Okay, the title might be an exaggeration. But seriously, I've done enough tweaking to my setup to get my firefly remote working, rip and transcode DVD's, run an ampache music server on the side, and otherwise make my system functional as a media server. I'm still very much a linux newbie.

But outside of the MythTV application, good GOD it's an ugly pain to work with. I've been running the system for about 18 months, and I still can't figure out how to change the initial ugly-a** wallpaper. Or do anything with the "taskbar"-looking thing on the bottom of the screen. Or change fonts. I know that Knoppmyth was designed to be a bare-bones installation, but it's just a little TOO bare to make it friendly at all.

I've recently put Ubuntu 7.04 on a laptop, and it's a dream to work with by comparison. Obviously, however, the Ubuntu installation contains a lot of stuff that you don't need for a media server--office software, etc. I THINK that what this all comes down to is maybe the windows manager?

So how do I change the default Knoppmyth windows manager to something more user-friendly like Ubuntu's? And is that the right approach? I'd just install Ubuntu over my current Knoppmyth installation, but I don't want to lose all the changes I've made to the system over the last year+, or all the hundreds of gigabytes of media stored there on my multi-drive partition.

Help me make my system easier to get along with outside of MythTV, please.

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-= Domino =-
Major Newbie

If you want a box with more eye candy and other stuff on it, why don't you install something like mythdora?

On the other hand having just installed Fedora 7 on my workstation box I'll tell you that it's royal pain in the seat on other counts. If I wanted my box dumbed down to look and acts like MS-Windows it'd be so much easier just to run that POS. It took me a good 8-10 hours to kill most of the really stupid stuff, and I'm a pro. (No, I DO NOT want Samba sharing my /home and enabled by default Cthulu take it!)

Not exactly. KnoppMyth is not put together to be a desktop distribution, it's designed to be an appliance. From http://knoppmythwiki.org :

And from http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html :


As tjc suggested, you may want to try other distributions. I know that the package manager in [K,X]Ubuntu allows for installing MythTV, and you can always uninstall whatever you don't like/want.

To change the ugly-a** wallpaper I believe you would edit your .fluxbox/init file and change the line that refers to /usr/local/lib/knoppmyth.png to something else, or wipe out the ugly-a** wallpaper found in knoppmyth.png with something of your own choosing.

PS: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... +wallpaper

Why the exaggeration? Do you think that would make folks help you even quicker? Alot of remotes now work out the box. We try and support as much hardware as we can. If/once a user tweaks/installs something to get thier hardware work. If that user come back and reports the details to us, we try and get that hardware working in future releases. We cannot legal support DVD ripping/transcoding out the box. Where are your posts stating what you've done to make KnoppMyth more of a media server?
If you've been running it "for about 18 months", we must be doing something right.
KnoppMyth and Ubuntu are designed for two different things. Yes, you can install MythTV on Ubuntu. If that is what you want, go for it. Fluxbox was choosen as the Window Manager because it is lightweight. It isn't a full featured desktop like GNOME or KDE (KDE rules!). But a fully featured desktop makes no sense on a box that is suppose to be a PVR. Quick and PVR is the entire reason behind KnoppMyth. By your own admission, I'd say we hit the mark.
But, you'd loose this if you auto upgraded. R6 will address this!
So, you do know how to be polite. Well, I'll continue to be just as polite and continue to bit my tongue.

FWIW, I wanted to share this with anyone looking for a good solution to the wallpaper problem. Not that I don't appreciate the pic of Cecil and Tux, but I run my GUI to 98% of the screen margins, and don't like to see odd things peeking out at me.
So if this is you, and you'd rather just have the illusion of the GUI floating on blackness, here you go:



This will get my copy of knoppmyth.png, which is just a black rectangle of 1920x1080.

Yea, that's always annoyed me as well.

I'd really rather just eliminate the wallpaper completely.
If I just knew where to put the "xsetroot -solid black" command...

Why is there wallpaper in the first place? You can't
ever see it except for the 1-2 pixels around the edges of the
GUI.

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Grant

I found it. Change the line in /home/mythtv/.fluxbox/init from

to


I still haven't figured out how to get rid of the zombie though.

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Grant

Have you tried prefixing it with nohup and putting it into the background? The only reason you should get a zombie is if the parent process isn't smart enough to wait for the child's exit code...

Nope, I'm calling xsetroot the exact same what that the stock
KM setup calls fbsetbg (which always resulted in a zombie). I
couldn't find any documentation on how init commands are called
by fluxbox. There' nothing to indicate it was using a shell and
there's no shell process visible. I assumed that since the
default KM setup left a zombie, that it was unavoidable.

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Grant

My kids and I love the wallpaper. It is a cool design. A penguin sitting on the couch enjoying the mythical TV. Koodos to whomever made it.

A pretty interface would be nice. Something like the one on the small little apple box. If had to choose over stability or pretty then I choose stability. Pretty animations could require a more powerful processor or video card. Right now Knoppmyth works with pretty much anything.
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Jailbroken

Hi,

Have to add my 2 cents worth also. The wallpaper is fine for me, it is always nice to see a friendly face occasionally. I don't normally spend much time looking at my desktop anyway as the system just runs.

As for what you would need a "desktop" for in KM is a mystery to me, if I need to use an app that doesn't fall under KM or I don't have programmed into my menus, I find it very simple to do an alt x and then type in a ~half dozen letters to start an "extra feature" app.

If I really want to use my KM box for "computing" with a "real" desktop, I simply reboot and select from a menu to boot into Ubuntu (defaults to KM ). It is a very easy thing to add and I only use ~5 or 6 gigs for Ubuntu and typically it is for experimentation purposes.

What applications do you require that are so unique and are so desparately required that need a desktop anyway? The only thing that doesn't install for me in R5F1 is OpenOffice and that is only because of some man page blocking the install but I don't REALLY need it anyway.

Thanks
Mike

ditto on who cares what the wall paper looks like. If you want to help, try to devlop better themes and plugins.

I would like this to simply be a customizable appliance connected to your tv.
If it is working well you shouldn't see the wallpaper.

If I didn't have to reboot which is what a solid linux computer is capable of, then i would never have to see it.

It was smart to use a lightweight desktop. Appliances should be quick and stable and run on cheap hardware.

The main thing i admire about Ubuntu compared to a knoppmyth appliance is that it can be upgraded with fixes and security patches and still remain stable.
Knoppmyth unfortunately at this point can not.

Just my 2 cents.

Have you tried deleting the offending man page?

Mike

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LinHES 7.4
Australian Dragon
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