I have bought an Via Epia M10000N, and would like to let this act as FrontEnd with boot over LAN on my backend.

To make a smoothless and simple install of both Linux and MythTV, I find KnoppMyth a good choise.

But according to Larry in LinPVR, KnoppMyth might not include a FrontEnd / BackEnd version of MythTV. Could someone verify this?

If KnoppMyth has the possibility of FrontEnd/BackEnd, will it then be possible to install MiniMyth afterwards?

MiniMyth seems to be based on a server runing MythTV 0.15.1. Is it important to use exactly 0.15.1, and if positive, which KnoppMyth release contains this MythTV version?

Mogens

1) I do not know of any mythtv version or derivative that does not operate in a frontend backend configuration, so yes knoppmyth definitely does.

2) Knoppmyth is currently on version 0.16, and shortly will be moving to version 0.17 of mythtv. I think R4V4 had version 0.15.1, but don't quote me on that. and yes the frontend/backend versions must match.

3) not sure how much work it would take to install minimyth on knoppmyth. I haven't heard of anyone doing so, though it would be interesting. It's a pity that minimyth is lagging so far behind on mythtv version.

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Xsecrets

I can verify that it is possible to setup R4V5 as separate backends and frontends. If the protocol versions of MythTV match then a different distro should be able to connect to your KnoppMyth backend.

Currently I'm trying to get netbooting to work too. I use this article:

http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=5&ArticleID=62

as an example. It's written by the same person running the LinPVR project.

At the moment I can boot my PIII laptop using PXE, start a kernel, load a initrd, setup TCP/IP networking, NFS and lirc. Next steps will be ALSA, X and of course MythFrontend. I mount /usr over NFS from my MythTV backend (R4V5) so it can use the same Myth version as the backend. This also allows me to upgrade the backend Myth version and have it immediately available to my frontend.

P.S. I just found out that a new release of MiniMyth is on it's way:

http://linpvr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=302&sid=4c8d555e6e36411f86b6c827255d5e64

I just noticed that R5 Alpha 9 has been released. Under goodies it says "Knoppix terminal server: For diskless frontends and over the network installs! "

I assume that this is KnoppMyths answer to MiniMyth.

Another thing: Do you know if KnoppMyth support the onboard MPEG-2 decoder on the Via Epia mobo's?

I have bought an M10000N, but I seriously considered SP13000 in stead. This model has better onboard graphics and sound, among other things an MPEG-4 decoder. This would be nice as I plan to save recordings in MPEG-4/DIVX. But the joker is: Will this mobo be supported under Linux?

Well the terminal server is and isn't knoppmyths answer to minimyth. Yes it's basically the same thing as minimyth, however no it does not support the mpeg2 acceleration of the epia board. at least I don't think so, although now that myth is using the unicrome driver instead of the via one and it's completely open source it's very likely that at some point it will.

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Xsecrets

I just ran into this bit while browsing through the 0.17 changelog for MythTV. I'm not sure if it says it supports the decoder or not, but it does look promising.

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You know what they say about assuming right? No, this is simply to improve upon being the best PVR solution. IMHO Currently there are no optimizations for the Epia in KnoppMyth.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

Last weekend I looked into the Knoppix terminal server feature of R5A9. Although it's a nice addition, it's not quite like MiniMyth. The MiniMyth approach suits my needs better.
The difference between the two is that the Knoppix terminal server is basically the same functionality of booting off the CD. Instead you won't need a CD drive. However the whole CD will be pulled over the net (as a compressed fs) and all autoconfigure scripts run every time and the same questions are asked every time (unless, of course, you remaster this compressed image).
With a MiniMyth like solution you have a trimmed OS just offering the very basics and customised to your hardware/network setup. This may be less flexible but personally I think it makes the perfect settopbox because it's quiet (no harddisk) and can be switched off like your audio equipment (ro mounts).

There is no best one of the two. Just choose one that suits your needs. By adding the terminal server feature to KnoppMyth choosing may have become a lot easier. It's definately a cool addon.

Thanks for your help on this. However, I am still missing something to get the big picture:

I would like to use KnoppMyth because this is a combined Linux and MythTV package, that is (what I have heard) fairly easy to install.

But is MiniMyth a competing distro, that more or less does the same (Linux+MythTV), or should I install MiniMyth on top of KnoppMyth?

The KnoppMyth organisation seems to be pretty fast to implement new MythTV releases etc., ttis is very important for me at least, so you are not constantly 2-3 releases back.

Mogens

I haven't used MiniMyth myself, but from what I understand it's aim is to be a distro that can be used to turn an Epia box into a netbooted MythTV frontend. It will require a separate backend.
If this is indeed the case, then this backend could run on any distro. Just make sure the MythTV protocol versions match.
You can install KnoppMyth on a different system. You could also decide to turn it into a frontend/backend. Just make sure MySQL is available over the network (comment out skip-networking in /etc/mysql/my.cnf) and the backend is running on the IP address of your MythTV system (instead of the 127.0.0.1 address). Once you have that going you can try and get MiniMyth running.

I booted my Epia Via MII 10k with the KnoppMythCd R4V5 and it boots fine as a frontend. But the playback is stuttery. KnoppMyth is not customized for the EPIA board and the Epia Mpeg-2 chipset.
For booting over Lan with EPIA being the front end I would look at MiniMyth. I have not gotten this to work yet but I will be working on this next.
Rich Shumaker

well if you are not in a hurry, I hear the netboot of R5 will actually work accelerated with the epia boards in the future.

_________________
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Xsecrets