[ale] MythTV questions

[James Sumners]

Short answer first. I am not using the HD-5500 because I'm not
recording any programs. My reception is too susceptible to weather and
spring/summer foliage. My MythTV box is really just a frontend to
mplayer and VLC now.

Setting up MythTV in Arch is not hard. Just about everything can be
installed directly from the official repositories. The only problem is
the actual MythTV packages. Looking at the website just now, it looks
like the maintainer is updating the core packages, but packages like
MythWeather are probably still broken (which only works slightly
better in my builds). The great thing about Arch, though, is that it
isn't very hard to create your own packages.

The biggest benefit is Arch's init system. It allows you to only start
the daemons you really need for MythTV. My box is both a frontend and
a backend, so my daemon list in rc.conf looks like this:

`DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network !netfs crond @acpid @sshd @httpd @samba
@alsa @openntpd dbus @avahi-daemon mysqld mythbackend @mtd @lircd
@autofs)`

I could lose httpd and avahi-daemon since I'm not really using either
of those, but I'm seeing any detrimental effects from them. Having
such _easy_ fine-grained control of the system services is a real plus
for a system that only needs certain ones. My second choice, Debian,
would make this part of the system a pain to control.

Next up, pacman. As you have probably learned, pacman makes it very
easy to keep your packages up-to-date. If you've used Apt you will
feel right at home with pacman.

These are really the two things that make MythTV fit so well with
Arch. You have a simple method of running just what needs to be run,
thus keeping more of the system resources free for MythTV. And you
have an easy to use package system. My MythTV box boots from
completely off to the MythTV menu in under 30 seconds. Most of the
time is spent on the POST operation. Since almost all of my system
services start in the background, the actual system boot is lightning
fast. Plus, I don't have to wait on GDM or anything to start. I wrote
my own X login app[1].

You can view my configuration files at [2].


[1] -- http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/code.php
[2] -- http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/files/mythtv/



On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Preston Boyington
<preston.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> James Sumners wrote:
> <snipped>
>> Would you like me to elaborate on my MythTV + Arch Linux setup?
>
> Yes please.  I think that would be very helpful.
>
>> Also, I have a pcHDTV HD-5500 card in my box. When I was actually
>> using it, I didn't have any problems with it. I'm not sure what issues
>> you have read about, but I found it very easy to use.
>
> I'm curious by what you mean by "When I was actually using it".  Are you
> using a different card or just not actively using MythTV right now?
>
> Thanks,
> Preston
> --


-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59