[mythtv-users] Success story: PVR-150, Mandrake 10.1

[Milos Prudek]

Yesterday I installed Myth on Mandrake 10.1. After reading this list for 
2 years I expected to spend a week installing myth. Especially because I 
decided to buy PVR-150, which has unstable drivers.

No such luck. All I needed was a few hours. Jarod's guide was not used 
at all. The following description summarizes my experience and it will 
be useful to a somewhat experienced Mandrake user.

Step 1) ivtv download and installation

- Downloaded and installed ivtv-0.3.3k simply by following the first ten 
lines in doc/install.txt. You can skip the rest of install.txt
- DO NOT use the instructions in QuickSetup for modprobe.conf 
modification. It may causes hard lockup of the OS when you run "modprobe 
ivtv" later on. Instead enter this into your modprobe.conf:
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
That is right. Just two lines. ivtv-0.3.3 will figure out the rest.
- curiously, /lib/modules/2.6.8.1-24mdkcustom/extra is created and new 
modules are installed in this directory
- Mandrake ships with ivtv 0.1.x in 
/lib/modules/2.6.8.1-24mdk/kernel/3rdparty/ivtv. I removed the contents 
of this directory, because modprobe was using it. And I copied  the new 
ivtv 0.3.3k modules from /lib/modules/2.6.8.1-24mdkcustom/extra to 
/lib/modules/2.6.8.1-24mdk/kernel/3rdparty/ivtv


Step 2) firmware download
Firmware is available on the original Hauppauge CD-ROM. It must be 
installed according to 
http://ivtv.writeme.ch/tiki-index.php?page=ExtractingTheFirmware, using 
the following hack:

***
edit the ./ivtvfwextract.pl script: find "ivtvex.$$", and remove ".$$", 
then remove the next 5 lines of code, up to (but not including) 
"$fw_driver_path = ...".
Then, do the following:

	mkdir /tmp/ivtvex
	cp /mnt/cdrom/hcwPVRP2.sys /tmp/ivtvex/hcwpvrp2.sys
	./ivtvfwextract.pl /mnt/cdrom/Pvr
***

In my case this caused a simple error message and I had to "mkdir 
/root/tmp/ivtv" instead of mkdir "/tmp/ivtvex".

Step 3) ivtv activation
You could just run "modprobe ivtv" but sometimes the /dev/video* files 
are not created. I use a staged loading described in ivtv FAQ:

modprobe tveeprom
sleep 1
echo Loading videodev
modprobe videodev
sleep 1
echo Loading cx25840
modprobe cx25840 i2c_enable=1
sleep 1
echo Loading tuner
modprobe tuner
sleep 1
echo Loading wm8775
modprobe wm8775
sleep 1
echo Loading ivtv
modprobe ivtv

I advice that you watch the activation in a separate terminal window 
using "tail -f /var/log/messages". There should be plenty of ivtv log 
messages and no errors at all.

Step 4) verification

Test 1: "cat /dev/video > test.mpeg", run for 5 seconds, kill with 
ctrl-c, and display with "mplayer test.mpeg". You should see static, no 
signal yet because no tuning was done.

Test 2: "mplayer /dev/video0": again this displays just static in a window.

Step 5) Myth installation
This is trivial for a semi-experienced Mandrake user. Use Mandrake 
Control Center to install Mysql and Mysql-client, make sure that your 
software sources contain PLF and Thac repositories, and install 
everything myth*0.18*rpm. I have installed the following:
mythtv-frontend-0.18.1-20050618.1plf
mythtv-themes-0.18.1-20050618.1plf
mythtv-backend-0.18.1-20050618.1plf
libmyth0.18-0.18.1-20050618.1plf
mythtvsetup-0.18.1-20050618.1plf
mythtv-0.18.1-20050618.1plf

Then follow the official MythTV documentation to configure MySQL and 
Myth. This configuration will require about an hour or two.

Make sure that ivtv is loaded and works (step 4 above) before running 
the "mythtv-setup" program!

You should be hapilly watching TV now.

I did not install lirc yet, so this is just for TV without infrared 
remote control. Presumably, compilation of lirc from sources will be 
required, because Mandrake ships with lirc 0.6.x which does not support 
Hauppage PVR-150 or PVR-250 remote control.

I can't express how amazed I am with the Myth abilities and the sheer 
scope of functions it supports. This installation was definitely worth 
my time.

-- 
Milos Prudek
http://www.spoxdesign.com - your web usability testing