Downloaded KnoppMyth and installed it on an 8GB drive in a PC with no TV tuner, just to familiarize myself with the installation while I was at work. Noticed that the install wouldn't run until I formatted the HD with Linux. No problems after that. Installed no problem though the guide data and TV display wouldn't work. (No surprises on the latter.)

So, decided to give it a shot at home. Machine config follows:

1.3 GHz Duron
40 GB Hard drive
USB 802.11b adapter
built-in 10/100 card
Monitor - Ancient garbage (runs only at 8x6 and then the refresh rate is screwy.)
ATI TV Wonder VE
Integrated SiS 3d video
CD-R(RW) DVD combo drive

I think the only way to approach this is to take it step by step until I get the entire thing working. The first step is installation.

What I tried:
1. Downloaded knoppMyth and burned to CD.
2. Used a partition manager from www.ranish.com to format and partition the drive.
3. Inserted CD and booted PC.
4. [Enter] at the boot prompt for knoppmyth
5. Selected option 2 "Auto Install"
6. Prompt for date/time/time zone
Results: For what ever reason the time zone does not take. Changed it multiple times and it still defaults to US-Pacific. Decided I'd have to change it later.
Solution: Reinstalled and changed timezone during final configuration.
7. User and Administrator Prompts
8. Finish Install
Results: I have run through this several times. On the last attempt the installation failed. Not certain if this is because I was installing on top of a previous install.
Solution: Last install worked no problems.
9. First Boot
Results: My spare piece of crap monitor was outclassed by the software and displayed multiple images and distortion. (I have experienced this before when the refresh rate was set wrong.
Temporary Solution: Attach PC to my main monitor tho I'd rather not.



10. Hardware: I also noticed my usb 802.11b adapter was not working.

Second Issue to Address:
I have an iBlitzz USB adapter. Downloaded the driver from www.iblitzz.com, however in the instructions I am to edit the /etc/modules.conf file. The entry to edit does not exist in the file. How Should I proceed?



The line in italics does not exist.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

_________________
"If I knew what I wanted to know I wouldn't be anywhere."

OK. So after a week of not hearing anything from this forum about enabling 802.11b support I tried several things. First, I downloaded the drivers from the manufacturer. In them it stated that I should make some changes to the modules.conf file. Again I looked in the file and didn't find the entries to change. So..

Out of desperation I have brought the machine into work to install mandrake 9.1 on it and give it a go from there. My hope is to have more tools for installation of hardware so that the wireless lan will function.

The Mandrake installation went without a hitch, but I was unable to get Mythtv to install, and couldn't access the default MySQl database. Followed the directions fairly closely, but no luck. It's likely I didn't configure mySQL properly. After 6 hours of working on it I decided to try Knoppmyth once more...

Popped the disk in and rebooted. If detects the disk and gives me the main knoppmyth screen. I hit enter to install, it detects my CDROM and then goes into a Cloop spasm or something and ends up hanging in some sort of panic state.

"Kernel panic: Attempted to Kill init!"

Any ideas?

Glad I already have a TIVO!

cloop errors are almost always an indication of a bad burn.
As for the modules.conf just make a file in /etc/modutils/ put the line in it and run update-modules
and the refresh rates you need to do ctrl+alt+F1 then login as root ad edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to change the refresh rates.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I recovered a disk from home that I used for an ealier install and it worked. Apparently you were correct. Thanks so much. I'll take a look at the wireless adapter thing once I get it back to where I was.

____
Glad I already have a TIVO!

On the 802.11b. The modules.conf file exists but does not have the entries I need, do I just add those entries into the file?

I had some time on my hands and decided to attempt the nuv2disc-006.tar.tar installation. Is there a way to use apt-get to install this? I am using the base Knoppmyth V4R4.1.

I do appear to be unable to shut down the computer normally at times. Afterwards I almost always get flashing keyboard lights and the computer hangs on reboot. I have had to reinstall several times to get past this.

apt-get will not install any sort of tar tar.bz2 tar.gz tgz stuff. You can just add the line to modules.conf, but what is going to happen is the next time anything runs update-modules it will kindly remove it for you. which is why I said you should put the line in a file in /etc/modutils/ then run update-modules and it will add it to modules.conf without fear of it being removed.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I was aware that apt-get would not install a tar or bz2. I guess my question was is that app available for install using apt-get and what would the command line look like to do that?

As for the second thing...Let me see if I understand. I create a modules.conf file in the /etc/modutils/ directory with the line I need in it. and then run "update-modules" from the command line?

Also, thought I had a different solution to the refresh rate, however the monitor given to me by a grateful customer for doing something no charge on their PC didn't work.

Since I have the master of the forum helping me out I thought I'd ask another question or two about hardware selection. I don't want to spend a lot of money on this machine and want to use the hardware it has. What I would like the machine to do after I finish is:

Record and Schedule TV Programs
(That's done I think - Haven't tested it yet.)

Play the programs back on a television.
Thought I'd use a VGA to TV adapter, but it would require a set of speakers for the PC.

Archive Select TV Programs to VCD

Install some type of remote.
What's the easiest solution? What's the cheapest?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

For the modules stuff just go into /etc/modutils/ dir and look around you should get an idea of what to do. I would not call the file modules.conf.

nuv2disk can't be installed with apt-get, but you can use dpkg to keep it in the package management system and make it easy. See the howtoover at the wiki, it lets you know how to go about installing it, but I haven't tested it. please update with any gottcha's.

I would say get a pvr250 non MCE(media center edition) for the tvtuner. that gets you the remote working out of the box. If you already have a card, then I think the ATI remote is rf and doesn't use lirc, so If I'm not mistaken it works out of the box too, any other one will take some work.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

OK, I looked around and saw several files referring to wlan but after looking at them there wasn't anything that said to me. "Run this, edit that." Unfortunately, I'm going to need something more specific. I have a Linksys 802.11b USB adapter, and Orinoco Silver USB adapter, and a Blittzz USB adapter to choose from in setting up the box. I feel certain the blitzz and Linksys use the same driver however.



I've looked, but don't see anything specific. I didn't have much time to browse however and may have missed it. I'll look again.



Yeah, I'm trying to keep the cost down and the best price I saw on those was over a hundred dollars. I don't want the expense to exceed the cost of a TIVO, other than what I already have invested. The MOBO has built in video but to get TV out I thought of purchasing:

XFX nVidia GeForce2 MX 400 / 64MB DDR / AGP / VGA / TV Out / Video Card

See any issues with this card? I'll have to run the audio and video into an RF converter for the TV this will be attached to, any special precautions I should take?

ok as root

in the above example linksys can be any name you want the file to have then once in you put the lines you want, exit and save. if you don't know how to use vi run vimtutor.
then as root


the nuv2disk stuff can be found at http://knoppmythwiki.homelinux.org/index.php?page=NUV2DISKHowTo there is nothing step by step though, I personally don't have a dvd burner in my mythbox right now, I would guess either no one has tried this out (not likely) or (more likely) no one has taken the time to put step by step instructions once they did.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

For now I have decided to forgoe the wireless configuration. What I have done is purchase an nvidia 440MX card with TV out. I have done the following to no avail.



ideas?

That doesn't help...you didn't specify what errors you got... Why not just run install-nvidia.sh?

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

ok I have no idea what the load v4l is, and as for the other part some of the newer nvidia drivers don't do the glx stuff properly, and you can quick fix it by commenting out load glx, of course you won't be able to use gl stuff, but not much of mythtv uses gl anyways. otherwise you could use the install-nvidia script that comes with knoppmyth, which installs the older dirvers properly. If you have to have the newer ones then I suggest you search the forums as there has been much discussion about this.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I was trying to install the newer drivers, however the older ones installed fine. I will likely test the TV out later tonight. At this point I'm trying to find the article I saw earlier in the week about getting the guide data syncd properly with the time.

_________________
"If I knew what I wanted to know I wouldn't be anywhere."