Three MythTV Linux Distros Compared

An anonymous reader writes "Linux.com has a comparison article up looking at three MythTV-focused Linux distributions. The piece looks at Mythdora, Mythbuntu, and KnoppMyth, with an eye towards ease of installation and the actual utility of the install. From the article: 'For regular system maintenance, KnoppMyth simply isn't in the same ballpark as MythBuntu and MythDora. The live CD heritage of Knoppix means you cannot update individual packages, which is fine if you like that, but for an always-on system like a MythTV back end, I'd prefer flexibility and configurability of a mainline distro. When all is said and done, if I were building my TiVo replacement today, I would do it with MythDora. MythBuntu shows a lot of promise, and I will give the final 7.10 release another look (in part because I run Ubuntu on my desktop machines), but it isn't ready yet.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge.

Comments

MythDora?

[hal2814]

MythSwiper, no MythSwiping!

Oh man...

Distro? You Want Distro? You Can't Handle the...

[WED Fan]

I honestly thought that when one said,"Get MythTV." it would be that simple. Why does it surprise me that there is more than one distro, just like the rest of Linux?

New Slogans

• Linux, its just too forking much.
• Forked.com - It's not Porno!
• If you need help, RTFM - Read the Forking Manual, you forking noob.
• Linux Geeks, they couldn't get forked if their sisters were giving it away.

Yes, I realize, a distro != fork, but now-a-days with the vast differences, it may almost amount to one.

mythtv

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all software under the hippieware® movement expect no help setting it up and mass incompatiblities.

also lets spend the next 50 hours tracking down lib.obscure.o only to end up compiling half the fucking software ever relased under the gpl.

Re:And People Complain About The Many Version Of V

[LordKazan]

it matters massively. HD is MPEG2 at 1920x1080. I am using an Athlon 2500+ and offloading some of the MPEG2 decode work to a geforce 6200 via XvMC (unfortunately ATI's drivers don't have XvMC) and i still use 50% CPU when watching HD. With CPU opts turned off i bet you i couldn't watch HD (no i'm not doing a recompile of mythtv and 10 recordsing tonight to find out)

Re:Upside

[edmicman]

user interface that delights and astounds

And you're going to use MythTV?

Re:And People Complain About The Many Version Of V

[Minwee]

Your honour, I cite the precidents set in RUBBER v GLUE and POT v KETTLE, and request that the poster be beaten about the head and shoulders with a large, freshwater fish.

Re:Distro? You Want Distro? You Can't Handle the..

[TeknoHog]

How can you expect people to wear clothes, when there's so much choice?-)

Re:And People Complain About The Many Version Of V

[zenyu]

How much does it really matter to use compiler optimizations for HD? Do you have any numbers, benchmarks, etc.?

The big ones, but also enabled in many pre-compiled packages:
  * cmov, about 10% (supported by Pentium Pro and later, but not some VIA processors)
  * enabling MMX & SSE, about 10-15%

Total you can add about 30-35% with full optimization on a P4, vs. compiling for a Pentium Pro, which is the default. These numbers are somewhat old, but there is no reason to think they have changed appreciably.

If you search the MythTV mailing lists you will find these and even better numbers. Video is one of those things that is much better supported on modern instruction sets than the classic i386 ISA; hence the dramatic improvement. Using a compiler like icc might yield some good improvements over gcc too.

Re:Distro? You Want Distro? You Can't Handle the..

[Alsee]

How can you expect people to wear clothes, when there's so much choice?-)

It's not so bad. We're geeks... we only have to choose once every month or three.

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