Hello,

I'm based in the UK, and have no experience whatsoever in installing or configuring linux (esp. in getting it to recognise hardware). I have only very limited experience in using Linux ("ls" and "grep" are about as far an I go)

I'd love to buy a pre-build myth system, but can't afford to do that, so I'll need to build my own.

Is there a step-by-step guide of exactly what I need to do in order to get a basic myth system built? I live in then UK, so ideally it would be great if someone knew of a UK guide (because presumably they would know about what was available over here, and where to get it, etc)

Thanks for any help you can provide (and Merry Christmas!)

Most of the UK guides I know of are quite out of date now. This is mainly because its now very easy to set up a knoppmyth box!

What to you want to use your myth box for?
- Freeview?
- SVideo output to a normal TV?
- Output to an LCD TV?

If you want freeview then probably the best/easiest card to get is the Hauppauge Nova-T. Can be found for about 30 quid http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/27669

For the rest of the system have a read in the tier 1 forum.

My system works out of the box with knoppmyth but the components are probably quite hard to find now:

A7n8x-vm motherboard
Sempron 2800+ CPU
512mb ram
2x 250Gb IDE hard drive

I'm currently running a Freeview card and an Analogue TV card, and I'm looking to drop in a Satellite card soon (When I can be bothered to put up a dish)

The rest of my setup is in my sig, and for an SD box it works great. I just booted from the CD, did a full install and it found everything, I had to enter the channels for the analogue card, but the Freeview card can scan for them.

Once you've decided what you want it to do, we can help you with hardware if you're planning on buying stuff, although most people just use spare hardware they've got lying around (although that's less common for HD capable boxes).

Once you get started, you'll find that any problem you have will probably have been covered by someone else, so search the forums, check the wiki and if you can't find the answer then post

_________________
Mephi
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R5.5
Opteron 2.Ghz
1Gb Ram, 200Gb Maxtor PATA
Avermedia 771 DVB-T
Hauppauge Nova-S2 (waiting to be installed)
MS MCE2 Remote

Thanks for your replies.. I'm thinking of getting cable (NTL) but currently don't have any equipment at all.
That is, I don't have a computer of my own yet (the one I'm using right now is shared)
Ideally, I'd like a low-powered machine if it's something I need to leave on all the time, and I'm not sure whether I need to have a really quiet one (if it will sit with the tv) or a seperate front-end/back-end.
I have seen various posts advocating MedieMVP as a front-end system, and a post discussing using a NSLU2 as a back-end. I don't know whether either of these are good ideas.
One thing I do know is that I'd like to support more than one tuner, but i have established that that ought not to be a problem.

If I were to buy/build a low-powered box specifically for the purposes of myth tv, what would you suggest? Is NSLU2 the right way to go?

For a low powered box I'd look at the via mini-itx systems (check out linitx.com for parts)

Bear in mind that won't be able to do HDTV playback with this system, but it should be more than adequate for SD.

Also get the biggest hard drive you can afford, so you don't have to keep deleting stuff =)

I've got NTL cable, but I've not yet got it hooked up to the myth box, I had trouble getting it working about a year ago, and I've not yet gone back to try and sort it. (but it's one of my plans for next week)

I've heard of people using they MVP for a small front end, but I believe there are restrictions on what it can do, so do a bit of research before grabbing one, or you may be disappointed.

I've not heard of anyone using the NSLU2 as a myth backend, but a quick google shows that people are trying it so it might work, again do your homework before buying any kit.

Also, don't worry about being a Linux noob, Knoppmyth has been an entry to the Linux world for a lot of us, it was my first system, and I'm now running a Linux file server and a Linux router at home, and if they'd port my favorite games to it, I'd drop windows tomorrow.

_________________
Mephi
-----------
R5.5
Opteron 2.Ghz
1Gb Ram, 200Gb Maxtor PATA
Avermedia 771 DVB-T
Hauppauge Nova-S2 (waiting to be installed)
MS MCE2 Remote

Not UK specific, but a good general guide can be found here: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=PickingComponents
For other tips see the page above that: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=HardwareConfigs

I used to use an NSLU2 for storing video data on (AVIs mostly) and it was ok for standard def. It was extremely slow in terms of file transfer speeds though so I'd be very surprised if it could cope with sending HD video. Something you may want to consider for future-proofing.

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Dell Dimension 4600, P4 2.8GHz, 1Gb, GeForce FX5200, Audigy 4, 2x Hauppauge DVB Nova-T (silver remote), KnoppMyth R5B7 -> R5E50