[mythtv] Building mythtv on LTSP as local App

Kevin Wambsganz wambs at verizon.net
Tue Nov 28 03:18:59 UTC 2006


Hi James,

Thanks for the quick reply!

I agree that running mythtv on the LTSP server and displaying the X server
on the terminal is slow and will not work for HDTV.

However, minimyth, uses the same concept as I plan to, except I want to
combine mythtv as a local appl with the X-server display in LTSP. So, I can
use the functionally of LTSP programs and also run mythtv. Otherwise, I
would have to reboot the terminal each time I want to change between LTSP
and mythtv, which is not a good solution.

This way it will not use NFS to stream the files. But I don't think NFS is
the problem anyway.

Based on my readings, its seems that trying to a run a video on the LTSP
server and display the entire video back to the terminal is a big problem.
It's just too much data. However, if the mythtv is running on the local
terminal, then the display is also on the local terminal. So it can handle
the video OK. 

This is what mini myth is doing, its running a custom kernel with only the
mythfrontend with support libs. I know this can be combined with ltsp to
provide a really nice terminal. The idea is to get video and sound to run as
local appls because that's where the HW is.

The problem is that LBE builds LTSP, GAR builds minimyth, Gmake builds
mythtv. Its seems everyone has there own build setup. Yuck!!!

LBE needs to build the programs that will run as local appls. But getting
gmake to work in LBE is hard. I will figure it out eventually.

Any pointers will be appreciated.

Thanks, Kevin

-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-dev-bounces at mythtv.org]
On Behalf Of jam at tigger.ws
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 7:19 AM
To: mythtv-dev at mythtv.org
Subject: Re: [mythtv] Building mythtv on LTSP as local App

On Monday 27 November 2006 20:09, mythtv-dev-request at mythtv.org wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Base on some investigation (reading), it seems that when running LTSP
> terminals, it best to run mythtv as a local appl vs. running it on the
> server. It looks like X11 display of HD video is too much for it to
handle.
>
> So, my plan is to compile mythtv frontend as a local appl. Unfornatuely, I
> can not just copy the code from the server to the local appl software
> location, because it compile with different libc, etc...
>
> So, I must recompile mythtv within the LTSP compile env. Ok, so LTSP has a
> way to do this using LBE. I have build LBE. And the way to build an local
> appl, it to create a package.def.
>
> Well, I can compile lame, but when I get to mythtv, it does not compile
for
> me. It looks like mythtv uses qmake. Not sure why but the extra steps
using
> qmake confuses the lbe build tool. Its really expects a configure and make
> only.
>
> Has anyone cross compiled using LTSP or LBE? It looks like qmake always
> looks into file "/usr/lib/qt3/mkspecs/default/qmake.conf" for
> configuration, and this does not support cross compile.
>
> Note, I have looked at www.myltsptv.org and minimyth, but these two don't
> use LBE and www.myltsptv.org is 2 yrs old and is built different and is
> mostly is german.
>
> Any help we be appreciated.

Kevin
I have spent very many hours playing with a dozen hardware platforms:

LTSP is bad at doing mythtv

NFS root seems to be the issue, the same hardware running the same software 
(ltsp) on a local disk is quite reasonable.

Sound is a pain, so local apps are needed, and still it's barely watchable.

Minimyth works really well. http://www.linpvr.org/. It fits next to ltsp.
I use PXE boot and RAM-Root. It took me a hour to fit minimyth alongside my 
ltsp, configure it, and get pictures!

I do use minimyth on pentium-m 256M intel-graphics, AMD x86_64 3500, 512M, 
NVIDIA, P4-3 256M NVIDIA. SD and HD both work well (100M lan) using a (dual)

x86_64 3800 as the backend.
I cannot get the AMD to work with twinhan, but DVICOs work fine.

LTSP - SD jerky, HD - unwatchable.
So save yourself the pain, try minimyth
James
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