OK, in a few months, I'll be able to replace my current desktop PC with a laptop--hopefully a MacBook Pro. That leaves me with a box sitting around that has no REAL use... so I figure, "Hey, I'll be in a dorm room, having a TV built into a PC would be useful." I love the PVR functionality that Knoppmyth would provide, and it'll work one hell of a lot better than my current setup (which is windows with TV watching occasionally).

Unfortunately, I'm a complete linux newbie. I can't find my way out of a paper bag, to be honest, though I'm generally competent with computers overall. I figure I might as well check my hardware configuration to make sure there won't be any issues working with Linux in general and KnoppMyth in specific.

I know there's some issue with TV-Out on ATi video cards, but I plan on using a monitor for output anyway, so...

Without further adeu, my current hardware configuration.

Intel Celeron 2.0GHz processor
640MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM
ECS motherboard with onboard sound and ethernet
ATi Radeon 9200
ATi TV Wonder Pro (I think--that's what Windows Device Manager calls it, though it didn't come with a remote. By the way, is this a hardware-based encoder, or a software one?)
Firewire and USB2.0 PCI cards
Lite-On DVD-RW drive
Generic CD burner
20GB and 80GB hard drives
20GB 3G iPod, hooked in via Firewire and used as a firewire hard drive
USB mouse (Microsoft IntelliMouse)

Are there any potential problems with this setup? Anything I should be aware of, or things that ought to be replaced if I can find suitable analogues?

I'm also considering picking up a second tuner card (not sure which type yet--price is an issue), for the sake of doing two recordings at once. Also, the multi-HDD setup wouldn't be problematic--I can set up the system software on one drive and the encoded video on another, right?

Thanks in advance. I'm eagerly anticipating turning this rig into a MythTV box, and I want to make sure I won't have too much trouble when the time comes.

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6321
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=HardwareConfigs

- The ATI video card will make your life harder. The issue is not just TV out, but working Xv support.
- The Capture card is a YUV type or software encoder.
- The USB mouse (and/or keyboard) may suffer annoying issues
- Oh and having two optical drives may confuse the cd_link.sh script.