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JediNinjaWizards
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Need advice on Linux HTPC

Wed Apr 13, 2005 9:00 pm

Hi everyone. OK, I have a new project brewing, and need some advice. I was basically given a broken SN95G5, and a new power supply and hard drive later, I now have a fully functioning XPC with a 939 3000, 1 GB of CVR, and a 160gb SATA drive. What I'd like to do is make it into a Linux Powered HTPC/TiVO. Any ideas on what add in cards/software/best version of Linux to do this with might be? Thanks in advance.
Shuttle SN25P nForce4 & A64 4000 939 90nm
1024MB Corsair XMS PC3200 CAS2
ATI RADEON X850XT 256MB PCIE
Dual 74GB 10K WD RaptoRAID XP Pro SP2
 
JediNinjaWizards
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Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:14 pm

Boing?
Shuttle SN25P nForce4 & A64 4000 939 90nm
1024MB Corsair XMS PC3200 CAS2
ATI RADEON X850XT 256MB PCIE
Dual 74GB 10K WD RaptoRAID XP Pro SP2
 
hypocratus
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Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:56 pm

I always had goood luck with mythtv. If you go with a debian based linux distro, you can add a repository to your sources.list and use apt-get to do all the work. Ubunutu (hoary) is very bleeding edge, so should hopefully have built-in support for all your hardware. I've had good luck with it, though with a much older computer.
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JediNinjaWizards
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Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:12 pm

hypocratus wrote:
I always had goood luck with mythtv. If you go with a debian based linux distro, you can add a repository to your sources.list and use apt-get to do all the work. Ubunutu (hoary) is very bleeding edge, so should hopefully have built-in support for all your hardware. I've had good luck with it, though with a much older computer.


Thanks for the reply. I may have some questions later, but that's a good start. I have heard mention of mythtv, but never used it. Is it easy to set up?
Shuttle SN25P nForce4 & A64 4000 939 90nm
1024MB Corsair XMS PC3200 CAS2
ATI RADEON X850XT 256MB PCIE
Dual 74GB 10K WD RaptoRAID XP Pro SP2
 
hypocratus
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Fri Apr 15, 2005 3:27 pm

It isn't bad at all to use. I have used Mythtv on both Libranet 2.8.1 and Ubuntu Hoary. The way that I do it is to add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list.
deb http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian unstable mythtv
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main
Then you can use Synaptic or apt-get to install the whole thing. That seems to be the easiest way I have found to install the whole thing. Let me know how it goes.
There is also a lot of documentation at http://www.mythtv.org if you want to read about it before doing anything.
Good luck!
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hypocratus
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Fri Apr 15, 2005 3:37 pm

The big thing is to look through the documentation on mythtv's site, ignoring the parts about compiling from sources. I found a lot of answers there.
The main steps after getting everything installed follows: (It has been a while, so I may be off on the order.)
start backend as root
run mythtv-setup
follow the instructions that pop-up after that
run mythfilldatabase
I had to go back into mythtv-setup and set all the channels to an offset of 105 for the channel freq.
Then you run mythfrontend as root, unless you want to set mysql.txt to be readable by you as a normal user.
Go through and set the recording parameters, and all the other settings to your liking. Watch the live tv to make sure everything is working for that.
Play around with the Program Guide and watch some tv!
Hope that helps.
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JediNinjaWizards
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Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:02 pm

hypocratus wrote:
The big thing is to look through the documentation on mythtv's site, ignoring the parts about compiling from sources. I found a lot of answers there.
The main steps after getting everything installed follows: (It has been a while, so I may be off on the order.)
start backend as root
run mythtv-setup
follow the instructions that pop-up after that
run mythfilldatabase
I had to go back into mythtv-setup and set all the channels to an offset of 105 for the channel freq.
Then you run mythfrontend as root, unless you want to set mysql.txt to be readable by you as a normal user.
Go through and set the recording parameters, and all the other settings to your liking. Watch the live tv to make sure everything is working for that.
Play around with the Program Guide and watch some tv!
Hope that helps.


This is excellent info. I have also toyed with the idea of using Win XP MCE 2005, after seeing how polished it is.

Are the following enough to build a decent HTPC/TiVO?:

SN95G5 (nForce3 250GB socket 939)

Athlon 64 3000 939 90nm

1 gb Corsair Value ram (512x2)

120 or 200 GB Samsung Serial ATA Drive 8MB 7200 rpm

eVGA NVTV (or ATI TV WONDER 550 if the price drops)

XGI Volari V8 128MB AGP 8X As main video card (2D quality is amazing)

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 or Linux(?)

Sony 16X Dual layer DVD Burner


Also, what would I need to do to allow this to be HDTV capable, or at least upgradeable to that if it isn't possible to do yet. Thanks.
Shuttle SN25P nForce4 & A64 4000 939 90nm
1024MB Corsair XMS PC3200 CAS2
ATI RADEON X850XT 256MB PCIE
Dual 74GB 10K WD RaptoRAID XP Pro SP2
 
Klyith
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Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:08 pm

You also have to select a tuner card that is compatible. That is a short list, and mpeg hardware compression cards are rare, pretty much limited to the Hauppauge pvr-250 & 350. Look at the mythTV FAQ on supported hardware.

That would probably be the thing to keep me away from mythTV / Freevo Linux software if / when I build an HTPC. Hardware compatibility is so limited... There is only the one pchdtv card for doing hdtv, and it doesn't work in windows so say goodbye to dual-boot. :x I don't know what to do, I wanted to build one before the summer.
 
JediNinjaWizards
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Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:24 pm

OK, that solves that......Windows MCE it is then!! Hopefully the Volari's Reactor drivers work in MCE. Now I just need to find out whether that ATI TV Wonder card is worth the plunge!
Shuttle SN25P nForce4 & A64 4000 939 90nm
1024MB Corsair XMS PC3200 CAS2
ATI RADEON X850XT 256MB PCIE
Dual 74GB 10K WD RaptoRAID XP Pro SP2

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