This is my attempt to help out other fellow newbs with how to get mythtv up and running through the auto-install feature on version 4.41
Hardware:
MSI MS-6566E motherboard
generic pci 10/100 ethernet card
PVR-250 w/ grey remote
GeForce4 Ti w/ svideo out
P4 2.26
1 gig ram

1. boot from the cd and select auto-install
2. after the install, select the i686 package with remote support (the l option) ONLY, do not select the x option
3. the thing starts to install. just follow the instructions given to you (i.e. "press yes for the first two questions"...)
4. soon you should be at the mythtv config screen.
4a. My system is both a backend and frontend system, so I did not change anything under the "general" menu.
4b. In the caption card menu, hit enter on (New capture card). Then press tab or hit the down arrow until you can change the card type. You want to choose the MPEG-2 Encoder card (PVR-250, PVR-350) option. I also changed the default input to Tuner 0.
4c. The video sources menu is where you need to first be registered with zap2it at http://labs.zap2it.com and you need to use the code 'TGYM-ZKOC-BUTV'. Then go through and answer the questions to configure the listings to your home area and fill out the survey to be registered with their system. Once you are done registering and you obtain the "gold subscription" from them, go back to the mythtv setup and type the name of your tv provider into the "Video source name" box. Then type your user ID (username) and password that you registered with on the zap2it website and hit the "retrieve lineups" button. The Data Direct Lineup should then show something. click finish.
4d. The next thing to configure is the input connections. There should be number of things listed in this menu. If you are only interested in capturing tv from your cable/sattelite then I'm pretty sure that the only one you need to configure is the one that says (Tuner 0). hit enter on this option. Go to the video source option and select the tv source you defined in the video source menu. then click finish.
4e. I left the channel editor option alone.
5. Press esc to exit the configurer and allow the mythtv frontend to load.
6. Once it loads, press the key combination of ctrl-alt-f1 to kick out to the console and log in as root when it promps you to login.
7. type the command 'install-nvidia.sh' to install the drivers for the nvidia card. Just hit yes or "i agree" to all the options it asks you.
8. once this is done, it will put you back into the graphical environment. press ctrl-alt-f1 again to go back to the console and type 'install-i686-x' to finish up installing everything.
9. since I don't know how to get back into graphical mode from the console, I just reboot my comp once the 'install-i686-x' command completes its task.
10. after the reboot it should bring you back to the configurator box. just redo all the crap again but select no to the options it asks for. (i am a little fuzzy about this step...i dont exactly remember if the configurator box pops up again after the reboot, if it doesnt then just ignore this step).
11. When you get back into the mythtv frontend, try and watch live tv to see if it works and has sound. If the picture does not work, I cannot help you. If the sound does not work, i CAN help you.
12. If sound does not work for watching tv, follow these steps that i found in another post from the forum member "mike".
you must be logged in as root to do the following code, so press escape a few times to exit out of mythtv. Once you are at the basic graphical environment, left-click your mouse anywhere on the screen to get to the root menu. Select XTerm so that a console box opens. Type 'su' to log in as root (you will have to type in your root password). after you are logged in as root, follow these steps:


13. after you complete these steps, reboot the machine. I use the command 'shutdown -r now" to reboot from the console.
14. once the computer reboots and mythtv pops up, try watching live tv again and see if you can hear anything. if not, go to the console again and type in 'su' and your root password. then type 'test_ioctl -y mute=0'.
15. reboot again and see if sound works. if it still doesnt work, then I can't help you because i SUCK at linux. Also, if any of the steps I did above are unnecessary, please feel free to tell me because I really have no idea what was necessary and what was not. I pretty much just searched around the forums to figure out the information in this post, so I really have no knowedge about what any of these commands do. All I know is that I now have a functioning mythtv box.

Good job man. Always nice to see people author howtos. I would move this to the "Howto" section though....

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

thanks, and if any moderators want to move this post into the howto section then go ahead.

If you are using the composite input like I am you may want to set your input to composite4. I needed to do that since I am piping my satellite into the composite input on the PVR-250.

- John

Nevermind its working now


Step 4C isnt working ive tried registering with zap2it and it says certificate code incorrect?

Ive made sure the code is correct and made sure it is a O no a 0

Thanks ahead of time

to go back to the GUI do ctrl + alt +f7 or if you need to apply changed to /etc/init.d/gdm restart