Picked up a new Asus EEE PC. This thing is the best solution I have seen for some time. It has a Xandros based Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc. With 512 MB of RAM, WiFi and a decent video I thought why not try Mythtv on it.

Turned out to to be a very complicated install, NOT .

Open a terminal (Control + t)
#su root
enter the root password (Hint: Its the same as the password you entered when you set up the EEE PC the first time)

Add these three lines to the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

#nano /etc/apt/sources.list



#apt-get update
#apt-get install mythtv

Walk though the mythtv setup
This errored out for me. I just reran

#mythtv-setup

A bunch of error messages fly by. Ignore them as they are complaining that you haven't set up the database. Who cares, we're not running the database on this unit anyways.

Point the frontend to the IP of the server. If you don't know how to do that, check KnoppMythwiki. As my box isalready setup for remote access in the mysql conf,

Exit back to the command line
Type MythFrontend &
and watch your recordings

Haven't tried mythtv-suite yet and likely won't. I use X-Lite, which which great on the EEE btw, so MythPhone and since it has Firefox, and an RSS feeder, I don't need MythWeb, MythNews, or MythWeather.

For 399, you get a a very nice little portable unit that can play your recordings anywhere in the house.

Any idea if it can handle HD playback?

I don't have HD so I don't know, but the unit plays DVD's just fine via an external DVD drive.

I doubt that it would work over WiFi though, Mpeg2 has enough trouble over G.

I wonder if you could d/l an HD clip?

You can find some test clips here http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/spezial.shtml

Scroll down to Crawford, Emotion, Logo, and Shuttle MPGs.

I'd be interested in the results as well.

Downloaded the crawford.mpg file. Has a small amount of pixelation, but still watchable. Likely if if tweaked the driver a bit it would work better.

If this thing can run beryl, I'm sure you could get 1080i to run without pixelation.

I set up a frontend on one of these to my knoppmyth FE/BE setup. Works great, HD is too pokey. Realize that although Beryl works well, there's no XvMC available on the intel video chipset.

Really no point to run HD anyway, since the resolution is 800 x 480.

Next, if you've got a very strong signal, the wireless works great. If you dip below, say 80% (as reported by the wireless monitor) you'll get stuttering even on SD as the data rate drops back. If this happens, add another AP closer, or just plug into the ethernet port- works great that way too.