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PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:08 pm 
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Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:54 pm
Posts: 3
First off, my hat's off to the creator of KnoppMyth! You have truly done a fine job making this complex piece of software accessible to the masses.

I installed from the CD and only had to make two small changes to get my system working.

I had to add Options "TVType" "NTSC" to the via driver section of my XFree86-4.conf file to tell X to use NTSC. The default was PAL.

Then I had to edit /etc/lirc/hardware.conf and change the DRIVER variable to DRIVER=null. I am using a serial ir blaster on COM1, and this change makes it work.

My experience with with lirc is that you can't get it to work sending and receiving off the same daemon. So I ir blast with lirc, and for remote control, I bought a learning remote control from Sony for $35 and a USB IR keyboard. Then I just train the remote to use the same signals as the keyboard, and then after that it works just like the keyboard. Simple.

Sure it might cost maybe $40 or so more than using lirc with a straight remote, but for all the trouble lirc caused me, well worth the money to me to do the simpler thing.

And then of course the usual mythtv-setup stuff and I also had to run tzconfig to set my timezone right. Otherwise mythfilldatabase had my program listing way off by 5 hours... :)

That is the short version...

Long version:
I originally had my mythtv box running for well over a year from a ground up build using gentoo. It was a total PITA to get this going originally. I fought with lirc alone for easily 4 full days trying to get it working in both directions on one machine.

Plus, getting the right version of X, with the right unichrome drivers, right version of ivtv, etc, etc, etc... All told, I easily spent 2 weeks getting it to "work" and this is from someone who has used linux for a long long time.

So when mythtv box stopped booting a few days ago, I was not really excited about the prospect of rebuilding it. My jfs root filesystem corrupted on me, and after running fsck, my entire /etc/ directory was moved to /lost+found. No coming back from that... And no backups either, its only a PVR after all! :)

I didn't want to spend another 2 weeks rebuilding it, especially on a Nehemiah core, compiling on gentoo is *slowwww*. I tried one other dedicated mythtv distro that was supposedly just for Epia boards, and it just hard locked on me each time, so I gave up on that after 3 installs.

Then I downloaded and tried KnoppMyth, and after no more than 2 hours of dorking with it, having never touched KnoppMyth or even Debian for that matter, I had a nicely running well oiled myth box!

God bless KnoppMyth! And my wife is off my back now, amazing how they get so spoiled with such a nice PVR!

Keep up the great work guys!


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:18 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
Could you fill in the template with the rest of your hardware details from the topic sticky posting? http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10956

Thanks...


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 Post subject: Full hardware listing
PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:05 pm 
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Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:54 pm
Posts: 3
# Video type: SDTV
# Type of system: combined front- and back-end
# Noise level: I can tell it's on until I play some media

# CASE: Silverstone LC02
# PSU: Came with case 220 W I think
# MOTHERBOARD: Epia M10000
# CPU: Nehemiah C3 1Ghz
# RAM: 512 MB DDR
# CPU HEATSINK: Fanless stock motherboard
# NORTHBRIDGE HEATSINK: Fanless stock motherboard
# CD/DVD-RW: Black slim "laptop" style CD-RW DVD-ROM
# HDD: Maxtor 250GB ATA133 7200RPM 16MB cache
# GRAPHICS CARD: Stock motherboard, via X driver
# SOUNDCARD: Stock motherboard
# TUNER CARD: PVR 250 in riser PCI slot
# REMOTE CONTROL: Sony learning remote - RM-VL710, $35 at Circuit City
# IR BLASTER: Simple serial COM1 IR transmitter bought off a website somewhere...

Single case fan and PSU fans are only fans in box. You can hear them but don't notice it once you are watching TV. Totally usable.

Box stays warm but no reliability issues in over a year of use.

Cons: It is a little underpowered when doing something like running mythcommflag while watching a program. I had to turn mythcommflag off.

All in all, very happy with it.


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