Mythtv

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by mlord

• The theme menus show only 3-4 items on the screen, as if I'm using a 1960's 12" B&W TV or something. I'm not! A modern big-screen LCD can show a lot more detail than that, and it does do so with mythtv-0.21 and the G.A.N.T. theme. I simply cannot tolerate having to scroll when the total menu has only 5-6 items on it.

The theme I use shows 6 items on the screen, which is good enough in most cases. It is the only 4:3 theme (I think it is called classic or something like that). There is also a 16:9 version of the same theme, but I don't know if it behaves the same way or not. I didn't like it at first as it is quite bright and a bit cheesy looking, but it has grown on me a bit. I do plan on rearranging it a bit later on to make it a bit more user friendly (why is Watch TV so far down on the main menu?).

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by mlord

If you have wifi available in the house, then I can loan you a wifi-to-ethernet bridge device, that'll connect things up until you run cat5 someday.

Thanks! If I don't have it dragged in by the time I see you, I may take you up on your kind offer. My only hesitation is band-aid solutions like this often delay the permanent solution. However, it would let me wait until my parents come to visit next month (an extra pair of hands is always useful for a job like this).

[DdDave]

Originally Posted by mlord

EDIT:
Scratch that. It's just not worth doing. The best thing would be to simply upgrade the kernel on your MythTV box to 2.6.32, and then apply a simpler version of my fix_hauppauge script to enable use of the remote. You'll have to visit here for that, I suspect. Unless I can figure out how to build a generic Ubuntu kernel package (unlikely).
/EDIT

mlord, thanks for looking into that for us.

So the way I see it I now have 3 options:

1) Wait a couple months for Mythbuntu 10.04 and keep using the VCR for now
2) Attempt to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.32. Any ideas if this will break MythTV and/or what would be involved in getting it back working again?
3) Install 10.04 alpha. Not sure how stable that would be.

Anyone have any opinions? I don't like option 1, so I need to pick the path of least resistance. I'm pretty new to Linux & Mythtv, and I'm not sure of the difficulty levels for options 2 or 3.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by DdDave

So the way I see it I now have 3 options:

I can think of two other options:

1. Use a keyboard (either wired or wireless) until you can get the HVR-1600 remote to work (this is what I am doing currently).
2. Use an alternate remote interface.

[stampeder]

I might need to rethink my use of EXT4 for the storage partitions on my mythbackend after all:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=Nzk0OA

[mlord]

Originally Posted by DdDave

2) Attempt to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.32. Any ideas if this will break MythTV and/or what would be involved in getting it back working again?

It all "just works" in my own MythTV box.

I don't know how to build .deb packages properly, but if you like I could send you a pre-built kernel image/modules and the like for use with a Mythbuntu-9.10 system.

Are you (and Roger?) using 64-bit Mythbuntu, or 32-bit Mythbuntu? I use 64-bit here.

-Mark

[mlord]

3) Install 10.04 alpha. Not sure how stable that would be.

I've tried twice now with that. No dice.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by mlord

Are you (and Roger?) using 64-bit Mythbuntu, or 32-bit Mythbuntu? I use 64-bit here.

I am using 32-bit since I am using an old 2.8GHz P4. I know at some point I will need to upgrade my box, but I won't get the budget for that for a while, so I have to make do with what I have.

[mlord]

Okay, I'll fire up the QuadCore box and build two sets of kernels: one 32-bit and one 64-bit.

Edit: Got the 64-bit one up and running. But you [Roger] will have to bring the box over sometime (next week?) to get the 32-bit kernel installed and the remote working.. I don't want to mess up your box with attempting a "remote control install" of it.

[greg225]

Mark, I'll jump in on the 64-bit kernel if you have time please and thanks. I have had some problems getting mythbuntu 9.10 working on my QuadCore. Greg

[mlord]

Peachy. I'm busy for the weekend, though. So how about an open invite for Monday or Tuesday evening, this coming week?

Roger, Greg, anyone else who wants. Just bring your Mythbox + remote control over (no display, no keyboard, no mouse, no antenna, no tower ), and we'll fix the remotes and other minor issues.

You guys discuss which evening works best, and let me know on Saturday (email or PM).

Cheers

[ericball]

Originally Posted by stampeder

I might need to rethink my use of EXT4 for the storage partitions on my mythbackend after all:http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=Nzk0OA

I'm using EXT3 for / and JFS for /mythtv, just because EXT4 was still "experimental" and my MBE isn't on a UPS. (The lights went out earlier this week, no damage done.)

[stampeder]

My own test metrics showed that XFS was better for my MythTV backend than JFS, but really the performance difference was not what I would call noticeable.

[mlord]

Definitely XFS here. It self-tunes to the storage array geometry, is better maintained than JFS, is better supported by boot/recovery CDs, and has a very long proven track record for speed and data integrity.

Cheers

[stampeder]

Yep, and XFS's delete speed is amazing! I always set up the boot partition under either EXT2 or EXT3 then the others under XFS. This time I opted for EXT4 to see what would happen, but after reading the Phoronix article I'm going to back it all up and restore it onto the file system types above.