My setup:
Albatron KX18D ProII motherboard (nForce2 chipset with audio, onboard SiliconImage SiI3112A SATA controller)
AMD Athlon XP 2600 (Barton core)
512MB RAM
Hauppauge PVR-250MCE tuner/capture card
2x Seagate ST3120026AS 120GB SATA drives

Here's how I performed an (almost) auto install, after about 20 hours of trial-and-error:

1) Disable APIC in BIOS before install. Make sure BIOS is set to allow boot from CD.

2) Boot from KnoppMyth CD with following boot options:

"no scsi" was necessary to prevent hang on boot
"ide=reverse" makes the first SATA drive hda, allowing auto install
"ide=nodma" was necessary due to Seagate/Silicon Image issue. (If you have different drives or controllers this may not be necessary for you. Try without it, if you get an error telling you the drive is read-only then you need this option.)

3) Follow autoinstall procedure. (Note that when asked for a hostname, you need to specify a fully qualified domain name, i.e. hostname.domain.net. Don't recall if I found this tip in the Myth docs or on this forum.)

4) When autoinstall completes, DO NOT remove the KnoppMyth CD before rebooting, instead boot from the disc again with the same boot options. Select option 6 to exit to the console.

5) If you are not getting an IP address automatically (DHCP), run "netcardconfig" to enable your network connection.

6) follow the apt-get procedure in this post (http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=741) to update lilo.

7) edit the file /etc/lilo.conf to change the line that begins with "append=" to read as follows:


8) enter the command "lilo -v" to update the master boot record.

9) if you have the PVR-250MCE, apply the fix described in this thread: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1001. If you run into problems, try repeating after following the steps in this thread: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1335. One note: as this is a fresh install and still booting from CD, you should not have to remove/replace the card as described in the thread.

10) enter the command "reboot", remove the CD when prompted, and you should find yourself booting into Myth and the config script running.

I also found it necessary to turn off auto commercial flagging as it seems to make the backend die unpredictably for some, including me.

Still TODO:
- add second SATA drive to space for recordings.
- attempt to get TV-out functioning on the ATI card. (Poor research on my part, I'd buy an nVidia card if I had it to do over.)
- add DVD drive and configure.
- add IR remote.
- add DirecTV or DishNetwork receiver and configure control by Myth box. (Currently only have off-air reception via rabbit-ear antenna, which provides, shall we say, less-than-optimum results.)

You know, I've heard lots of people repeat this, but have NEVER given mine a FQDN. It gets told that it's name is "black" and that it's IP address is 192.168.something.something, but no FQDN. Everything still seems to work just fine.

I tried a short name and IP address and it didn't work for me...I didn't note the specific error message but it was about not being able to connect to the backend. But it could well be that I corrected something else on my next install attempt, when I did the FQDN. I also wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I'm not using the reserved IP address space, as you are...I don't have a private network set up yet.

These days setting up a firewalled private netwwork space with NAT is incredibly cheap and easy, $40-70 for a little 4 port switch/router/firewall, and some trivial configuration. I even talked my dad through it on the phone with a model and brand I've never seen before and it was one of the easier "remote support" calls I've done. HIGHLY recommended since it also helps avoid exposing your machines to a lot of the crap out there, especially with an out of the box KnoppMyth install which leaves a lot of servers in a fairly unsafe mode.

The lack of problems may also have something to do with the NVidia chipset and the delayed network setup. The machine may very well have though it had no LAN/WAN at that point and put 127.0.0.1 everywhere. Or it may have to do with my level of networking experience where I went through and set the proper private IP address everywhere without even thinking about it. Giving it the machines IP address should be just as good as a FQDN in any case.

Agreed! I didn't put that on the TODO list as I was thinking more specifically about the Myth box itself at that point. Will probably get one with 802.11g access point built in.

Very cool...

With my system, I only had to use the ide=reverse flag... the board I'm using (Abit-AN7) and HD (ST3160023AS) didn't experience the issue's you had with your sata drives.

I found that I needed to use the instructions in this post to fix my pvr350 card: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... nel+change

Another thing I had to deal with was to disable probing of /dev/hdc after the ide=reverse... that caused a signficant delay on startup.

My system seems to be very happy now...

Thank you VERY much for sharing!

Hi

I'm TOTALLY new to Linux but am trying to install Knoppmyth on my SATA - following your instructions which works great - until I have to edit the lilo.conf file. How do I edit? What exactly do I type to start editing something?

I know this might not be the best place for such a questions, so if you guys have somewhere else that has more general stuff about Knoppmyth/Debian/Linux please give me the address.

a good editor to learn is vi it is found on most all unixlike operating systems. It is a little difficult to learn, but very powerfull once you do. To open a file with it you do



If you want to learn how to use it do



and it will teach you how to edit with vi.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Lots of ways to edit.

- Out of the box you've got "vi". Search the web for a vi tutorial and cheatsheet. You can also run vimtutor. I personally don't care for vi since the modal behaviour and single active buffer paradigm drives me nuts.

- You can install a new editor very easily via apt-get, I like jed/xjed, ceenvee703 swears by nano, my dad likes nedit (X only), ... All of these start with menus that will guide you along. To get one of these:

Where XXX is the name of the package or packages you want. E.g. "nano", "slang jed xjed", "nedit".

OBTW - for the religious fanatics, while I like an emacs style editor myself, it's not mentioned here due to sheer bulk and complexity. This is a newbie with simple needs we're making recommendations to.

well at least noone on the board has started recommending emacs.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

For most purposes emacs is like going to the corner store in a Swiss Army 747, you know, the one with the full super hero secret lair and playboy mansion in the back...

On the other hand vi is like riding a small displacement motorcycle in all weather...

When it come to editor religions I'm an equal opportunity iconoclast.

Isn't VI a super edlin on drugs? (I hope someone else remembers edlin)

A cryptic psycho editor that confuses just about everyone but can be pretty effective and useful...

Yeah but I've been trying to do more with vi lately. I know the training wheels have to come off sometime. Besides, someone here (I think xsecrets) mentioned that great vimtutor program, which has helped a lot.

Excellent work starbird80, it solved the SATA problem for me, but I still need to fix a problem with "LILO - Timestamp mismatch".

I'll fix it either by using grub or by figuring out why I'm not able to set the time zone correctly during auto install. I'm using a Asus A7N8X-E deluxe card.

Right now I'm not too happy with the whole thing :-/

I've been living in the *nix world for about 17 years...I find that once folks grasp regular expressions and sed like substitutions, vi is the way to go.

I do use other tools on occasion and I have uses a window port of vi . Use the right tool for the particular job at hand.

Is it true that emacs stands for Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift. My hands get tired just typing it .

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA