I had a lot of problems installing knoppmyth (r5b7) as a front-end only machine on an old p3 machine. If I booted a frontend off the CD, it worked fine as a frontend - contacted the backend, watched live tv, watched recorded programs, etc. But if I installed knoppmyth to the harddisk (and after configuring the backend ip address, killing the mythtv-backend and mysql on the frontend machine), it could contact the backend, but it wouldn't allow me to watch anything. If I tried to watch live tv, the screen would go black for a few seconds, and then come back to the main menu. If I tried to watch the a recorded program, it would show me the recorded program listings, but if I chose one, it would pop up a window saying "The file for the recording can not be found".

Anyway, after doing a lot of google searches, I gave up and installed frontend in an unorthodox way. I booted a frontend off a CD, Ctrl-Alt-F1'ed to a root shell, then ran:

knx-hdinstall

which worked - but it doesn't fire up an xsession - after booting, it would give me a console login prompt. If I login as mythtv and run:

startx

it starts X, fires up the mythtv frontend and (after editing /usr/share/mythtv/mysql.tx to point to the backend ip address, as root), everything works fine - frontend can talk to backend, can watch live tv, can watch recorded programs, etc.

The problem for me now, is how to get mythtv to autologin and run startx. I did a lot of googling and I found a solution using mingetty, which I installed, but I couldn't get it to work. In looking at /etc/inittab in my working backend/frontend box, it doesn't appear that mythtv uses mingettty to autologin mythtv. So what does it use and what files do I have to modify to get it to work in my unorthodox frontend install? Any help or pointers would be appreciated?

Or I would greately appreciate it if anyone can tell me why my CD frontend boot can work perfectly with the backend while installing a frontend onto the HD can't (and hopefully how to fix it).

KnoppMyth uses GDM to auto login. Fluxbox in turn fires off mythfrontend. The issue you describe and the method you go about trying to fix it don't make sense. Since the frontend isn't appearing to communcate with the backend, did you try running mythfrontend from an xterm to see the output?
Then you're on your own. Sorry, there are reason we have our own installers. But since you're so apt at Google... Given the information above, you should be able to get this working. Sorry, I'm not going to hazard a guess at what else may need tweaking.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Now GDM has gone in R5E50, how does KnoppMyth auto login now?

In the 'E series' (R5E50 for public release) see the last line in /etc/inittab where it spawns off '/bin/su' & starts X, etc.