Slashdot Mirror
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.
Recently the free listings provider for north america (TMS' Zap2it) annouced they will be going offline on Sept 1 - a replacement ($5/month for now, hopefully reducing to $20/year in the future - schedulesdirect.org) is available but only the latest release .20.2 of stable (And -fixes and trunk in snv naturally) support using it.
.20.2 (post mythfilldatabase scheduling fix) otherwise you will not be able to get north american listings.
If you download one of these distros make sure they have updated it with a
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
mythtv is just linux softwre - those distros are just rolls of their parent distros with mythtv bundled and tuned as it doesn't normally come bundled.
if you're going to watch HD it's best to compile it yourself so it can do the most cpu optimizations (make sure to enable them via the appropriate configure flag)
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Your facts are kinda misleading. True, the latest 20.2 release incorporates direct support for the new schedulesdirect.org program listing. However, older versions can be 'retrofitted' by using/updating just the xmltv application. The latest xmltv 0.5.48 will work with the new schedulesdirect site. You can then feed that into your existing mythfilldatabase. This solution might work for those unable/unwilling to upgrade their mythtv version. Personally, I've gone to 20.2 and the upgrade was pretty seamless.
Have you actually TRIED to update a pre-existing Knoppmyth to use the new xmltv? You might as well try and pull your teeth out with rusty pliers. And there is NO Knoppmyth release at the moment that incorporates the 0.20.2 SD support. Sept 1st is what, THREE DAYS AWAY? This is gonna go over real bad.
This is mostly because there are no accelerated video drivers for Linux on PS3. CPU power should be mostly there I'd imagine though...
> The problem is I don't think there are any USB TV capture devices that work in MythTV.
The PS3 would make a good MythTV frontend (display) system. You're better off using a Linux box as the backend. That way you can still use the PS3 as a game system or Blue-Ray DVD player -- rather than leaving it in Linux mode all the time to record programs. As for tuners. the HDHomeRun is a good network-based HD tuner option.
> I have been using MythTV for something like 4 years now just because there isn't anything as good but I really hate it. It's so freaking slow and buggy. I mean once you have hundreds of recorded shows the thing just slows to a crawl. It takes forever just to delete a program. This all seems totally ridiculous considering the relatively tiny amount of data it is managing. Then there are the bugs like when it gets into some sort of bad state and the menus don't work (you can open the menu but can't select anything). Very poorly written piece of software if you ask me.
It's hard to say what the issue is from that description.
- Slow performance: All the standard Linux tuning applies. MythTV uses MySQL extensively, so tuning that performance is important.
- Slow Delete: File system choice is important. ext* is very slow in deleting files. I use JFS because it deletes almost instantly. In newer MythTV versions, there is an option to do deletes in smaller chunks to avoid this problem on ext* systems.
- I haven't seen bugs like those you described. I use 0.20.1, and it works well. MythTV is not ideal.. setup is difficult, as is configuration.. The menu systems could use some major improvements and configurability. It's definitely the worst DVR going, except for everything else.
> any tuner device supported by linux should be usable with mythtv so if you find a USB tuner with linux support you can use it
MythTV is modular. You do the tuning/recording/processing on the backend, which talks to the frontend (display) via the network. These functions can be on the same box, but with the PS3 as a frontend, you would want a separate backend.
http://linuxtv.org/ has info on supported devices. My tuner of choice is the HDHomeRun, a network based dual HD tuner.
you're pretty out of date - schedulesdirect is up... and they hope to be able to reduce to $20/year eventually. try reading the thread before replying i posted about SD before you posted
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
I know a book just came out on MythTV: Practical MythTV (http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=1 0245)
Is it any good? Anybody read it?
If you're in the UK there's always these guys http://efficientpc.co.uk/desktops/isis/ Not sure about the zero effort upgrades, if they take the packages from a repository it can't be that hard.
I often look at their website with the temptation to splurge some cash, not sure about their laptop packages though. I don't like the idea of buying a laptop and then not being able to use all the hardware that comes with it. Even if the hardware is spurious.I started KnoppMyth over 4 years ago, so I'm biased.
.deb or install from source. The problem comes in if you want to auto upgrade to the next release (BTW: Neither of the other options supports an auto upgrade functions. MythDora is working on it however.). Whatever additional packages you installed, you'll have to reinstall (R6 will address this). But what do you need to install (other than perhaps pineapple and some codecs ;)? And if you read tjc's guide to using the backup and restore, you'll only have to install those once.
The comparison seemed rather dull and uninformed. The installation, default theme and the "running" systems are compared. In the end, it comes to "convenience". This is where the author's lack of information really shines.
To stated that one cannot install additional software on KnoppMyth is wrong. You can install a
In addition to MythTV and it's official plugins KnoppMyth includes mplayer, xine, webmin (how is that for conveniences?), rrd (hit Apache and see how your system as been performing, seems pretty convenient to me), MythWebFlash, irblaster support and so much more.
In addition to the official themes, we also include most if not all of "Juski's" http://juski.co.uk/themes are included as well. So while the author didn't like Titivillus, there is nothing stopping him or any user from using any theme. Got an ipod? What to take that show with you? Myth2ipod http://www.myth2ipod.com/is include in KnoppMyth. Or stream it with MythStreamTV.
Both NFS and Samba are included and configured. All one has to do is start the daemons. Got an nvidia based video adapter? Guess what is automatically installed on first boot? Navigate with a keyboard? KnoppMyth includes out the box support for multiple remotes. Guess which distro was the first to officially support the popular Hauppauge PVR line of hardware MPEG tuners?
The ideal behind KnoppMyth is to make it easy to get a Linux/MythTV powered PVR is a quick and easy manner. Some of you already get this... Think appliance. KnoppMyth is into it's fifth year and we'll continue to improve and develop it. Much thanks to member of the community for the improvements, ideals and support. I do wish MythDora and MythBuntu well, however as I see it... They are threading on ground already paved.
Regards,
Cecil
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
You can do this right now with vanilla ubuntu, it's how I set up my last mythbox. Follow the guides here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Feisty.
You basically apt-get install mythtv-backend-master and/or ubuntu-mythtv-frontend.
Being a normal Ubuntu install it makes it very easy to install things like Xine or K3B or whatever else you decide you need at a later date.
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Commercial_My thTV_System is a comprehensive list of pre-built boxes that work well with MythTV
-- Fratz, human
This is a minor tuning issue. Admittedly it's one that end users should not ever be exposed to. However it is still pretty simple to fix. You just need to let mysql be more greedy with memory.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I dunno, but I was using xbmc for some years and its far from perfect, even just for a media center.
- It doesnt allow you to decode hi def video.
- Contrary to what you claim, it only outputs at 480i.
- It's hard to update since it's illegal to distribute in binary form, so you're stuck to deal with l33t forums and such to get one, or find the MS compiler and compile the sources (on windows).
- There is alot of formats it doesnt support, like ogg, matroska video, vob subtitles, quicktime, mp4..etc
- For some reasons the ftp server suck incredibly. You *really* have to be careful of the name of the file you're sending, because otherwise most of the time it will be rejected, *after all the fricking data has been transfered*.
What I would want is just a neat interface to an easily updatable mplayer, but never manage to find one.