[mythtv-users] I just can't get it working.

[Stephen Tait]

Personally, it was the crappiness of the software that came with my PVR-250 
that made me want to put it to better use. Yes, I did look at the other 
windows software about at the time - it didn't and still doesn't have the 
feature set of Myth.

And no, I wasn't a Linux expert when I started. I'd done a bit of 
sysadminning and Samba setup and the like, but I had little or no idea 
about installing from source, module configuration, any of it, but I was 
prepared to learn it in order to get Myth working.

Yes, Myth can be a bitch to set up - what did you expect from a 0.x 
project? Since I came onboard (0.13), Myth has come on leaps and bounds in 
simplicity and usability. There are already RPM, DEB and ebuild installers, 
the only thing that needs doing by hand is configuration, same as with 
Windows. The only problem is that, if you're not familiar with the CLI, 
this configuration can be daunting.

The TV card however is another story, but this is hardly Linux's fault. The 
manafacturers simply refuse point blank to release any Linux drivers, nor 
do they release any information about the hardware to allow the open source 
driver/kernel hackers to write their own, which they are more than willing 
to do. To be frank, it's amazing that *any* hardware works in Linux, when 
there's such a dearth of information available to us? Hence why we have 
projects like ivtv, where a bunch of incredibly talented people hack away 
at reverse engineering all the windows drivers and all the rest of it, to 
produce a driver that works. In my case, better than the windows version. 
Again, it's cutting edge stuff, and they're concentrating on getting it 
working before they make it easy to use. If this isn't for you, then 
windows is obviously the better option.

By all means, use Windows. For stuff like Myth (i.e. the cutting bit of the 
bleeding edge), it's easier - but again, AFAIK, you still don't have Myth's 
feature set. Personally, I wanted to learn more about Linux, I wanted a 
cool project like Myth, and I didn't want to spend £100-£300 on a windows 
license.

Just another 2p for the discussion.