Ok I really didnt want to have to post on here because I thought I could figure this out myself, but I could not. Now I am hoping that I can recieve some Myth Guru advice.

I have built many custom windows rigs but never have I built one based on Linux. I dont know any of the commands. This however thanks to knoppMyth was not an issue. I successfully installed everything, so I think, and got through the setup menues finally being dropped off at the main Mythtv screen. This is where my problem lies. When I click the watch tv button all I get is static. The channel information is being displayed, you know like channel 6 Simpsons, but no picture or sound. I tested the sound by putting in a dvd and playing it. The dvd played fine and I had sound so my sound was enabled. I tried reinstalling Myth many times trying different settings but nothing worked. I will say that the only thing that I am not sure about on the whole setup is what type of cable my company is using. I have called them twice and both times they gave me an answer that they were not to sure about; but they both said that they felt it was the us cable option. My company is Cox San Diego. I am guessing it is a hardwar issue bucause I have already installed Myth and its just not working.

Here is my Mythtv Rig specs:

Athlon 1800
MSI KT4V with a Via Chipset
515mb ram
ATI Radeon 8500 AIW (this is the only card I have laying around)
2 Hauppauge 250's (only trying to get one to work first)
Western Digital 250gb IDE
Latest distro of KnoppMyth

I am using the onboard audio and onboard NIC.

As of right now I am only using a pc monitor for the display going to swich to tv after I get this thing working.

Ok I know that if you have read this far your probably saying to yourself why did this kid write a fricken novel. I just wanted to be as clear as possible. I also know that I have not only a VIA chipset but also an ATI card I dont know these could be the culprits. I just would really appreciate any advice that will help me get this thing off my test bench and into my living room.

If you read this far Thanks

Caveman tjc say - Details good! ATI bad! Newbie smarter than bag of rocks, ask good questions, good!

- Is your cards tuner getting recognized correctly by the ivtv driver? Check the logs. Search for a post by me that mentions sed and dmesg for details on how to do this.

- If your cards tuner type is being recognized correctly then try running mythtv-setup and changing the frequency set used. It's the 3rd or so screen under "General".

- Also check your X logs and see if there is a problem with the Xv extension. Search for a post by me that mentions /var/log/XFree86.0.log for details. You may want to do some horsetrading with someone for an Nvidia card if possible.

OBTW - THE AIW aspect of the ATI card may be causing part of your problem, but that's something we can explore if these simpler things don't pan out.

I'll get on those links and and figure out what your talking about before I ask anything else from you guys. Thanks for the reply.

Ok so I am finding a lot of good stuff after you pointed in the right direction. It looks like this is a pretty common problem. I am going to have to read some linux newbie guides for some commands to use. I also am not quite sure what you guys are using to access certain directories like /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv. The only thing I knew about was a bash window but this directory comes back invalid. Yeah I know if you are reading this your probably shaking your head. LOL

I did however manage to get a picture after I did the one thing I new how to access. This was changing the frequency in the setup/General. My frequency was at 10 so I just increased it to see what would happen and wuala! I now have nothing but C-span, thank god the sound still doesent work if this is the only channel im going to get.

Going to keep reading. Im pretty sure the answers are already posted in previous threads. I guess I wasnt looking hard enough.

Im going to get rid of this ATI card too. Im going to swap it with a TI4600 that my friend has wasting away in a server rig. NVida looks like the best way to go for Myth.

Thanks again!

Do an: You''ll see that it's a file not a directory.

Update:

Ok so I just ended up reinstalling KnoppMyth again and I this time the tuner worked right off the bat. The bad thing is that the tuner is still only showing C-span, but now with audio. When I change channels to something other than 3 I get snow and the channel listings. I tried changing my cable type under Myth setup but this had no affect.

I tried to edit my ivtv file but I cannot figure this out. I am using X-edit and when I navigate to the /ect/mythtv/modules/ivtv it says that the file is Read only. I dont know what to do next to edit these files. I have done multiple searches on how to edit your ivtv files but none of them talk about what they are using to edit them. Maybe I am missing something since Linux is totally new to me. You guys probably already know how to edit these things.

I have been reading a lot of the previous posts and am now startiing to unravel your Linux language cryptology, slowly building up knowledge of how to navigate.

I have read a lot of your posts tjc and I thank you for your support so far. You seem to be on every thread helping people out. I am saying this becuase I know you are busy with a lot of people and am hoping that maybe someone else could help me with the more rudamentary stuff like what I should be using to edit my ivtv files. It seems like all the other posts everybody knows already what to use.

I've got monitor eyes from all this reading!
feels good though to be learning something.

You need to be root to edit the files. Opened an xterm from the desktop (penguin on a couch) by hitting Alt-X, once you've done that you need to run the command su - (switch user - aka super user) which will prompt you for the root password. Once you're root you can edit the file with nano /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv. Running X programs as root is possible but somewhat more complicated.

OK, so after following your last post I was able to edit my ivtv file but I think that I have to update it for it to work properly.

I went to the IVTV website and was following thier tutorial (http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Howto) on how to install the the latest drivers but it is not working for me. I can wget the latest drivers and untar the driver but when I try to do this:

cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/
mv msp3400.ko msp3400.ko.old
mv tveeprom.ko tveeprom.ko.old
mv tuner.ko tuner.ko.old
mv tda9887.ko tda9887.ko.old

it doesnt work at all. They even figure that this might happen so they give you this to type in: find /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/ -name tuner.ko but again this doesnt work.

I have even tried to folow the pvr150 install guide as stated to do in previous posts in the forum but to no avail as well.

Im going to keep tyring to see if I can figure this out but figured I should post this. Maybe I am using the wrong tutorials or something. [/url]

Try:
I half suspect that you've got quote confusion. Here is what this should look like under R5A16 aside from differences in the machine name.

In bash $() is equivalent to `` (the backquote way up with ~ not the single quote with ") and less likley to be misread.

Ok perfect that is exactly what I was doing. I was using the quotations key for both of the marks. LOL

You Linux guys. Just when I start to think that Im getting it you have to use keys I didnt even know I had.

Im going to get on that asap if I can find anymore time to get away from all my homework.

Thanks tjc.