[mythtv-users] MythTV On Gentoo - Thoughts and Questions

[Justin Hornsby]

Well, ever since I was a total noob I've been with Gentoo.  I'm not 
counting the abortive attempts at getting FC & Redhat to work properly a 
few years ago... yuk!  (Yes I actually messed up my system twice by 
changing the screen res & couldn't find out how to fix it - not having 
more than one PC was a major factor in getting stuck that way).

But with Gentoo - I started from a bare hard drive & had mythtv working 
with DVB in little over a week.  Once I got the drivers for my cheapo 
leadtek DVB-T cards going - and I emerged the latest version of mythtv 
all was well.  The only patching needed was to the kernel sources so I 
could make modules for my DVB hardware.

It all turned out to be much more easy than I ever thought it would be. 
  A friend of mine who's a software developer by trade told me it took 
him  a 'couple of days' so that put the frighteners on me - but it was 
all fairly straightforward.

As recently as last October I'd see a comment like "all you need to do 
now is recompile the kernel" and I'd run a mile.  Not now - thanks to 
all of the excellent documentation and user forums like this one.

Incidentally - I only 'resorted' to using Linux because I wanted to 
build a PVR that actually worked.  I ended up spending more time larking 
around with Windows than the real time I spent getting Gentoo & MythTV 
up & running.  So guess which OS is soon to be leaving my house forever? :-D

If I were to have any complaint about Gentoo it'd be the compilation 
time....  Especially if you make the classic mistake of updating portage 
before trying to install X from a package CD.  Oh how I laughed.  But 
Gentoo's biggest weaknesses are also its biggest strengths in some ways 
- compiling everything from source has its advantages I'm sure.

Just my £0.02 worth...

Justin.