gauntlet420's Journal: MythTV musings (Vol. 1)

I decided to try and build a spare-parts computer for the purpose of running the KnoppMyth Knoppix/Debian distribution, and of course, MythTV.

MythTV seems to be very nice (far better than any Windows PVR software) and of course, the price is right.

Specs:

• AMD Sempron 2100+
• Asus A7V600 motherboard
• 256MB DDR400
• ATI Radeon 8500LE 128MB w/TV-out
• ATI TV Wonder VE tuner card
• ATI Remote Wonder
• old Fujistu 40GB hard drive
• old LG 2x DVD burner

Several hurdles followed:

• Getting the ATI remote to work (add_ati_remote)
• finding the correct bttv TV tuner card settings (card=64, tuner=2)
• making the correct bttt tuner setting stick (update-modules)
• getting the onboard 3Com 3C940 NIC working (modprobe sk98lin)
• stopping kernel panic every time the system initializes the NIC (insmod sk98lin, disable NIC, install USB-to-Ethernet NIC instead)
• resolving no network connectivity issue (remove staples holding cable to baseboard; fix broken wire in cable caused by staple penetration)
• getting the TV out to work at all (reflash card with proper ATI 8500LE NTSC BIOS)
• getting TV out for X (install ATI proprietary driver; fglrxconfig (tinker); fglrxconfig (tinker); fglrxconfig (tinker); fglrxconfig (tinker); uninstall ATI proprietary driver; remove ATI card; throw ATI card in trash; install old nVidia GF2 card; build homebrew S-Video to composite adapter with a 470nF cap, a 100 ohm resistor and two cables; install bundled nVidia driver)
• breaking RGB *and* TV out for X (install latest nVidia driver)

• More to come.

Looking forward to update

[nizo]

I am thinking about doing something like this myself soon, let everyone know how it goes :-)

TV Out

[IpalindromeI]

Don't waste your time with TV Out. When I built my Myth box, I wanted to do it as cheap as possible. I already had an old machine lying around with a usable video card (geForce2 something). But because I had to buy a tuner card (went with a Hauppauge 250), I didn't want to spend any more on another video card just to get TV Out. (Plus I didn't want to risk the TV Out not working well under Linux, which you seem to be having troubles with.)

So I bought a cheap VGA converter (around $25-30, I believe). The vi