http://www.linux.com/feature/118668

I've replied...

Be sure you don't criticize the "review". I did and my commentary was erased in less than 20 minutes. This shows the true evil side of blogs. They control everything on their site. I suppose we could start a thread here, but good luck getting a link to it on his blog.

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I agree with you, his article was written from the point of view where he chose MythDora and then decided to talk about the others just to mention them. It was a good introduction to the different distributions out there, but really didn't shed any light on what the real benefits or detriments were (other than mythbuntu being a little tough to install). He also left out LinuxMCE (which seams to be gaining some ground).

I use Knoppmyth and will continue to do what I can to support it.

The whole review was a little light...

I don't think there was a compelling argument for any of the distros there. You can't see the advantages to ANY distro (myth or regular) until you get into the nuts and bolts. and even then the "Advantages" are mostly how well a given distro fits your preferences. His bit about see which security model fits your prefs touches on this idea.

I even noticed a factual error. KM comes with MythTV 0.20.1-fixes as of changelist 13420, which is newer than the 0.20.1 release by 2 weeks, not "an older version of 0.20"...

Hi,

I had to add a couple of cents also. Will check later to see if it is still there

Mike

Thanks for the support everyone. Pity some of the comments got deleted. I'd love to have read them. While KnoppMyth may have some flaws, to say it doesn't compared especial when you don't know all of the capabilities is crap.

Hi,

My post went away also.. but I think to run anything on "old" computers as he mentioned left me wondering how to ever make an old slow machine like I use work when they don't even have a dvd to install it.

Anyway, KM has been all I have needed for quite sometime although, I do miss my openoffice. The open minded folks will make their own choice.

Mike

I posted a comment this morning and have already gotten a reply, gee the author is touchy. Here is what I said and the response.

And the reply:


And my final response posted just now:

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Guess he doesn't like the heat... Perhaps next time he'll stay out of the kitchen.

Honestly, I think you guys are being too harsh on the reviewer. I can see many positive things all 3 distros can take from the review.

1st There are the differences in a Fedora, Debian, or Ubuntu. So right off the bat there is a strong possibility to lean based on reviewers' past experiences with Fedora, Debian, or Ubuntu. The same will hold true for differences in package managers in each distro, aptititude, yum, or Synaptic.

2nd The guy took time to write the review. How many of us have tried MythDora or MythBuntu and did any of us then take the time to write a review? There are a bunch of Linux news and magazine sites that would like to have such a review handed to them. Personally I played with MythDora and have some thoughts on it, but this reviewer gets a star because he took the extra time to document and provide his thoughts and ideas to all 3 projects.

3rd All 3 of these projects are OpenSouce, if MythDora is doing a task well why can't MythBuntu or KnoppMyth look into using a similar method? This isn't proprietary software that we can't look what they are doing.
The GPL and Linux are great because they promote and encourage the learning and sharing of ideas/code. This should be a great example, 3 projects 1 goal (bringing MythTV to user), each has strengths and weakness.

Some statements I found of interest things that could be taken away



This happens on KnoppMyth too, how many posts do we see with "C7 respawn too fast" because xorg is using an integrated i810 video driver rather than a nVidia card. Since apparently MythDora didn't have the issue, how do they overcome? I've noticed on MythDora's 4.0 installer there is a screen for selecting video driver, including different versions of Nvidia driver.



I too found the MythWelcome or MythFrontend a nice choice on the MythDora installer too. I also found the Frontend Only, Backend Only, and Frontend/Backend option during install of MythDora. Would those choices of functionality help the KM installer?



Mythbuntu - user account
MythDora - root, mythtv
KnoppMyth - root, mythtv, user account

Is the 3rd account needed in KM? I personally use it one time to login enable root ssh access (my root password is secure) and then do most functions as MythTV or root from console or ssh.



I feel KM is ahead of both in hardware detection.

Well its my policy that no machine should allow a remote root login - no matter how secure you think the password appears. And since the mythtv account password is "known" it should not be allowed remote login either. That means you really need another account. Unless, of course, you wish to reduce your security.

This is crap, crap, crap, crap. If we were in person, I'd happily use other adjectives. He didn't do this homework as far as I'm concerned. How much system maintenance should you have to do on a PVR? How much system maintenance do you have to do on a KnoppMyth box? I know how much I do. None. And if I did, I can ssh into a machine. I can use webmin. I can take a look at stats using RRD. Can either of the other two do this w/o additional software installation?

Dale and I actually discussed removing the need for the third account some time ago. However we decided to wait until R6. There is nothing stopping someone from changing the password for mythtv. KnoppMyth may not be perfect, but the author gives definite impression by his choice of words. BTW: I'm too busy creating a distro to write articles.

I dust mine off every so often....

Hi,


Cecil, please tell us how you REALLY feel


Nothing man makes is perfect and will always have room for improvement, however KM is very good!


If you were to remove the plain install user account, the second thing I would do is adduser <name> First thing is do the reboot... I grew up on a farm where we didn't have to lock the doors and screw the cellar shut. Now even something so seemingly harmless and isolated as the internet is probably one of the most dangerous areas to go. Fur balls are constantly figuring out ways to hose innocent, trusting people.

The third user allows the shipping of KM in a basically secure setup. When the third user is created that becomes the first block to an outsider as they try and guess the user id, then they have to work on the password.

I would like to see more out of the box security, maybe some iptables that lock out a ssh password failure after the second try (for ~ x number of minutes at least) Maybe include firestarter as an included firewall. It is easy to setup, heck I did it

Also, why not make the webserver use https as default? The user could always make it less secure but that would be their responsibility.

As for the review, the sunshine part is KnoppMyth was discused and now more people will know that there is another distro available. I think most folks that travel these back roads are openminded and will most likely at least try it and then can make an intelligent decision on their own. Since the other two require a dvd, KM stands a good chance of being tried first

As for maintenance, my vcr requires more work to get just pictures in and out than KM does on a bad day and I do beat on mine pretty hard.

The "c7:" error comes from the last line or so in the inittab where it tries to start the xserver. Since it so well documented, it should take any new person about 2 minutes to fix it (you have 5 before it reties to start xserver) which means you have 3 minutes to go get a beer before you continue the setup.

It took me 3 hours to install LinuxMCE using the 3 cd method on a 3ghz box, which is worse? I can only guess at how long it would take to install on my ol' Dell 400mhz box. And it doesn't even see my 350 card, that means no tv tonight unless I spend 15 minutes and install KM

Preaching to the choir again
Have a great day!
Mike