Hiya,
Slight off topic I know but MythTV is hitting v0.22 RC2.  Should be a 
full release next week.

http://www.mythtv.org

Rob.

"brushhead"  wrote in message 
news:A_GdnY8m8f4niXLXnZ2dnUVZ8jmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk...
> Hiya,
> Slight off topic I know but MythTV is hitting v0.22 RC2.  Should be a full 
> release next week.

I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive to 
install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which of 
the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for Linux 
novice ?

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run_on_Windows.3F

Roger R

Roger R wrote:
> "brushhead"  wrote in message 
> news:A_GdnY8m8f4niXLXnZ2dnUVZ8jmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk...
>> Hiya,
>> Slight off topic I know but MythTV is hitting v0.22 RC2.  Should be a full 
>> release next week.
> 
> I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive to 
> install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which of 
> the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for Linux 
> novice ?
> 
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run_on_Windows.3F
> 
> Roger R 
> 
> 
Well personally I use Debian but that's a habit.  If I was a newbie I 
would definitely use Mythbuntu.  It's very easy to get going...auto sets 
up nVidia drivers and also easy to get remote working and other client 
boxes.  It does have its own niggles though.  I think it'll take a while 
for 0.22 to work its way down to Mythbuntu though.

If you want to dive in quickly, I would wait for it to appear on the 
debian-multimedia.org repos.  There are enough how-to's knocking about, 
and I would have thought that the installers and set ups for 0.22 will 
be better too.  Getting extra clients boxes working with MythTV backend 
can be stressful.

Be warned, trying to compile it from source is a bastard (technical term 
used a lot in open source).  The deps are hell.

I'm happy to offer advice though.

Rob.

"Roger R"  wrote:

>I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive to 
>install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which of 
>the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for Linux 
>novice ?
>
>http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run_on_Windows.3F

How about the UK's favourite distro?  Last year, using Google-Groups, I
checked how many times that DistroWatch's top 30 distros were mentioned in
the group uk.comp.os.linux during the previous year, and recorded those
that were mentioned more than 25 times.  If you want to choose a distro by
basing it on the support that you're likely to get in the uk.* Usenet,
which is as good a reason as any, then maybe this list will be useful.

Ubuntu is at the top, and my recollection seems to be that Mythbuntu is
the most commonly mentioned pre-packaged distro derivative that's focused
upon setting up a standalone MythTV system.  Mythbuntu 9.10 has just been
released, quickly following the release of Ubuntu 9.10, so it's also the
most up to date:  http://www.mythbuntu.org/


Ubuntu          539
Debian          460
Fedora          225
SUSE/openSUSE   194
Mandriva        121
Kubuntu         106
Slackware        55
Gentoo           65
Puppy            47
Knoppix          41
Red Hat          40
PCLinuxOS        34
Mepis            32
BSD              26

-- 
Dave Farrance

In article ,
brushhead  writes

>Well personally I use Debian but that's a habit. 

Thanks for the recommend.  I'm very familiar with Linux so the choice of
distro is no prob, but what TV decoder hardware would you suggest for
use with MythTV?  I need reliable subtitles above all, and I'd like to
watch the output on a remote PC.

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

Mike Tomlinson wrote:
> In article ,
> brushhead  writes
> 
>> Well personally I use Debian but that's a habit. 
> 
> Thanks for the recommend.  I'm very familiar with Linux so the choice of
> distro is no prob, but what TV decoder hardware would you suggest for
> use with MythTV?  I need reliable subtitles above all, and I'd like to
> watch the output on a remote PC.
> 
Well for satellite i've been using Technisat Skystar 2's, but only a 
certain hardware revision, although I think all of them are now 
supported in the Kernel.  I have just got some hauppauge WinTV Nova S 
boards and they seem to be happy.

For Freeview i've been using Terratec 1200 DVB-T devices with 
encouraging results.  I do strongly suggest you look at:

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-S_Devices
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-T_Devices

These are the list of currently supported devices, but finding a 
reliable supply of them can be a challenge.

Regards,

Rob.

Dave Farrance wrote:
> "Roger R"  wrote:
> 
>> I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive to 
>> install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which of 
>> the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for Linux 
>> novice ?
>>
>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run_on_Windows.3F
> 
> How about the UK's favourite distro?  Last year, using Google-Groups, I
> checked how many times that DistroWatch's top 30 distros were mentioned in
> the group uk.comp.os.linux during the previous year, and recorded those
> that were mentioned more than 25 times.  If you want to choose a distro by
> basing it on the support that you're likely to get in the uk.* Usenet,
> which is as good a reason as any, then maybe this list will be useful.
> 
> Ubuntu is at the top, and my recollection seems to be that Mythbuntu is
> the most commonly mentioned pre-packaged distro derivative that's focused
> upon setting up a standalone MythTV system.  Mythbuntu 9.10 has just been
> released, quickly following the release of Ubuntu 9.10, so it's also the
> most up to date:  http://www.mythbuntu.org/
> 
> 
> Ubuntu          539
> Debian          460
> Fedora          225
> SUSE/openSUSE   194
> Mandriva        121
> Kubuntu         106
> Slackware        55
> Gentoo           65
> Puppy            47
> Knoppix          41
> Red Hat          40
> PCLinuxOS        34
> Mepis            32
> BSD              26
> 
Ubuntu is Debian in a dress..

Rob.

On 03/11/09 07:28, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

> what TV decoder hardware would you suggest for
> use with MythTV?

Do you want DVB-T or DVB-S?

I use a couple of Videomate DVB-T200 cards, SAA713x chipset based, but 
check potential card purchases on

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Category:Video_capture_cards

brushhead  wrote:

>Ubuntu is Debian in a dress..

I'll take your word for it.  :-)

I use Mandriva, because I prefer the bleeding-edge update rate, the
KDE-orientation, it's "Cooker" program for transparent development, the
well-maintained "backport" repositories, and the availability of all the
patent-encumbered and DMCA-dodging multimedia apps and codecs which are
packaged for Mandriva by the "Penguin Liberation Front".

-- 
Dave Farrance

In article ,
brushhead  writes

>  I do strongly suggest you look at:
>
>http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-S_Devices
>http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-T_Devices

Thanks very much.  Off to have a good read.

M.

-- 
Mike Tomlinson

In article , Andy
Burns  writes

>Do you want DVB-T or DVB-S?

Sorry, should have thought.  DVB-T, if my understanding is correct and
that means Freeview.  If it works out, I'd be interested in a DVB-S card
too as I have an unused dish stuck to the wall of my flat.

-- 
Mike Tomlinson

Hiya,
You can do that but it is a bit fiddly with sources.  I have started to 
play with Multicast IP using VideoLan as the streaming server, and each 
machine being a full backend and frontend setup taking media from the 
multicast streams.

This means you can mix DVB-S and DVB-T (freeview) transparenty, so you 
can run BBC HD and Freeview on one system, and using the Radio Times XML 
server, via XMLTV.

Have a look at:

http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/general/8296-mythtv-multicast-can-done.html

I did get it working in a fashion.  The VideoLan side was too prone to 
crashing to make it production proposition, although I am going back to 
it just now having built a 14 PCI slot system as my server.

I am hoping to produce a VOD server plug in too for pay to view TV for 
use on hotels etc etc.

Rob.


Mike Tomlinson wrote:
> In article , Andy
> Burns  writes
> 
>> Do you want DVB-T or DVB-S?
> 
> Sorry, should have thought.  DVB-T, if my understanding is correct and
> that means Freeview.  If it works out, I'd be interested in a DVB-S card
> too as I have an unused dish stuck to the wall of my flat.
>

On Nov 2, 8:58 pm, "Roger R"  wrote:
> "brushhead"  wrote in message
>
> news:A_GdnY8m8f4niXLXnZ2dnUVZ8jmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk...
>
> > Hiya,
> > Slight off topic I know but MythTV is hitting v0.22 RC2.  Should be a full
> > release next week.
>
> I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive to
> install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which of
> the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for Linux
> novice ?
>
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run...
>
> Roger R

I've recently installed Ubuntu against my windows install. I'm getting
to like it quite a bit.

"Dave Farrance"  wrote in message 
news:lfmue5h4284nj8hvd4h6as8o472nd1e2e7@4ax.com...
> "Roger R"  wrote:
>
>>I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive 
>>to
>>install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which 
>>of
>>the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for 
>>Linux
>>novice ?
>>
>>http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run_on_Windows.3F
>
> How about the UK's favourite distro?  Last year, using Google-Groups, I
> checked how many times that DistroWatch's top 30 distros were mentioned in
> the group uk.comp.os.linux during the previous year, and recorded those
> that were mentioned more than 25 times.  If you want to choose a distro by
> basing it on the support that you're likely to get in the uk.* Usenet,
> which is as good a reason as any, then maybe this list will be useful.

Interesting, but I hear Nick Griffin's name mentioned a lot in the media 
these days, does that mean that he is the UK's favourite politician?
Also many people only post to newsgroups when they have a problem with 
something. However I don't dispute that Ubuntu and Debian are probably the 
most popular.

Z

"Mike"  wrote in message
news:2eb6be29-bd09-4597-a846-3100fe44535f@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...

> I've recently installed Ubuntu against my windows install. I'm getting
> to like it quite a bit.


Thanks to those who replied to my enquiry for your recommendations.

Roger R

Zimmy wrote:
> "Dave Farrance"  wrote in message 
> news:lfmue5h4284nj8hvd4h6as8o472nd1e2e7@4ax.com...
>> "Roger R"  wrote:
>>
>>> I am a Windows only user but might considering partitioning my hard drive 
>>> to
>>> install Linux for the first time in order to run this application.  Which 
>>> of
>>> the six Linux distributions on this Wiki page would you recommend for 
>>> Linux
>>> novice ?
>>>
>>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Does_MythTV_run_on_Windows.3F
>> How about the UK's favourite distro?  Last year, using Google-Groups, I
>> checked how many times that DistroWatch's top 30 distros were mentioned in
>> the group uk.comp.os.linux during the previous year, and recorded those
>> that were mentioned more than 25 times.  If you want to choose a distro by
>> basing it on the support that you're likely to get in the uk.* Usenet,
>> which is as good a reason as any, then maybe this list will be useful.
> 
> Interesting, but I hear Nick Griffin's name mentioned a lot in the media 
> these days, does that mean that he is the UK's favourite politician?
> Also many people only post to newsgroups when they have a problem with 
> something. However I don't dispute that Ubuntu and Debian are probably the 
> most popular.
> 
> Z 
> 
> 
Nicely put.

Rob.

Dave Farrance wrote:
> brushhead  wrote:
> 
>> Ubuntu is Debian in a dress..
> 
> I'll take your word for it.  :-)
> 
> I use Mandriva, because I prefer the bleeding-edge update rate, the
> KDE-orientation, it's "Cooker" program for transparent development, the
> well-maintained "backport" repositories, and the availability of all the
> patent-encumbered and DMCA-dodging multimedia apps and codecs which are
> packaged for Mandriva by the "Penguin Liberation Front".
> 
I like Debian for the exact opposite.

Rob.

The message 
from brushhead  contains these words:

> Dave Farrance wrote:
> > "Roger R"  wrote:

===snip===

> > 
> > Ubuntu          539
> > Debian          460
> > Fedora          225
> > SUSE/openSUSE   194
> > Mandriva        121
> > Kubuntu         106
> > Slackware        55
> > Gentoo           65
> > Puppy            47
> > Knoppix          41
> > Red Hat          40
> > PCLinuxOS        34
> > Mepis            32
> > BSD              26
> > 
> Ubuntu is Debian in a dress..

> Rob.

 Nicely put! ;)

 I was wondering whether anyone was going to point out (what aught to
have been) the bleedin' obvious (and I'm only a closet newbie![1] ;-)

[1] Someone who managed to install SuSE from off of the CD in the back
of that "Linux For Dummies" book and then promptly thought "Now What?"
but dabbled off and on over the next ten years or so and _still_ uses
the Dummies book as a reference when doing something 'arcane' in a
Knoppix Live CD session (usually when trying to fix a borked winXP box
or else repairing USB induced FS errors on my Ext2 formatted external
drives that I normally use with a win2k box ;)

-- 
Regards, John.

 Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

Johnny B Good  wrote:

> I was wondering whether anyone was going to point out (what aught to
>have been) the bleedin' obvious (and I'm only a closet newbie![1] ;-)

It did occur to me that the list would be partly reflective of the number
of people that are forced to call for help by a given distro, which of
course is not good thing.  However, in recent years, newbies tend to go to
one of the multiplicity of linux-help web-forums -- and Usenet tends to be
the haunt of the more experienced user. Since Google-Groups just gave me a
list of occurrences of a keyword between two dates, it would also catch
most of the followups to a given query, which would be reflective of the
usage, and especially of the number of people ready to give advice on a
given distro.

Anyway, the final result did seem to reflect my impression of UK usage.  I
doubt that you'll find Debian placed just off the top of any other distro
popularity survey.  Distros that I've seen in the workplace, used as
servers, tended to be RedHat/Fedora or SUSE.  If the content of
uk.comp.os.linux is a guide, then the Linux gurus tend to use Debian as a
server, although I've not personally bumped into any.  UK magazines (which
are probably less of an influence now in the wide-pipe broadband era than
they were in the past) have tended to provide cover disks that invited
readers to install Ubuntu, Mandriva and SUSE, in that order, and that
seems representative of the usage by home user enthusiasts that I've
happened to meet - and those distros are fine for those that mainly use
their PC as a multimedia machine or net-top.

I've not visited any Linux user groups, where I suspect that Debian would
rule the roost, especially among those that get involved in coding (and
also it seems, among those that choose a distro out of pretension).  Not
that I've got anything against Debian. Now that my laptop is over five
years old, I'm considering switching it to the current distro that is most
stable on older hardware, and yet has good community support, and that
*is* likely to be Debian.

-- 
Dave Farrance

FWIW, I also use a copy of Debian at home, but running on an XBox (v1). 
Once the distribution is installed (which for an XBox was easy as someone 
else had already figured out how!) maintenance is quite painless - 
surprisingly so for a Windows user like myself (but be warned, I program for 
a living so the lack of a GUI doesn't phase me ;-) ).

The XBox has a 500GB disk installed (huge at the time) and was an amusing 
way for me top build a file server rather than buy one off-the-shelf.

My employers also use RedHat Linux and that seems simple to use to.  In many 
ways with things like Myth you get down to the platform being used (has 
someone tailored a Linux distribution for it) and what user interface is 
available.

Paul DS.

On Nov 5, 8:26 am, "Paul D.Smith"  wrote:
> FWIW, I also use a copy of Debian at home, but running on an XBox (v1).
> Once the distribution is installed (which for an XBox was easy as someone
> else had already figured out how!) maintenance is quite painless -
> surprisingly so for a Windows user like myself (but be warned, I program for
> a living so the lack of a GUI doesn't phase me ;-) ).
>
> The XBox has a 500GB disk installed (huge at the time) and was an amusing
> way for me top build a file server rather than buy one off-the-shelf.
>
> My employers also use RedHat Linux and that seems simple to use to.  In many
> ways with things like Myth you get down to the platform being used (has
> someone tailored a Linux distribution for it) and what user interface is
> available.
>
> Paul DS.

MMm very interesting and not something i'd considered for a file
server. I've got a Freecom MediaPlayer which is used for such service
at the moment, but out of interest what does the Xbox give you other
than network storage. Is it capable of anything else? (use as a media
centre?)

"Mike"  wrote in message 
news:57e04cc1-ca58-4d3b-bc72-1f85031e9572@g27g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
On Nov 5, 8:26 am, "Paul D.Smith"  wrote:
> FWIW, I also use a copy of Debian at home, but running on an XBox (v1).
> Once the distribution is installed (which for an XBox was easy as someone
> else had already figured out how!) maintenance is quite painless -
> surprisingly so for a Windows user like myself (but be warned, I program 
> for
> a living so the lack of a GUI doesn't phase me ;-) ).
>
> The XBox has a 500GB disk installed (huge at the time) and was an amusing
> way for me top build a file server rather than buy one off-the-shelf.


>MMm very interesting and not something i'd considered for a file
>server. I've got a Freecom MediaPlayer which is used for such service
>at the moment, but out of interest what does the Xbox give you other
>than network storage. Is it capable of anything else? (use as a media
>centre?)

The old XBox is an excellent media centre PC for very little money (I hear 
you can play games on it too!).
http://xbmc.org/about/
Works well on other OSs too.

I've been using it for years on an original Xbox, however it is becoming a 
little limited these days as the 733MHz Pentium III isn't quite up to HD 
(H264) decoding.

Z

In article , Dave Farrance
 writes

>Distros that I've seen in the workplace, used as
>servers, tended to be RedHat/Fedora or SUSE.

We use CentOS (built on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources) for
servers and Fedora 10 for desktops.  Works for us.

-- 
Mike Tomlinson

brushhead wrote:
> Hiya,
> Slight off topic I know but MythTV is hitting v0.22 RC2.  Should be a 
> full release next week.
> 
> http://www.mythtv.org
> 
> Rob.
MythTV 0.22 is out...

Rob.