Shuttle SN41G2 (nForce2 chipset)
AMD 2500XP
512MB RAM
200GB Western Digital drive
PVR-250 capture card gets input from cable TV
System is driving a Philips TV through the motherboard's S-Video out port.
KnoppMyth R4V3
I really like this system for a media center. It's small, powerful and very quiet. In addition to running KnoppMyth, I'm using it to serve MP3s on my home network via Samba. I did have a hiccup where I apparently blew the audio chip on the PVR-250, causing endless hours of frustration as I tried to track down the problem. Since replacing that card, though, the system has worked beautifully.
I have some experience with Linux, though I still rely heavily on online resources for even basic commands, so for me setup was a little tricky. I've tried to capture here all the tips I collected from various sources to get this up and running. Hopefully it will be useful to others building KnoppMyth on this little Shuttle.
Please note that I think I took good notes about my process, but some of this I am recreating from memory, so if something doesn't work, please let me know and I'll fix the instructions.
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1. I install all the components and connect all the cables. Initially, I tried to get this working by using a monitor, then switching over to the S-VIDEO output. That didn't really work for me, so I ultimately did the whole installation with the TV connected to the S-VIDEO port and no other monitor attached.
2. Enter "tv" at the splash screen and continue with the automatic installation. Note that when you're prompted to enter the name of your box, you should enter a fully qualified domain name (eg., mythtv.homeuser.org).
After installation and reboot, the screen is garbled because the nVidia drivers haven't yet been installed, so press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to a terminal window.
Log in as root, then issue the following commands to get the network card working:
install-nvnet.sh
netcardconfig
Reference:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1120
3. Issue this command to add the infrared remote support:
install-i686-l
Do not do install-i686-lx. You don't want to add XvMC.
Reference:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=626
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1032
4. Now, install the nVidia drivers using the following method, which I've adapted from the KnoppMyth FAQ at
www.podtronics.com:
Run the following commands:
export IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH=1
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
wget
http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linu ... 6-pkg2.run
sh 1.0-4496/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run (actually, I think I left off the 1.0-4496/)
(Accept the Agreement, Select No)
(Once you're back to the command line continue)
vim /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
(Press Insert to edit the file)
(Change Load "GLcore" to # Load "GLcore")
(Add the line Load "v4l")
(NOTE: The following settings work for my TV and probably for most other NTSC televisions, but you should really confirm this on your own. Damaging your TV because of the wrong settings is possible, though unlikely. In Section "Monitor0" comment out the current HorizSync and Vert Refresh lines and add
HorizSync 30.0 - 50.0
VertRefresh 60.0
I also commented out all the MODE lines below the 800x600 mode line, eg., modes with higher resolution.)
(In Section "Screen0" add
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
Option "TVOutFormat" "S-VIDEO"
(Find a line that starts with Driver. Next to it is the name of your current video driver surrounded by two quotes - mine was just nv. Change the name of the driver to nvidia. So the line should read Driver "nvidia")
(You're almost done!)
(Type Esc and then :w! and then enter)
(You may then exit with :q)
/etc/init.d/gdm start
You should now see an nVidia splash screen. MythTV should load automatically shortly after.
Reference:
http://www.podtronics.com/knoppmyth/FAQ.htm#How%20do%20I%20install%20the%20drivers%20for%20my%20nVidia%20card
5. At this point, the terminals other than Ctrl-Alt-F7 are impossible to read - I can see about 4 lines of huge blocky blurry text. Since I want to reboot here, I press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and blindly type
reboot
After rebooting, I see the KnoppMyth splash screen. I think there may be a terminal window prompting me to begin setup, but I ignore it for now. Instead, I left-click the mouse somewhere outside of the terminal window and select x-term. In this window, su to root, then:
apt-get update
apt-get install xmltv
reboot
Now I follow the onscreen instructions and configure mythtv
When you see the pretty graphical interface screen with the five configuration options, you have to exit and save your changes by pressing Esc. Nobody tells you that one and it's a bit counterintuitive, IMHO. I'm of the impression that Escaping out of a program dumps any changes, but that's not the way MythTV works. Anyway...
mythfilldatabase started for me automatically after that.
NOTE: For help in configuring MythTV, see the MythTV docs at
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO.html
Reference
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=626
6. At this point, I have a working MythTV setup. The remote works, though it occasionally conflicts with the TV, so I often use the keyboard instead. See
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-11.html#ss11.1 for keyboard commands.
One of the coolest things about MythTV is the web interface. If your box is connected to a home network, you should be able to open a web browser on any box on that network and navigate to
http://<your_network_ip_address>/ to view program listings, schedule recordings, check the backend status and more. Way cool.
7. One more thing I wanted to get working was Samba. Samba is activated by default in the KnoppMyth setup, but it needs configuring, which is easy enough. At this point I want to add Nano for working with text files so I
apt-get install nano
nano -w /etc/samba/smb.conf
I change the workgroup to the same name as the workgroup on my WinXP box. Then, under the [myth] section at the end of the file, I add my username to the valid users line:
valid users: mythtv,myname
Save the file and exit. Add a user and create a password:
smbpasswd -a myname
Finally, restart Samba:
/etc/init.d/samba restart
Reference:
http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=422&highlight=samba
http://www.linux-mag.com/2000-04/newbies_02.html
Voila! I now have a media center with a PVR and an MP3 server.
Life is good.
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I think that's everything I did. I'm not a guru so I'm not sure I could provide help beyond this, though I'm happy to try. Mostly this is the result of the hours I spent digging around the forums and the 'net trying to get this to work. I just thought it might help others to see it all in one place. Good luck!
UPDATED - forgot instructions about adding Samba user and password.