Hi,

I've been searching around looking for a Debian MythTV howto. I'd like an up to date howto somewhat similar to the "Jarod's guide" but using straight Debian instead of FC4.

Does anyone know of a good one? The Debian MythTV howtos I have seen so far are either very outdated or are just how to update the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

I don't get it... KnoppMyth is basically Myth built on top of Debian, since that's what Knoppix is once you install it on a hard disk. I guess you're looking for instructions to rebuild your own Myth on top of plain Debian -- but why would you do that when you can just install KnoppMyth? Isn't that a lot easier than building Myth on a bare distro?

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The help for Debian is better than knoppmyth, i get answers for people of Debian and i put 10 questions in knoppmyth and never had a response, maybe this is one best reason.

Perhaps you should read the MythTV docs. The last question(s) you asked are covered in the docs. It is rather interesting... I tell folks to read the docs or search the forum and they bitch. They bitch, when they don't get answers to questions that have been answered time and again. They bitch about the lack of support, yet they don't want to do any work for themselves (not stating you, I see you've recompiled the kernel). While we do try to make things easy with KnoppMyth, for some folks things may not go so easy. In these cases, people should read the docs (hell they should read them anyways).

Good luck with Debian or Fedora or Gentoo or whatever...

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

virusbcn I can see that debian might have support in your native language, but I know I've been on several debian forums irc mailing list etc, and can assure you that they are no where as friendly as we are they have a very leet attitude.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Yes, the reason I am asking is that I have a dual boot computer in the basement I use as a KnoppMyth frontend (default) or straight Debian testing (optional) for general purpose PC.

The system works great but since it is a frontend OR a general purpose PC I was looking into building Debian based general purpose system that would be a general purpose AND frontend when needed. That way I could eliminate the dual boot setup. Trying to make a KnoppMyth system general purpose using "apt-get upgrade" is a sure bet to hose it up.

Also, I am just interested in these things and like to experiment. I have always been a fan of Debian and I like to use the base system. Its one thing I'd like to change in KnoppMyth is that it is highly specialized (by design, that is not a criticism) and I'd like it to be more general purpose.

I am keeping my combined KnoppMyth frontend/backend upstairs.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

well there for a short perio it was fairly simple to make knoppmyth into a gerneral purpose frontend, but then debian released a new stable version and unstable went to a firey infurno. At some point in the not too distant future it should all stabalize again.

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Xsecrets

BTW all of this experimenting is done on a spare harddrive on the basement frontend PC. I am keeping the original HD unchanged so I can retreat to it in case this does not work out as planned.

Here is how it is going so far. I am using the instructions posted below as a guide. It appears getting the Debian into a working "unstable" is a prerequisite for MythTV.

http://dijkstra.csh.rit.edu/~mdz/debian ... EADME.html

I installed Debian stable from the i386 "business card CD" netinst from Debian.org

http://www.us.debian.org/CD/netinst/

That went very well, I just accepted all the defaults and it went smooth. The only option I selected was during tasksel I choose "desktop system" which I think caused some problems later on.

I tried just doing an "apt-get update && apt-get install mythtv" with the updated /etc/apt/sources.list thinking with the recent release of Sarge that it would handle the dependencies for MythTV. No luck, had to use apt-get to bring the whole system up to "unstable". Being a "desktop system" caused a lot of packages to be installed from "stable" which were upgraded when I did the "apt-get dist-upgrade".

Apparently, all the changes in "unstable" is really making it live up to its name. Several packages were not able to upgrade due to missing dependencies which in turn backed the whole upgrade process up. I have done this several times in the past and have never seen that many packages get broken. One or two maybe, not 6 or more. Usually the fix to this problem is to just wait a week or two until the package dependencies catch up in "unstable" and try again.

Rather than wait a week to try again with apt-get dis-upgrade, I am going to wipe the drive and reinstall not select any options in tasksel and just do the minimal stable Debian install. Then make the changes to /etc/apt/sources.list and do the apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade with the smaller number of installed stable packages.

Hopefully with a working minimal unstable install do the tasksel to choose the "desktop system" to see if it handles the dependencies better. When I get a working unstable "desktop system" it should be a great platform for a general purpose system that also runs MythTV as a frontend.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

now you see why knoppmyth is not apt-get safe right now. even debian itself is not apt-get safe for unstable right now. the recent library changes and the change to xorg are huge, and will take a bit to settle in. The biggest issue with unstable right now is the switch in glibc which will break any package that has not been recompiled to use it. The team is working very quickly getting things recompiled, but it will still take a bit yet, and there are some issues with certain programs compiling with the new version, so those have to be worked out.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

I take many years in this, few in Linux, and have to say that never I have felt in no more worse treated forum, single has been responded to me to complain, once with reason and other no, still I am hoping that Dr Cesman teaches in which he leaves to me from the documentation is the answer to some of my questions, I take to a month and means dedicated to this, more than 4 hours to the day, leyendome documentation and looking for in this and many forums, google removes smoke, and the only thing that is happened to say to you to me it is that looks for, I suppose that podreis to understand that he is not something that makes me be of the good humor, I am little expert of the language but there are words that I prefer not to know them because I believe that it is not of a correct education, I at no moment there am lost the good education and simply I have dedicated myself to express my opinion, I understand that all we lived in paises democratic and that we are in our right, that is what I have done, single that. You pardon by the automatic translator but it did not have desire to think, me I reserve for google and the documentation to it....

I'm no doctor or PhD.... KnoppMyth wasn't built in a day. How much time do you think I spend trying to get things squared away? How many docs, forums, mailing list, man pages do you think I read in trying to build KnoppMyth? You have been guilty of posting in KnoppMyth > Installation. No matter who does it, it pisses me off to no end. You have been guilty of posting the same message in multiple parts of the forum. This type of behavior may fly on other forums, but no here. Despite the fact you ticked me off, did I not help you get your tuner card working?

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

virusbcn, I do not know what you are talking about. Would you please stop posting unrelated complaints in this thread?

I do not recommend arguing with cesman to begin with but doing it here is making this "Debian MythTV howto" thread very confusing.

Please stop or at least move it to another thread.

Thank you.

Andrew Lynch

indeed to this referred to me with bad aid, to the respect, the way to speak Mr. Cesman, I must learn to speak english, you also.
Cesman says:
You have been guilty of posting in KnoppMyth > Installation. No matter who does it, it pisses me off to no end. You have been guilty of posting the same message in multiple parts of the forum

If i and more people with me, is only because i think this is an instalation problem, if you think different please say to me and i change my post if you delete my post i think this is problem of the forum, never delete me any post in other forum.
"You have been guilty of posting the same message in multiple parts of the forum" if you read the posts you see not is the same.
"it pisses me off to no end" simply this is a "bad" expression, no comments.
...And still i hope you say me where are the "doc" who explain my problems.
Xsecrets is a gentleman, he it knows to speak very well.

I admire the work of Knooppmyth and the work that represents, although it seems difficult to understand to you I wish the best thing you of the world, you think this a critic constructive, never destructive.

Pd.:
Sorry Linchaj

virusbcn -- You claim your questions have not been answered in the forum. I looked over your postings and I saw numerous issues which were raised and all answered by forum members as far as I could tell. You complain of having your messages deleted when posted in the wrong forum, yet that is a well-known and publicized policy of this forum.

Your messages are difficult to understand -- I can't seem to make sense of your complaints. If you believe you will get better support on Debian or Myth groups, you are wrong in my opinion. If you expected Cesman to personally answer your posts, you shouldn't have. Most messages here are answered by others, and there is no reason for cesman to respond if others have already answered the question. If cesman responds and says "read this" or "do that" then it is your responsibility to research until you comprehend his statement.

When you have a complaint, the proper thing to do is to start your own message thread. Trying to divert someone else's thread to your own problems is called "threadjacking" and is frowned upon in any forum.

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Hopefully back on topic...

I did what I suggested earlier by wiping the drive and installing a minimal Debian stable with no task selected in tasksel. Then I updated /etc/apt/sources.list for unstable and the liblame0 and mythtv sources. I did a apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade and that went fine. The new Debian unstable is looking very sweet with a new kernel 2.6.12 and a whole bunch of improvements.

However, when I tried to select a configuration using tasksel, apt-get could not "converge" on an unstable package tree as pieces are apparently missing. I did "apt-get update" and retraced my steps but as far as I can tell Debian unstable is more broken than I have ever seen it.

I have been using Debian since 1998 so this is a bit of a surprise. I've seen unstable get a few screwy package dependencies now and then but they were nothing compared to this. I know that unstable is inherently less stable so this is nothing new -- its the scale of it that makes me wonder.

Based on how this project experiment is going, I think I am going to "back burner" it for a month or two and try again when whatever is troubling Debian settles out (hopefully, I wish them the best of luck, I suspect the package maintainers are going crazy trying to sort this out.)

Andrew Lynch