Latest MythTV Setup
From KdjWiki
Contents |
Previous Setup Guides
MythTV Setup on Ubuntu (6.06 - The Dapper Drake)
MythTV Setup on Gentoo (2006.1)
Hardware
| Device | Details | Price | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Shuttle XPC, SB83G5A
| $467.50 | ||||||||||||||
| CPU | Intel Pentium 4-630, 800FSB 3.0GHz | $286.00 | ||||||||||||||
| RAM | Corsair PC-3200 DDR400, 1GB Kit (2x 512MB) | $123.20 | ||||||||||||||
| HDD | SATA, Western Digital, 320GB, 1.5Gb/s, 8MB | $187.00 | ||||||||||||||
| Video | Leadtek WinFast PX6600LE GF PCX6600LE, PCI-e, 256MB. DVI/HDTV | $154.00 | ||||||||||||||
| TV | Dvico FusionHDTV DVB-t Dual Digital TV Card | $236.50 | ||||||||||||||
| DVD | Aopen DVD (16x/48) | $41.80 | ||||||||||||||
| Total | $1,496 |
Assembly
Assembly of all the components into the shuttle was pretty straight-forward. If would have been even easier if I followed the shuttle installation guide from the start, but it's all good.
Things of note:
- Remember to put the thermal conducting paste in between the CPU and the shuttle heat sink before you screw down the heat sink
- Don't put the case on until you are sure the CD button is aligned. The best way of ensuring this is by plugging in and moving the CD drive and pressing the shuttle CD button until it engages and then screwing in the cd.
- Don't forget to connect the USB cable for the Tuner to a USB 2.0 port on the back of the shuttle (if you have the Dvico dual - without this neither the 2nd tuner nor the remote will work.
- If you have an nVidia GeForce 6600 - it seems the S-Video output doesn't work very well. I get a black/white display on my TV via S-Video. Instead I used the composite connector (which was fine because I was converting the S-Video to composite anyway) which is the blue component plug.
Linux Install
I did an standard text-based install (that's how I roll!) of the Alternate Install CD version of [Gutsy Tribe 5].
The reason I picked the Alternate Install CD instead of the standard Desktop CD is maybe no longer valid, but previously (with Ubuntu 6.06 Desktop) the kernel did not have SMP enabled so my hyperthreaded CPU only registered as 1 CPU - however with the Server and Alternate distributions 2 CPUs were identified.
Working "out-of-the-box" was networking and sound.
HDD Partitioning
If you want to use LVM for your media partition so that you can resize later if your calculations are wrong or you want to transparently add a new HDD, you should leave the /data partition unallocated at this stage and partition as Linux LVM Partitioning describes when you have Ubuntu running.
/dev/sda1 / ext3 5 GB /dev/sda2 /mnt/alt ext3 5 GB /dev/sda3 swap swap 2.0 GB (2 x RAM) /dev/sda4 extended partition (remainder of disk) /dev/sda5 /home ReiserFS 10.0 GB /dev/sda6 /data xfs (remainder of disk)
I also like to have space for an alternate root partition (see /dev/sda2 - mounted as /mnt/alt) which allows me to clone the working root partition prior to an update (for example) and if there is a failure I can boot into the alternate version (via grub) and keep running.
Tune HDD/DVD
user@mythtv:~$ sudo nano -w /etc/hdparm.conf
Add:
/dev/hda {
io32_support = 1
dma = on
}
/dev/sda {
io32_support = 1
dma = on
}
Configure Networking
Use the System -> Administration -> Network applet to change the wired connection from DHCP to my preferred static IP address.
At this point I also install the ssh server (requires install CD). From a terminal:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude install openssh-server
Configure Video Card
Use the System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager applet to enable NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver.
Reboot
The following setup and configuration will primarily be performed via SSH so here I reboot and continue remotely.
System Setup
Connect from a different machine via ssh and activate screen to ensure your connection's stability wont effect the process:
user@desktop:~$ ssh user@host user@mythtv:~$ screen -S install
Prepare Media Disk
Make locations for media storage:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo mkdir /data/tv /data/video /data/photos /data/audio user@mythtv:~$ sudo chown -R root:video /data/tv /data/video /data/photos user@mythtv:~$ sudo chown -R root:audio /data/audio user@mythtv:~$ sudo chmod -R g+w /data
Update System
Update /etc/apt/sources.lst to include all universe and multiverse sources and remove the cdrom source:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo nano -w /etc/apt/sources.list
Then bring the installation up to date:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude update
Remove unwanted applications:
NOTE: The first solution wanted to remove ubuntu-desktop so I rejected that one (i.e. selected 'N' from the accept prompt) and accepted the second one.
user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude remove openoffice.org-core
Update system:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude safe-upgrade user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
Install firmware
Firmware is needed for the second (USB) tuner to operate.
user@mythtv:~$ sudo wget -qc http://www.linuxtv.org/download/dvb/firmware/dvb-usb-bluebird-01.fw -O /lib/firmware/dvb-usb-bluebird-01.fw
Configure TV-Out
As I want to output 720p to my plasma TV through DVI, I manually configure Xorg:
NOTE: It's wise to backup your existing/working xorg.conf prior to this step so you have something to revert to if the configuration doesn't work.
user@mythtv:~$ sudo nano -w /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Here are the relevant sections:
Section "Monitor" Identifier "Panasonic Plasma" Option "DPI" "100 x 100" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "NVIDIA GeForce 6600" Driver "nvidia" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Option "NoLogo" "True" Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP" Option "TVStandard" "HD720p" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "MythTV" Monitor "Panasonic Plasma" Device "NVIDIA GeForce 6600" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x720" EndSubsection EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Default Layout" Screen "MythTV" InputDevice "Generic Keyboard" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Configured Mouse" "CorePointer" EndSection
Reboot
Sure, why not?
Install MythTV
This is pretty well covered in the Ubuntu documentation (such as [[1]]) but I'll still consolidate the steps here.
Install and configure MythTV
Install master backend:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude install mythtv-backend-master
Install frontend:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo aptitude install ubuntu-mythtv-frontend
MythTV will now be configured to autostart, so restart GDM:
user@mythtv:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
