM image.

The best thing in my narrow view would be a simple well edited video. Maybe about ~15 minutes of real time (no speed up stuff) while doing some explanations as things proceeded from a boot of the cd through the basic setup to watching tv. There must be someone in the KM community that has that equipment & skill?

That would remove a lot of fear factor for those that are interested but think they may not have the skill level.

Maybe even make a second video of howto do a few simple "tweaks" with show and tell of the many features of KM? Add digikam for the cats meow for editing the gallery images, it is a menu selection for me and is all gui for those afraid of the command line.

A contest for best video production? The prise could be a personal thank you email from Cecil & Dale! An atta-boy once in awhile goes a long way :)

Mike


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 8:29 pm 
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Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:29 am
Posts: 2419
Location: Mechanicsburg, PA
mjl wrote:
The thought of a comparison chart would be a background leisure task but it is a shame to waste such valuable resources on something that would probably not do much for the friendly KM image.

The problem is that a lot of people trust these articles, and they may never check out KnoppMyth because of them. We can't make bad authors better - these people just aren't trying. We could add signal to the noise, however, if we evaluated ourselves (and possibly other distros) according to objective criteria.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 8:55 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2005 10:55 pm
Posts: 3161
Location: Warwick, RI
Hi,

One problem with trying to "fairly" evaluate different products, actually several problems.

First, most of us are already biased toward KM or we would not be here :)

Second, it would take constructive time away from making KM the best available.

Third, throwing dirt and mud usually costs in the long run (just watch the political ads)

Fourth, One big short coming of KM is the values are only spread by the users telling a friend. What would a 30 sec promo of KM do if up on U-Tube? Bet it would bring a few extra hits on http://mysettopbox.tv?

Fifth, Education will bring more people to the store than some campaigning against a less than factual "review"

As an example, LinMCE.. it is not a KM machine, not even close however it has some potentially attractive features for someone interested in total home control but did you know that even if doesn't see a pvr-350 card that it will work as frontend to a real R5F27 backend? ( I have a M$ IT friend that discovered that trick) Other than experimenting, he runs KM :)

Sorry, just my view.
Mike
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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:54 pm 
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Posts: 2419
Location: Mechanicsburg, PA
mjl wrote:
One problem with trying to "fairly" evaluate different products, actually several problems.

First, most of us are already biased toward KM or we would not be here :)

That's why the criteria would be published and made as objective as possible. Any subjective criteria are obviously up for interpretation.
mjl wrote:
Second, it would take constructive time away from making KM the best available.

True.
mjl wrote:
Third, throwing dirt and mud usually costs in the long run (just watch the political ads)

I don't think we need to throw dirt in order to show how KnoppMyth objectively compares to other distros. If anyone who uses or maintains other distros wants to add criteria, no problem. This really should be about improvement.
mjl wrote:
Fourth, One big short coming of KM is the values are only spread by the users telling a friend. What would a 30 sec promo of KM do if up on U-Tube? Bet it would bring a few extra hits on http://mysettopbox.tv?

KnoppMyth's installation process doesn't currently provide eye candy, and automation is inherently invisible, so YouTube might not be the best way to show it off.
mjl wrote:
Fifth, Education will bring more people to the store than some campaigning against a less than factual "review"

What I propose is education. There's no way for us to make the lazy reviewers do their jobs any better unless we raise the standard.
mjl wrote:
As an example, LinMCE.. it is not a KM machine, not even close however it has some potentially attractive features for someone interested in total home control but did you know that even if doesn't see a pvr-350 card that it will work as frontend to a real R5F27 backend? ( I have a M$ IT friend that discovered that trick) Other than experimenting, he runs KM :)

LinuxMCE can potentially be evaluated using the criteria I linked to earlier, but as you say, it's not intended as a KnoppMyth-like distro. The video-guided installer is pretty cool, though.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:18 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2005 10:55 pm
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Location: Warwick, RI
Hi,
Quote:
KnoppMyth's installation process doesn't currently provide eye candy

All the beauty in the world is in the "eye of the beholder" :) To me, seeing the text roll by discovering this and that, minimal errors reported, and the simple clean dialogs to bring one to the point of doing the install is my kind of eye candy. Shucks, one hardly has time to get a beer let alone drink it!

Maybe a power point (figure for mostly M$ users) presentation for an auto install would be a promo starter? It could be something that lives on the KM home page.... I don't think folks have a true sense of what Cecil & Dale have done to make things "just work"

If you want to sell something (even if it is free), you have got to advertise! We sure can't count on reviewers to get positive word out. Even Leo LaPorte told Cecil that he at least needs to put his name on the home page :) Credit where credit is due.

Mike


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:40 am 
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Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2003 6:37 pm
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Location: Whittier, Ca
Sorry, no "power point" here. I see no point comparing KnoppMyth to other distros at integrate MythTV. Nor am I interested in a reporter doing an article comparing KnoppMyth to other distros. That would be no better than the bias I saw in the last story. I don't care about the numbers that can flock to KnoppMyth. I care about doing the best that I can. If the users come, they come. It nice to see KnoppMyth talked about in a positive light. I certainly don't like it when KnoppMyth is obviously not given a fair shake in the media.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:06 am 
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Joined: Mon May 10, 2004 8:08 pm
Posts: 1891
Location: Adelaide, Australia
If you build it, they will come. Now where have I heard that before.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:41 pm 
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Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:20 am
Posts: 21
Location: Vancouver, B.C. Canada
I recently tried out both Mythbuntu and MythDora when I was having lots-o-problems, and wanted to see if a different Unix kernel would make any difference. It was fruitful, in that I discovered (and was able to fix) a few hardware problems that were really at the root of my problems.

I've been using KM for several years now, though I'm certainly no expert. That said, the MythDora install was pretty darn easy. I'd have to get rid of my pre-knowledge of KM to really be fair in comparison... but eye-candy aside, both KM and MythDora are pretty quick and easy to install (I was not able to get Mythbuntu to work, and I think I and some other users have identified an installer bug that stopped us very early on).

But, what I WILL say, is that once installed, KM was much easier to actually get fully working. The INSTALL is only one part of making a fully happy media center. This is something a casual reviewer would probably miss. A couple points... MythDora's security setup was pretty odd... I had major problems getting sound output... etc. I quite quickly realized to match my KM setup was going to be a LOT of extra post-install work in MythDora (Though I did like the nice icons on the desktop to run Myth-setup and launch the front-end.... for a newbie, that was great!)

Also, I really appreciate R5F27... the installer has been greatly cleaned up. For a newbie, that is crucial. In previous builds, I simply followed notes of more advanced users to get me though... but it was by no means easy, had I not had that support as a reference. R5F27, while maybe not as 'pretty', I think is every bit as easy as MythDora was to just do the install aspect. My only comment would be that for a newbie, having more or better commentary about how, what, and why during the install never hurts.

Thanks to all who have been working hard to make KM so great!

-Steve


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