Ok, so about three years ago I built my first projector. Been using it ever since, with zero problems, but the panel is old, and there's been a lot of advances in projector building since then. So, I'm gonna start a new PJ. I'm thinking 17" vertical, nice and tall, with extra room inside for a computer. I want to build a good HTPC inside of it, for one all-inclusive multimedia machine.

I've built plenty of windows machines, but want to try something new. I've seen some talk about mythTV, and I want to try that. So, I need help choosing a distro, getting hardware compatible with it, and setting it up. Who's game? Remember, I know nothing about linux. I'd like to keep it free, at least for now, so I can decide whether or not I want to stick with linux.

I'm looking at 500GB SATA for now, possibly two of them for a terabyte. Depends what kind of a deal I can find. Also looking at getting a dual core AMD processor/motherboard. I'll get one with a PCI express slot, of course, haven't decided on a video card yet though. Anyone have any suggestions? Don't want to run into any compatibility issues. Also, just incase I change my mind later, I want to make sure that everything I buy will work for windows too. That probably won't be an issue though.

1. Distribution -- use Knoppmyth. One CD installs Linux, mythtv and several dozen Linux PVR-appropriate applications. It also automates much of the installation and configuraition process.

2. Hardware -- check out the "Hardware - Tier 1" section of this forum. It lists lots of configurations that work well.

2a. If you are doing hidef, you need a lot more processing power to
playback the recordings. Check out the DTV section of this forum.

3. Disk space -- If you are doing standard def (NTSC / PAL), 500GB is plenty of disk space. If you do HD, 500GB is a very reasonable starting point, but you may want to grow it over time depending on how many family members you have saving various episodes, etc.

3a. Hi def uses ~7GB-8GB per hour of recording.
3b. Depending on how you set it up, std def using ~1.2GB - 2GB / hour

4. Read the documentation -- it's long but makes it easier to get things right.

5. Members of this forum are very helpful, but if you have a problem I suggest you try a "search" before posting the question to see if it has already been answered. The are many useful answers on this forum.

Take a look at the Asus M2NPV-VM - http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3 ... odelmenu=1
I have 2 of these running KnoppMyth coupled with a 3200+ and an X2 3800+. HDTV playback is great using the onboard GeForce 6150 chipset.

Thanks for the motherboard tip, I'll look into that one. Asus is one of my favorite MB brands too.

So how hard is it to change distributions? Do you have to wipe the drive every time? Or can you install one over another and save your files? 500 GB is a LOT of backing up to do if I ever change my mind about what I want to run.

I've run into some information about Ubuntu with Linux MCE. Sounds interesting enough. Anyone use it and can compare with Knoppmyth?

Oh, and obviously, I want this to serve as a multimedia machine, but I don't want it to be limited to that. I'd like to have the word processor, spreadsheets, internet, video editing, picture editing, e-mail, a usable desktop style GUI, etc. I'm guessing Knoppmyth is complete with all this right? Sounded like Ubuntu would have everything I wanted and more, just wanted to make sure that Knoppmyth did too. I'll probably browse around some more and see what I can dig up.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Knoppmyth is really meant as an PVR/Media Centre appliance as compared with Ubuntu+MythTV, Fedora+MythTV or even MythDora. Though you can add other applications using Synaptic/apt-get, as I understand it, you may run into some dependency issues, nevermind, as the default / partition is 4GB, so if you are installing lots of apps, you may have problems running out of space.

I think though the best thing is download KM and the "alternatives", so you can play about with them and you can see what fits you the the best.

Bruce S.

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Updated 2019/10/26: AthlonII X2 265 Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P
16Gb PC 1866 DDR3, 500GB+2TB+4TB SATA HDD,
SATA DVD-RW Asus DRW-24D5MT , NVIDIA GeForce GT1080
Hauppauage Nova-T 500, Nova-T LinHes R8.6.1

In terms of backup, as long as you keep the recordings on a separate partition, you won't need to back them up if you choose to wipe out the partition that contains the O/S and application installs.

Marc

Alright then, sounds like I'll just make a 20 gig or so partition for the OS. Hopefully I can figure out how during the install.
I would like to experiment with different distros myself, but the projector in itself is already a large, time consuming project; as are several other hobbies of mine. I know that I'll probably just put off trying out new stuff, and end up stuck with the first thing I tried. Seems to be the way I do things usually. So hopefully, I'll try the right setup the first time.

Last time I messed with linux, I put a community version of mandrake on my pc. Had a few driver issues, but it mostly worked. I eventually gave up on it though, couldn't even figure out how to use the "file manager" type program. I couldn't figure out where all my freaking files were! There was some sort of root, then I'd just get lost.

One thing I forgot to ask was about networking. A linux machine will interface on a network with windows machines right? Share files, printers, etc? I assume it would, hopefully.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

You can share files with a Windows PC. I sometimes download replayTV recordings to my PC and then watch on the KM box.

pvfjr,

Someone has done a comparison recently on KnoppMyth compared to other distros in the Off Topic section, if I find the link later I will put it in.

Using your box as a general PC is possible, for a fact mjl does this himself, using it for Word Processing etc. What you must consider is with KnoppMyth is that it is primarily designed for being a HTPC, nothing more, but due to the nature of Linux and this software it can be extended to fit other needs.

As to sharing with Windows, KnoppMyth includes software called SAMBA. This will allow you to share your HTPC with other windows computers in your network and it will look and act just like a windows box to the network.

With your hardware could I suggest you look at the specs for the Dragon PC as this is known to work perfectly with KnoppMyth as Human puts a lot of work into getting it working.

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Girkers