I am interested in changing my HTPC to Linux. Is there a good starting guide for this? Will it be as stable as my Tivo?

A lot of my advice would depend on your experience with linux, willingness to experiment, and what exactly you would want to do. But if you already have the hardware then look into Knoppmyth or Mythdora (just google them ). Make sure your hardware is compatible (especially your tuner cards). They are good starting points. Also, go the mythtv wiki and maybe look into freevo as well.

I am interested in changing my HTPC to Linux. Is there a good starting guide for this? Will it be as stable as my Tivo?

I love this page. (http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/index.html)

Will it be as stable? That is hard to say. TiVo isn't going to release anything until they have determined that it is stable and yet they have problems from time to time.

A lot depends on the hardware so try to get the best supported hardware. Software has bugs so there are times when you will want to upgrade which is harder than just letting your TiVo upgrade when it wants. You will have to do more work. In my opinion it's worth it because a MythTV box:


Is fun to build
Has more capability
No encrypted files with DRM


I've been in both worlds. I went to TiVo when recording HD wasn't yet possible with a Myth box. I am in the midst of switching back now that HD options are plentiful under Linux. Matter of fact today I am receiving hardware for an HD-able frontend box. Hopefully it works well!

What is your TV source? Sattelite, digital/analog cable? What do you want your HTPC to do?

A lot of my advice would depend on your experience with linux, willingness to experiment, and what exactly you would want to do.

I have no experience with Linux but I am well versed in Windows so I assume that Linux will not be too difficult to pickup. I am willing to experiment. I built my current MCE system. I currently have:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Mobo
AMD Athlon XP 3400+ CPU
WinTV-PVR-500 MCE tuner card
Vbox Cat's Eye 150 HDTV tuner
1 GB Ram
NVIDA Quadro FX 1100 Video Card

I currently have the cable run into the card without a cable box. If this system is stable enough to move my Tivo into the bedroom, I will hook up the cable box to the computer.

I record my HDTV through an antenna.

I have no experience with Linux but I am well versed in Windows so I assume that Linux will not be too difficult to pickupBefore you proceed, you might want to read/skim thourgh this: Linux is NOT Windows (http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm).

I have very similar hardware and run MythTV. If all you use is MythTV, you probably won't ever care what OS is running underneath it.

How can I find out if my hardware is supported by a specific distribution of Linux? I am leaning toward Knoppmyth at the moment.

I'm pretty sure mysettopbox.com has a recommended hardware section. If not, there is a forum there where hardware that works is discussed, along with what hardware has caused problems.

There's several hundred systems listed here..

http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-pvrhwdb.php

Or read the mythtv doc on mythtv.org. It covers minimum hardware.

Why would you lean toward one, try 2 or 3. That's the beauty of MythTV and Linux distros, you can afford to try as many as you like.

I suggest running mythtv with fedora core6 and follow this very easy howto. It's a breeze to setup the system if you follow it very closely.

Go to google and search for "mythtv fedora". Klick on the first link that comes up.

I have only one issue with my mythtv setup. My AMD XP1700+ is not fast enough to watch HDTV OTA with a HD5000 HDTV tuner card.

Thomas

Why would you lean toward one, try 2 or 3. That's the beauty of MythTV and Linux distros, you can afford to try as many as you like.

I agree. I should have said "I am leaning toward starting with " I want the first one to go easy. ;)

I have only one issue with my mythtv setup. My AMD XP1700+ is not fast enough to watch HDTV OTA with a HD5000 HDTV tuner card.

Thomas
It should be. I clocked down a Duron 1600 to 1200MHz (12x100) and it still worked ok at that speed using XvMC Nvidia video card decoding. It did stutter with the OSD on, but otherwise it worked pretty good even at that slow speed at about 80% cpu load displaying 1080i source using Bob de-interlacing. On a side note, you might want to consider clocking the 1700+ a little higher. IIRC, the default is only 1467Mhz, and even an old Palomino core can go a lot faster than that. The default multiplier is 11, so if you open a couple of the L5 bridges it will change the multiplier to 13, basicly turning the cpu into a 2100+. Of course your options vary depending on which core you have and if it's multiplier locked or not, but most Tbred B core 1700+ cpu will easily clock up over 2000MHz. palomino and Tbre A cores I wouldn't go over 1733MHZ (13x133). My old Palomino core XP 1600+ is still running fine at 1650 MHz on an old Abit KT7 board. What MB do you have and what's the CPUID of the cpu you have?

It should be. I clocked down a Duron 1600 to 1200MHz (12x100) and it still worked ok at that speed using XvMC Nvidia video card decoding. It did stutter with the OSD on, but otherwise it worked pretty good even at that slow speed at about 80% cpu load displaying 1080i source using Bob de-interlacing. On a side note, you might want to consider clocking the 1700+ a little higher. IIRC, the default is only 1467Mhz, and even an old Palomino core can go a lot faster than that. The default multiplier is 11, so if you open a couple of the L5 bridges it will change the multiplier to 13, basicly turning the cpu into a 2100+. Of course your options vary depending on which core you have and if it's multiplier locked or not, but most Tbred B core 1700+ cpu will easily clock up over 2000MHz. palomino and Tbre A cores I wouldn't go over 1733MHZ (13x133). My old Palomino core XP 1600+ is still running fine at 1650 MHz on an old Abit KT7 board. What MB do you have and what's the CPUID of the cpu you have?

The problem on my setup is, that the CPU cooler is not adequate enough to overclock at all. I rather take a quiet system before OC'ing.

I did find my slowdown problem tho. Turning on the auto commercial detection with HDTV is killing a slow system. I turned it off and was able to watch the Superbowl in HDTV OTA with a few hiccups but no big problems in general.

The problem on my setup is, that the CPU cooler is not adequate enough to overclock at all. I rather take a quiet system before OC'ing.

I did find my slowdown problem tho. Turning on the auto commercial detection with HDTV is killing a slow system. I turned it off and was able to watch the Superbowl in HDTV OTA with a few hiccups but no big problems in general.

The stock coolers for the K7 line suck big time. If you can find a TR2-M1 or -M3, get it. It's cheap and will drop your temps by at least 10C in most cases.

Commercial flagging does take quiet a bit of power, however, there's a setting for it that can be set to use minimum power, and you can also set the times in which it runs. Just exclude the times you wacth TV.

I have no experience with Linux but I am well versed in Windows so I assume that Linux will not be too difficult to pickup. I am willing to experiment. I built my current MCE system. I currently have:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Mobo
AMD Athlon XP 3400+ CPU
WinTV-PVR-500 MCE tuner card
Vbox Cat's Eye 150 HDTV tuner
1 GB Ram
NVIDA Quadro FX 1100 Video Card

I just did my first permanent Ubuntu 6.1 32bit install on an old P3 1Ghz with 1GB of RAM on a P3V4x mobo and GF4 Ti 4600, and the install went perfectly- it was easier than installing XP Pro!

I couldn't believe how easy it was to print to my network HP laserjet, install a PDF printer driver (free), and most other apps you need are either installed already or a few clicks away with the Synaptic Package Manager and Automatix.

I put in a DVD and it just played!

My network shares just appeared in the Network browser, just like Windows Explorer. I almost wept- I didn't realize how far Linux had come over the past 4 years in usuability, which I believe now exceeds Windows. I am not kidding.

As Knoppix uses a Debian core like Ubuntu, and has similar auto setup functionality, I would think KnoppMyth would be a great place to start if you want a STB/MCE style box. I have not tried KnoppMyth, but have tested Knoppix over the past two years. Basically, all the human-rated ;) Linux distros appear to be converging on Debian cores- Ubuntu, knoppix, Linspire/Freespire.

Once you get used to the Unix-style directory and partition structure, you shouldn't have any big problems getting up and running, assuming you've been building PC's and installing OS's in the past (WIndows or otherwise).

I would suggest the following:

Download the Ubuntu 6.1 32 bit x86 disc image at ubuntu.com.

Install it on your machine- just boot the CD, get to the desktop from the menu, and select Install from the System menu to install to your hard disk. The install process will launch a Partition Magic-like clone called Gparted. You need to make at least two partitions, one for root (/) and one for the swap.

After its on the HD and you reboot, start playing.

Download

http://www.getautomatix.com/apt/dists/edgy/main/binary-i386/automatix2_1.1-2.14-6.10edgy_i386.deb

It should ask you if you want to install the .deb file- do it or double click it after it downloads.

Use the Automatix GUI to install all the additional third party codecs/media players, and drivers you want.

From there, explore and experiment, install Freevo on top if you want, though my philosophy is to use a stock desktop environment and then individual media player(s) as the A/V components in the "rack" (PC).

Have fun.

How can I find out if my hardware is supported by a specific distribution of Linux? I am leaning toward Knoppmyth at the moment.

I think it would be a good idea to download and burn a Knoppix dvd or cd. It runs as a live cd which does not affect your hard drive unless you want it to, if you can download at high speeds it costs you nothing but the dvd disk, and it will give you a good idea of linux support for your hardware. It also provides very handy utilities for recovering from emergencies, even on Windows systems. www.knoppix.org/

Warning, this may be lengthy

Hi there,

I don't post here often, just lurk mainly but here is my Windows to Linux story.

I recently made the switch from Windows to Linux with my HTPC and haven't looked back here is the procedure I used, maybe it will work for you:

I first decided to try out Ubuntu on my Desktop machine which I use for internet and office type stuff mostly, I don't really game anymore so that pc is mostly used for internet and email now. This was decided after I tried out Vista and hated the way it worked, it was slow and way too much security crap. I was using Firefox/Thunderbird combo so I could at least use those in linux and keep all my settings and addons. I was also already using OpenOffice as well so I could keep that too. So I figured what the hell, I decided to dual boot Vista and Ubuntu. I fired in the LiveCD for Ubuntu and everything seemed to work. I went ahead and installed and haven't looked back. I used it for about a month to get used to Linux before I decided to mess with my HTPC.

My HTPC consist of the following hardware Gigabyte S939 Mobo, AMD 64 3700+ CPU, 1 gig ram, 1 40 gig IDE drive(OS drive), 2 x 250gig(ripped dvd's and recordings) SATA drives, Gigabyte nVidia 6600(fanless), Avermedia A180 OTA HD Card and a Twinhan DVB-S card. Fairly standard hardware. Prior to my Linux switch I had been running Windows XP with a Combination of SageTV and MyTheatre(displayed inside SageTV with a plugin). Both those pieces of software cost $$$ and Sage recently changed their policy regarding upgrades so I actually paid for it once and then again when a major update came out(I think it was $80 and then $40), MyTheatre I think was $40 for lifetime updates. Also I bought a couple other small apps to help with commercial detection and XMLTV data, these were $10-20 a piece. Not really bitching about the costs but just pointing it out for comparison purposes. While I enjoyed using SageTV for the 8 or 9 months I had it, I found it to be pretty unstable at best. So much so the the all important WAF(or GAF in my case) factor was in the hole. She constantly bitched about the setup as it always seemed to fail when she was over and we were watching a show or movie. Either I would get a BSOD, it would freeze(mainly with Live TV) or sometimes recordings would fail for whatever reason and we would not see the end of the movie. I, of course, could live with all that mostly. But she would constantly complain ad ask why we can't just have normal tv like everyone else. I too was beginning to get frustrated and also her complaining was getting to me but I am pretty stubborn so I would not admit it was a problem.

Skip ahead a few months. Now that I was pretty familiar and comfortable using Linux and the command line(brought me back to my DOS days, I actually enjoy the command line and use it alot, I knida missed it). I decided to try and get my HTPC up and running on MythTV with Ubuntu as the base. I repartitioned the 40 gig drive in order to keep my existing Sage+Windows install and allow me to dual boot. I immediately ran into problems trying to install Ubuntu(using the alternate install disc as I wanted a minimal install), it would Hard Lock while trying to boot everytime. Not good. I did ALOT of reading before I found the problem, it turned out to be a problem with my DVB-S card, it had a corrupted eeprom(likely caused by ****** windows drivers), luckily there was a fix but it could render my card useless if done incorrectly or it's not the problem. I figured f*#$ it, it's not working now. I tried the fix and it worked! With that problem solved I went ahead and finished installing Ubuntu. That went well and everything seemed good, I was using the OpenBOX window manager rather than gnome as I don't need a fancy GUI for this setup. OpenBOX is lightweight and very fast to boot into.

Next once I had all the packages installed I needed(codecs, mplayer, etc etc etc) I went ahead and began the task on installing MythTV, I used a Trunk version(bleeding edge) as I needed some of the fixes for my DVB-S setup. I ran into lots of snags and issues along the way but with the great forums, wiki's, howto's etc out there I could usually find someone who had had the same issues as me. All this time I would boot back into Windows/SageTV at night to still get my tv and record my programs. The beauty of dual booting. And then when time permitted I would plug away at setting up Myth. It probably took me a couple weeks to get a working setup going, but I only had a a few hours a week to work on it between my job and hanging out with the girlfriend.

I have now been running MythTV for about a month maybe. I am NEVER going back to a Windows setup again for my HTPC or any of my PC's for that matter(Unfortunately I have to deal with Windows at work still). MythTV has never crashed on me since I have had it completely setup, no freezes, no lockups, nothing. It just seems to work(knock on wood!!). Commercial detection works almost flawlessly now(I never could get it working well with SageTV), the Guide data always seems correct and downloads automagically(not so with SageTV most of the time) all my recordings record as expected, haven't missed one yet. The only issue I have remaining is trying to get a working 1080i modeline for my tv, but I have a 792x496 modeline that works so well that I am content with it. I doubt on my 34" widescreen CRT I would be able to tell the difference from about 13-14 feet away.

I haven't done away with my Windows/Sage partition yet but I did reformat my 2 250gig drives from NTFS to XFS so there's really no going back. I am also in the process of ripping all my DVD's into x264 files retaining the DTS/Dolby Digital soundtracks. The size gets reduced to about 1/5th, usually works out to between 1.5gig to 2 gig per movie so I will be able to fit most of my favourites on the 250gig drive. Soon my collection will be available in Myth, which is way cool. I also share a drive with my desktop which has a few videos and movies and such on it. And I can listen to all my music which is also shared between the two.

All in All I would say DO IT!!!! MythTV is an amazing piece of software and best of all its open source and free. My thanks go out to all involved in coding, plugin development, theme makers etc etc. Hat's off to you!! Excellent Product for my purposes.

This may seem like a slam against the SageTV product, it's not though. It's a really nice product. It's just that it didn't work reliably for my particular setup and the ongoing cost associated with it didn't sit well with me. I paid twice in approx 6 months of ownership. The other thing I didn't like about SageTV is that it was Java based which made it slow at times(for me anyways). They do have a Linux version of their software as well but I am not sure how much it is used, they charge a separate license fee for that as well, so I would have to pay yet again if I wanted to try it out.

Sorry for the length!! It got longer than expected but I just wanted to share my success story and help others in the same boat.

Kevin

I think it would be a good idea to download and burn a Knoppix dvd or cd. It runs as a live cd which does not affect your hard drive unless you want it to, if you can download at high speeds it costs you nothing but the dvd disk, and it will give you a good idea of linux support for your hardware. It also provides very handy utilities for recovering from emergencies, even on Windows systems. www.knoppix.org/

To make your PC work as a backend - meaning actually recording shows - you have to install the Knoppmyth core. I started using Myth using KM, and I speak from experience.

The diskless option is for frontends only - this means you have to have a working backend Myth box with tuners, etc.

That said, if you have an old machine, stick a cheap tuner card in it, and install Knoppmyth. It's an awesome introduction to how Myth goes together (with its subcomponents) for even a Linux beginner.

I agree that the Linux HTPC How-To (http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/index.html) is an awesome site.

To make your PC work as a backend - meaning actually recording shows - you have to install the Knoppmyth core. I started using Myth using KM, and I speak from experience.

The diskless option is for frontends only - this means you have to have a working backend Myth box with tuners, etc.

That said, if you have an old machine, stick a cheap tuner card in it, and install Knoppmyth. It's an awesome introduction to how Myth goes together (with its subcomponents) for even a Linux beginner.

I agree that the Linux HTPC How-To (http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/index.html) is an awesome site.

I think he was just recommending he run the live disk version of Knoppix to see how his hardware did with Knoppix before installing knoppmyth, which is a good idea.