MythTV Installation

Following my first attempt, I've decided to follow advice and install ubuntu, then add the MythTV package.

Ubuntu wasn't quite painless - during the first attempt, the screen went blank (I assume some kind of screensaver) and wouldn't respond. I wound up switching the box off, then reinstalling - this time, I moved the window displaying the progress bar every once in a while, and experienced no issues.

Myth Setup is still not displaying the buttons on tha bottom of the screen, despite my display being recognised and set to a more reasonable 1024x768 (Mythbuntu offered me 512x384 or 320x240).

It happily detected my Analog WinTV PVR-150, although if I'd read the instructions properly, I wouldn't have assumed that seeing the hardware name meant that it had set it up too. Thanks to some other idiot with the same problem, it was fixed in a jiffy.

The first real snag happens at the TV listings stage - I've got the choice of Schedules Direct (North America), EIT (the listings transmitted with a DTV signal) or No grabber. Mythbuntu offered me an alternative XML offering...

Running a scan gave me loads of channels, most of which are blank. I managed to resolve this issue by installing the mythbuntu control centre (choosing Add/Remove from the Ubuntu Applications menu), then in the control centre, add mythweb which gives a really easy way to delete unnecessary channels.

I still need those schedules though - looks like I'm going back to Mr. Parker for advice here - although he's got digital - I only want listings for 5 channels...

To be continued...

MythTV attempt

My home desktop PC has a TV capture card so I thought that I'd give MythTV a go - I tried a couple of years ago, but didn't have the time to really get it working, and it ought to be a piece of cake by now...

After reading a few reviews, I decided to try Mythbuntu as I've been really happy with Ubuntu Linux on my laptop (Acer Travelmate 2420), the only niggle being the lack of BlueTooth support (it ought to work, but doesn't - and hasn't been important enough to spend any time sorting).

My first stumbling block involved disk partitioning - when I installed the new hard disk, I created an enormous 100GB partition for Windows, feeling that the 400GB left would be good for a later Linux installation. Letting the installer decide what to do resized the partition to the full size of the disk. After restarting the installation, I was able to use the slider control to tell Mythbuntu to use 400GB.

The rest of the installation was painless up until the MythTV setup as I cannot find any instructions for analogue cards in the UK and I've been unable to resize the screen - Xfce desktop has chosen a resolution that's so crazy I'm missing bits of the menus as they go off the screen to the right and bottom. After a few minutes digging around, I found the option to choose between this resolution or an even bigger one !

All in all, I've decided to follow Garry Parker's advice and install Ubuntu and then add the MythTV package.

It will work.

To be continued...