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Suggestions for KnoppMyth Improvements
http://forums.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2023		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  davidrn [ Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Suggestions for KnoppMyth Improvements
Just some ideas here. I'm sure some are easy, and some are
hard, impossible, or against the direction of KnoppMyth.
KnoppMyth is a great project, I hope these suggestions may help
impove a future release, even if only some are helpful.
Please forgive me if my suggestions overlook something
that exists, or something previously suggested.

INSTRUCTIONS
In general, we just need more detail about each step, including
some generic steps for MythtvSetup.
( I didn't know to go to labs.zap2it.com until I saw that in the forum
for example )
The last step of the install should connect into trouble shooting

I realize that the Wiki HOWTOs supply some good info now.
These are like the leafs of the tree though.
They usually are about getting a very specific element to work.
For example, we need a place to start if all you know is that you have no sound, which can get you to the right place.

That should be in a tree format with top levels like
Crash Problems
Video Problems
No Video Problems
Poor Video Problems
Sound Problems
...
Channel Problems
...
The instructions can also hook into trouble shooting
"If your locks up during boot read here:"
It's ok to dump people to other websites or into the forum
"Sorry no more detail has been added here yet:
consider searching the forum for these worlds
sound ALSO sampling rate ....."
You can't put everything into the documenation yourself,
but it's likely that 5% of the forum trouble shooting content
put into instruction form
will save you a huge percentage of the extra trouble shooting
posts you get, or at least the people would
come in to the right place in the forum, with the right
words they need to make a clear post.



INSTALL
--Only one small comment here:
When it asks for hostname, say
"Use the complete hostname including domain name."
(not all distros want the full name at that point, so it's not obvious.)
This goes along with the more instuction details,
Any info that could assit people making the choices, but
is too long for the screen goes in the install instructions.

BOOTING
-add a boot prompt option to the main boot
let one option prevent the loading of ivtv and bttv.
This lets you get in without much trouble,
even if your card would cause a boot time crash.

STARTUP:
-add a nice menu with timeout which will either start
Mythtv, Mythtv Setup, or go to the xterm,
also "First Time Boot Setup", and future links could be
to "Trouble shooting tools" "Change Hostname" etc...
Bonus points for making this easy for people to adjust.
the fisrt time you boot you would default to a special menu option
which would do the normal setup setup->mythfilldatabase-->myth,
and users could always return and select that option again instead
of the default, which is to start Mythtv up.

TOOLS:
--Create some post-install tools that can do the following:

1.--change hostname in one place,
including the myth settings to allow people to
change hostname w/o the can't connect to backend error.

2. swap ivtv driver version or bttv driver version in and out without
the need to recompile modules... (Is this possible?)

3.--switch to i686 versions from i585 w/o a reinstall.
(maybe this is what the discs upgrade can do already?)

4. In general, anything that is an install-time option,
could use a way just as easy to adjust it after install
if it is possible. You want to say things like
"You can change your network configuration anytime later
by running this command: ..."
Or you want to have an option on your menu: change network settings.

--Create some scripts which can dump sets of information out
for standard trouble shooting. Currently people post a lot of
dmesg, and that's OK, but maybe Knoppmyth can create a script
which pulls out some additional settings from various places.

--Create a list of all files that are involved in video and audio
configuration.

--Create post-install setup tools which can swap make some very specific changes to files which you see as most commonly being needed.
Things like setting card= or tuner= , or things like a bttv card
setup to use btaudio or a card that needs the loop cable.

This could even be like a panel that has a setting for card, tuner,
and audio method. It would include the ability to use the default
auto detect settings.

It's true that setting tuner=2 is not very hard to do, but the difference
is in having to go search and confirm that you need to do that,
and manually making the change, vs. just running a program
and selecting your card from a list to apply the specific changes.


PACKAGES:
Add and/or document some packages which help in testing
components. One thing that comes to mind is an audio test app.
I know the least about this so far, but this could be an area
where more documentation could help.


Thanks for making KnoppMyth.

David
Author:  Xsecrets [ Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:29 pm ]
Post subject: 
well to start with any documentation on the wiki can be edited or augmented in any way. there is nothing stopping someone from creating a troubleshooting guide.

the way linux works it is not possible to swap out ivtv versions without a recompile.

you can already switch to i686 from i586 without a reinstall and without using autoupgrade. I would agree that it would be nice for the scripts to have a little more intelligence or even brute force to allow downgrading without hassles.

most of the rest does sound like nice options, but just a bunch of work. I'm sure the developers would be open to submissions for most any of this.
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