[mythtv] Whats wrong with myth

[J. Donavan Stanley]

Brad Templeton wrote:

>That it's a hard challenge however does not mean it's not a worthwhile one.
>With MythTV, we could write up a description of a standardized box, dictating
>the video card, capture cards, motherboard chipset and linux distro and saying,
>"Here, if you buy exactly this hardware, and install everything in this big
>package, it will work."   We could even do better than that.   But it's not the
>linux way, is it?  We want to run on every distro, every system but the most
>strange.   You get people saying, "I want to run myth with <bizarre card X>" and
>we try to answer it, rather than saying, "Spend $35 and get the card people have
>worked hard to debug on."  Amazes me sometimes.
>  
>
I think there's more of a perception from the user community that we
should make things run on "<bizarre card X>" than there is a willingness
on our part to do so... You'll hear "get an nvidia card" a lot from the
devs.  I also actively discourage the "hey I've some spare junk hardware
that I want to make a myth box from" people I come across because I know
that's most likely to lead to a bad impression of myth.

 I do agree that there should be a reference platform that's guaranteed
to work.  But all of that entails a hardware certification system, and
lots of testing which requires time and money.