System Config:
East Coast USA Based
KnoppMyth (Kernel 2.4.25-chw) R4V5
Asus A7V-133-c BIOS rev 1007
AMD T-Bird 1Ghz
1 gig RAM
1 Maxtor 40gig (in use)
1 Maxtor 200gig (Just sitting there)
Hauppage WinTV-PVR 250 model 980 (Grey/Dark Silver remote)
NVidia based video card with TV out(TV-out not in use atm)
Linksys 10/100 ethernet card
SoundBlaster Live 5.1 soundcard
Samsung DVD/CDRW combo drive
Antec Overture case with built-in Firewire and USB headers


This PVR is my first project using any form of Linux and it has proven to be quite a learning curve.

The following is my experience installing KnoppMyth, I am not sure how helpful it will be be to anyone since I am primarily looking for help myself. Any suggestions or possible fixes please use small words and details that a newcomer to Linux can understand. I am not afraid to search the net for answers but a little more than "just recompile the Kernel and it should work" is greatly appreciated. I am slowly working my way through all the pertinent OReilly Linux books.

Current Project KnoppMyth Installation

Goals:
a.) Fully functional PVR for inclusion in my Home Theatre set-up
b.) Streaming video/audio over the household LAN
c.) Ability to schedule recordings from outside the household LAN
d.) Playback DivX and Xvid at a reasonable framerate
e.) Playback audio/video files including AC3 audio
f.) MAME functionality
g.) Play and Rip DVD's to DivX or XVid
h.) Minimal video editing, for commercials etc
i.) IR Remote to drive the whole thing

Having done a good bit of surfing on the issue I finally decided on KnoppMyth. Now how to implement it. Here is how it has gone so far.

Installation ran fairly smooth or seemed to after about 10 attempts I finally got most of it right I think. I only saw a few errors fly by on the screen.

ran through myth-setup, installed nvidia drivers, installed x686 modules, rebooted
tried setting a static ip but it would not connect out not sure why (ipconfig?)
ran "apt-get update" and "upgrade". "upgrade" tells me there are 138 upgradeable but not upgraded now, not sure how to fix that or if I should.
installed xmltv
installed nano

Load up a SecureShell Client on the Windows box and transfer some videos, mp3's, and pictures over for testing.

Weather/News=functional

TV=noise ( IvyTV issue, Tuner maybe)(Found a post on how to change the Tuner to 39, issue resolved)

Pictures=functional (Howcum the menu selections cannot be used? Doc I missed somewhere maybe)

Videos=Interface OSD blinks then nothing(Found a post that detailed installing updated MPlayer and Codecs, Thanks ElGordo, issue resolved)

DVD/SVCD=No drive activity, no play, nothing. Menus functionality would be nice (See Below)

Guide=Functional (after a long search on how to sign up with DataDirect, need to find out how to extend subscription)

WebAccess to Guide=Functional(Need to figure out how to make this secure so can forward the port thru firewall. Maybe a GUI for setting up Apache?)

MAME=Incorrect Version Error but seems to play the supplied games okay(New version of MAME needed? Where to get it, and how to install properly?)

DVD Ripper=Big Window with Big Type telling me something is Seriously wrong (See Below)


Current Issues:

(01) error creating /.qt (still have no idea what that is or how to fix) boot time error.

(02) Several other errors on boot but they usually flash by too fast to see. Are these stored anywhere and how do I look at them in a reasonable manner? I would like to streamline the boot process and get rid of anything that is not needed, like Device drivers for hardware that is not present etc.

(03) Is there any way to span my system across to the 200gig drive or should I just pull the smaller drive out and re-install on the big one? I have seen some posts about FVM I think is was but it seemed to have issues with re-installations

(04) Apache bitching about non qualified name. (no idea how to fix that now)

(05) DVD/SVCD play back not functional. After scouring the boards for solutions I have tried the following:
a.) D/L and update mplayer to latest version. (Success on d/l and installation. No change with DVD/SVCD playback). However it will play DVD from command line when I ctrl-alt-f1 out of X. It bitches verbosely about slow processor, crappy framerate, etc but it does play. No menus of course. It did fix my video files playback issue though. Plays DivX and Xvid fine.
b.) Install Ogle. Install successful but will not play from within MythTV or from an XTerm. Possibly operator error, need specific command string for MythTV interface. I found it once but lost it. It says it is installed, any possible conflicts with MPlayer?
c.) xine-ui. apt-get refuses to install it. broken pipe errors, missing lib errors, dependancy errors. It pretty much hosed up apt-get untill I did an "apt-get remove xine-ui". I have seen several posts about this problem but have found no definitive fix.

(06) DVD ripping. When the button is activated from within MythTV I get a big banner saying my system has a major problem. No clue what this means. Do I need to install additional software? What software does it use to Rip and how can I check if it is there and functional?

(07) Need to set up something to correct the time on regular basis

(08) Need to make the box secure so I can open a few ports on the firewall Web access primarily. Is there a GUI front end for configuring Apache? Is there a secure way I can do this?

(09) Need to find clear instructions for setting up, testing and configuring the ir remote.

(10) Network Streaming=Still Clue free on this one. I have seen some posts where people have gotten it working but no clear installation procedures. Noob level detailed installation/explanation would be nice.

(11) Browser=Still to do. Install Firefox or try to get the internal one working?


Conclusion:
Will be surfing and searching the net for answers any hints, tips, or complete guides would be most welcome. Special note to those of you actively developing this. Keep it up, the versatility and completeness of this project is, imho, far better than any of the commercially packaged products available, ie Tivo and Media Center or any of the PVR's offered by the cable services. Well worth the effort.

(01) don't think there is any way to get rid of this it is harmless.

(02) you can look at them in /var/log/messages, but if they are not causing you problems it's more trouble than it's worth to attempt to correct them. most of them are caused by hotplug.

(03) What you are thinking of here is LVM and if you search for it over on the wiki there are instructions including instructions for upgrading with LVM, and hopefully at some point this will be more integrated. The devs are well aware of it's usefullness.

(04) this should not happen if you gave the box a hostname in the setup, but you should be able to fix it by putting your box's name in the hosts file.

(05)
a.) you did get all the needed libs to play encrypted dvd's installed didn't you?
b.) all you need for the command line on ogle is ogle however most people tend to thing xine is a better option.
c.) yes known issue with the R4 series will most likely never be fixed.
(06) see 5)A
(07) search the wiki for NTP
(08) search the wiki for securing mythweb (of course security is all relative this gives you a password, but not a hardened box which knoppmyth will never be)
(09) There is a thread on the forums here should be able to find it by searching for silver remote I thought it was fairly clear.
(10) Sure would if you get it going please contribute back to the community and write it up.
(11) Go for firefox if you are on R4 series. R5 alphas have mythbrowser installed and working by default.

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

Xsecrets

Hmm. It would appear I did better than I thought. Thanks X, I will be reinstalling tommorrow from scratch to try and sort a few things out. I think I have completely broken apt-get now. It just bitches about broken pipes and stuff when I try to use it. This will be iterration 12ish I think.

This mean anything to anyone? Several things seem to have issues with that .deb archive. Is there anyway to remove it and reinstall it clean and fixed?

Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libxv1
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libxv1
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 137 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/169kB of archives.
After unpacking 291kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 54990 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libxv1 (from .../libxv1_4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libxv1_4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1_i386.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/usr/X11R6/lib/libXv.so.1.0', which is also in package xlibs
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/libxv1_4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1).

Grrr

Think I would have better luck with R5 Alpha? The TV bit was totally no functional last time I tried that one

yes that is one of the known problems with the R4 series that I said would probably never be fixed (read: snowballs chance in hades) If I were you I would try my next install with the latest R5 alpha release. It would fix a couple of your issues right off the bat because it has mythbrowser installed, and it uses xine for dvd playback, although there are some more issues with dvd playback, but they are outlined on the forums if you do a few searches.

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

Xsecrets

okay working on the R5V10 installation. Also documenting it for posting when complete.

Quick questions before I give it a rest for the night.

1. Trying to install the Icons for the channel lineup.
apt-get update
apt-get install xmltv (worked as expected)
Now where do I find this /contrib directory to run the Perl script?
I have searched high and low and cannot find it, I also can find no other references to it on this board. Wrong search parameters maybe. Its detailed in bullet point 9.5 of the docs you get with the installation. The script is called mkiconmap.pl

2. My intention is to move all of my data files (/myth I assume) over to the larger drive or use the disk spanning built into Linux. I moved one video file over to /myth/video and it is not showing up in the video set-up menu. General settings seems to be pointed at another directory for video storage, /var/lib/mythtv. Is this where I should move the video files to? Why /var/lib/mythtv and not /myth/video? Music files still go to /myth/music it seems. I am going to try to mount the proper dirs on the XP machine to make it easier for me to transfer them after I get the drives sorted out. I would like to have everything in its apropriate place before I do.

btw This is a blast. Even though I manage to destroy it fairly often and wind up back at square 1..

1) not sure which directions you are looking at, but contrib directories generally come in the source files you download for a program.

2) everything should be in /myth video music tv etc. I've heard other people saying that the default in R5A10 is pointing to var as well, must be a bug somewhere. I'm not sure as I did an upgrade not an install. You just need to change the dir in the general settings to point to the right place. It will point to /myth/video once it's released. I knew there was some reason we were calling it alpha

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

Xsecrets

This would come with the mythtv source code you will need to untar it in order to find it. Look under /usr/src somewhere for the mythtv source tarball.

I am not on R5 yet so I cant tell you exactly where it is.

/usr/src/mythtv/sources/

_________________
cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

AARRRRgh.. <me, needs sleep.. hehe /heads off to bed

Thanks Greg, thats gonna be a project for tommorrow, but now I know where to start.

Those Directions are an interesting find XSecrets. If I point IE at the IP of the Mythtv box the address bar reads "http://192.168.1.xxx" and I get a page with various links to the guide and instructions and stuff. I point Firefox at the same ip and I get an Apache error page saying page not found when it tries to load the Guide page automatically. Something is not quite right with the Apache config methinks.

System Config:
East Coast USA Based
KnoppMyth (Kernel 2.4.25-chw) R4V5
Asus A7V-133-c BIOS rev 1007
AMD T-Bird 1Ghz
1 gig RAM
1 Maxtor 40gig (in use)
1 Maxtor 200gig (Just sitting there)
Hauppage WinTV-PVR 250 model 980 (Grey/Dark Silver remote)
NVidia based video card with TV out(TV-out not in use atm)
Linksys 10/100 ethernet card
SoundBlaster Live 5.1 soundcard
Samsung DVD/CDRW combo drive
Antec Overture case with built-in Firewire and USB headers


Run install R5A10

no tuner card modules loaded:
While tuner cards are detected, the modules may not be loaded. This is true for ivtv based cards. To work around, when the system first boots to X: <CTRL><ALT><F1>
Log in as root:
modprobe ivtv
echo ivtv >> /etc/modules
reboot

Run through the set-up

Free Data Direct registration required in advance.
You can get an ID at http://labs.zap2it.com
Specify certificate code: 'ZYZM-TE5O-SBUT

Setup Tuner and Guide
Default Theme is a bit messed up. Fonts too big or not centering properly on buttons
Downsize all font values to try to fix the Theme a bit
Mame wants a catver file
Pretty sure mplayer is messed up will d/l and install new version
nvidia drivers need to be installed
Saw reference to drop down menus on player prefs not seeing it here
time is incorrect. (it was correct before install)
reboot a couple times.

I can now watch Live TV and have a Program Guide albeit the time is off.


ctr-alt-f1
login: root
apt-get udate (to update database)
apt-get install nano (because I am going to need it I am sure)

ctr-alt-f1
mplayer
MPlayer 1.0pre5-3.3.4
CPU detection is on (not optimal)
cannot find any of the config files or codecs.
Will have to reinstall

nVidia based video driver installation:
Press <CTRL><ALT><F1> to exit X.
Log in as root:
cd /usr/src
tar xjvf kernel<TAB>
install-nv<TAB>
This will install the drivers and restart GDM.
This also will screw up your ctrl-alt-f1-f6
Gonna fix that with nano next
Esc and yes to exit mythfrontend
right-click/Apps/Shells/Bash
su -
password
cd /etc
nano lilo.conf
change vga=<XXX> to vga=normal
alt-x
Y
lilo -v
reboot
Hmm need to look at what other values work for that.. In case your using a computer monitor like I am and want 1024 resolution. Usable now though

Apache seems to be running but MythWeb is not loading. (refresh it a few times)
Secure Shell login works fine though through the LAN

Set the time
ntpdate time.windows.com
BTW if you run this command with mythfrontend loaded it will crash. Guide issues I am guessing.

Okay left it running for a couple hours and mythbackend crashed.

MPlayer set-up now
Download the codec files to /home/mythtv

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html

I am Linux iliterate so I D/L this to my Windows box then use ssh to transfer them over and do the work

all-20040916.tar.bz2
MPlayer-1.0pre6a.tar.bz2
font-arial-iso-8859-1.tar.bz2


Open a shell or ssh into the box
su then enter in root password.
cd /usr/local/lib change to /usr/local/lib and make sure there is a codecs directory.
mkdir codecs
cd /home/mythtv
tar jxvf all<TAB>
tar jxvf font<TAB>
tar jxvf MPlay<TAB>
cd all<TAB>
cp * /usr/local/lib/codecs

Now for mplayer:

you should still be at root
cd /home/myth (Or wherever you put the mplayer archive)
tar jxvf MPlayer-1.0pre5.tar.bz2 This will create a new dir.
cd MPlay<TAB>.
./configure --with-reallibdir=/usr/local/lib/codecs
It will run through a long list as it checks your system
make (leave it alone, it will take a while)
make install

Okay now that should fix any issues with MPlayer. (Thanks ElGordo)
For subtitle support check the MPlayer website thats what the fonts are for.
basically I believe you need to choose a size and copy those files to /usr/local/share/mplayer/font/

Now to view DVD's. The storebought kind.

Due to what I percieve to be general consensus on this board you are going to have to find that yourself. I found it and I have never touched a Linux box before this..

I can now play DVD's without menu support
Ripper however does not functiona at all I get a big message about something seriously wrong with system.

Hitting a number key as suggested in the warning brings up Ripper functionality so it is working

Iptables Frontend for some Security http://www.simonzone.com/software/guarddog/ .. Thanks davem

Interesting MythWeb not accessable with Firefox/WindowsXP over the LAN but IE works fine????
Manually entering http://192.168.1.xxx/mythweb/program_listing.php works in Firefox stranger yet..
Entering the IP only in IE brings up a page with links to help docs and such. Cannot access this page with Firefox though.

Install XMLTV and get icons for my channels

login root: yada yada
apt-get install xmltv (that worked well)
Cannot find /contrib directory to run the perl script
Oops need to untar the mythtv source it should be in there.

Playing Videos works
Note: You may need to change the video directory back to /myth/video/ it seems that it may be set incorrectly in this release to begin with.
imdb search works
subtitles seem to work too. At least with .srt files


Current Functional Status:
Live TV
Play Videos with IMDB functionality
Play Music with visualizers
Myth Pictures
Audio functional across the board
Program Guide
DVD Playback
DVD Ripper (it boots anyway not sure about actual ripping as yet need more drive space)
Myth Web (still need to work on the streaming. Mp3's want to d/l instead of stream. Videos give me a Apache page error that has something to do with "nuv" no idea what that is as yet. Directory may be wrong also since it seems to point to /mythweb/video_dir. I do get Thumbnails of recorded programs though. Does this thing trnscode on the fly for streaming?)

Current ToDo List:
1.)Figure out what that "nuv" thing is. I seem to remember a blurb when I installed originally that I need to compile something.
2.)MythStream. Hopefull the above will fix that.Will this box actually stream audio/video over the LAN???
3.)Decide whether to span the drives over to the bigger drive or just move myth over to it.. Would prefer spanning I think.
4.)Figure out how to mount /myth/ on my XP box to faciltate file transfer. SSH is getting old
5.)Find a catver.ini and figure out wher to install it. Upgrade Xmame to latest and grab some proms to test it..
TuxRacer used to work but all I get is a black screen with a mouse now. Cannot get out of it either have to reboot.
6.)MythBurn looks very interesting but will have to get it to use an external Burner via USB2. Is that possible? Would be very cool if I could do it over the network.
7.)Channel icons still to do. I have been unpacking a lot of source files kinda concerned about running out of space for them.
8.)I seem to remeber some reference to avidemux on the Mythweb starter page. led me to a login screen.. Is this for streaming.. it did not like any of the logins I have for the myth box so not sure.
9.) What the heck is CVS.. reading the board atm Which is painfully slow I might add

Anyone know a a 12 step program for KnoppMyth? This is getting kinda addictive

1) nuv is a file format. to play a nuv file from a software card in windows you need a special codec. for files from hardware cards like pvr250 just rename to .mpg
2) Haven't played with this, but supposedly there is a way to make it stream, but it won't be simple, but probably not too much harder than some of the stuff you've already done. And by the way we generally don't discuss the mplayer codecs for the same legal reasons as the dvd stuff.
3) The LVM howto on the wiki looks pretty good. I haven't used it as I only have one drive.
4) there is a wiki page for this too something like mythcontentonwindows or similar, and it has some references to the .nuv stuff from 1) as well.
5) have you tried just seeing where it's looking for the catver.ini and doing a touch catver.ini to create a blank one?
6) would proably be possible with the usb though a bit more work, and i don't know of a knoppmyth specific howto, but google would be very helpful here. you can use MythBurn to create the ISO then copy that over the network to burn on a windows box if you want.
7) to find the perl script you need go to /usr/src/mythtv/ and untar the mythtv tar file then change to the mythtv-0.17 or something like that dir then change to the contrib dir from there.
8.) there is an avimanager on the root website on a knoppmyth box now, it requires some configuration which it specifies right under the link. avidemux has to do with transcoding and used to have some issues that had to be worked out for mythburn, not sure if those apply anymore or not.
9)current versioning system -- helps alot huh? it's a source control system that developers use when developing, and many open source projects let you pull current development code from their servers.

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

Xsecrets

1) I think I am gonna wait a bit on this. Not real sure I really need it.
2) I keep finding huge debates on this but nothing that looks workable for me.. its gonna have to wait.
3) LVM is now fully functional. I just hope nothing crashes too badly, there are a lot of steps to doing that. Wikki Rocks.
4) Still hunting for useful info. I am not sure it is out there for someone of my skillset atm.
5)catver.ini has been placed in the proper spot and xmame-x is supposedly at verion .90 but still nothing functional from within Myth. Black screen with a mouse pointer and locked up is best I can get atm. Run from shell as mythtv@mythtv it tries to parse all kinds of crap then dies trying to load pacman, which i know i did not d/l so something is very wrong.
6) I think I am gonna hold off on the MythBurn for a bit. There seem to be hot debates going on in various places. Hopefully something will get resolved for R5 final.
7)Channel Icons taken care of. I found lovely Wikki that showed me how to grab it all directly. HowTo section I think it was.
Still unclear what an avimanager does but still researching it.
9)No that did not help much. Not sure I understand why I would want a system to inject bleeding edge code into a system that is already a bit of a handful. But then I am a user and not a developer.

Thanks for the useful hints. Gonna look at hardening Apache a bit, opening the box up to the Internet is probably a bad idea in so many ways so it probably will not be needed. Far too many folks banging on my router now.

4) http://knoppmythwiki.homelinux.org/inde ... SambaHowTo should get you what you need here I thought it was fairly straight forward.

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

Xsecrets

Damn X you are good..

Thanks that was the ticket.

That's what we would tell him, but it would just go to his head. We prefer to keep him humble.

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