[mythtv-users] mythtv-setup with mouse cursor problems and blank screen

[Paul Harrison]

Robert Bradbury wrote:
> I have a Hauppauge PVR-150 that I've been trying to get to work with
> MythTV for several weeks now.  This is on a Pentium 4 with an Intel
> 915 graphics interface in combination with Gentoo Linux
> 2.6.20-gentoo-r8 (2.6.21 coming soon).  Mythtv is 0.20.1.  All of the
> libraries are at the latest release levels.
>
> It took relatively little time to reconfigure UNIX and get video
> devices that mplayer could read, so watching TV wasn't too bad.  A bit
> more was required to get the Hauppauge IR controller working (as they
> seem to be producing many models and there doesn't seem to be a
> "standard" Hauppauge Linux IR configuration file available.
>
> MythTV was a nightmare however.
>
> a) It takes a long time for mythtv-setup to come up and it seems to
> use a huge amount of memory (contrast this with say the Linux kernel
> configuration utility...).  This seems to be one of the worst cases of
> "form" over "functionality" I've ever encountered.
>
> b) Connecting the Video Source to PVR-150-1 is a nightmare because it
> seems to require the mouse to open a pull-down menu with options one
> selects from.  On my system when you move the mouse cursor over the
> MythTV image the mouse disappears!  I've done some searching and web
> comments range from the fact that some older versions had problems
> displaying the mouse cursor to some debate over people not getting the
> mouse cursor to disappear in full screen mode (where one presumably
> wants it to go away).
>
> Q1) Precisely *what* switch/config-file parameter/database-table entry
> needs to be changed to control mouse cursor visibility?
>
> c) After noticing the slow startup times, the large size, etc. I
> browsed around in the setup program (or perhaps the frontend) and
> reconfigured the display mode of the option/selection icons to use one
> of the lower CPU overhead options (I think there were 3-4 options
> involving low/medium/large) overhead.  A much better option would be a
> completely separate control window (as is the case in GIMP) that one
> uses to control MythTV, then I could move it to a separate workspace
> in Gnome if I wanted ( i.e. one workspace in full screen to watch TV
> while the rest in "work" mode).  I also changed it to use OpenGL
> rather than QT (though I'm running an xorg.conf *without* "glx"
> because in the 2.0.0/2.0.1 releases of xf86-video-i810 seem prone to
> generating segmentation faults in the Xserver OpenGL functions when
> switching virtual terminals (highly annoying that one...).  At any
> rate after making these changes the MythTV window got really flakey. 
> If I was using the simple theme and used right-arrow to move to the
> next menu option the previous selection icon would disappear.  I'd
> have to go into some sub-menu and then return to the main menu to get
> all of the icons back.  Many sub-menus would display nothing but a
> blank (blue) background.  Needless to say its now unusable.
>
> Q2) How do I reset image/window related settings in MythTV to the
> installed defaults (without deinstalling and reinstalling which
> suspect probably involves having to reconfigure and reload all of the
> channels, channel lineups, etc.)?
>
> Q3) Is there a *simple* configuration utility?  If not, is there a
> configuration file?   (I learned how to use vi 30+ years ago, I think
> I can handle that.)
>
> Or does MythTV foolishly store *everything* in MySQL? (not a very
> "light" approach IMO)
> If so I can handle some select/insert/modify statements if people can
> tell me precisely which tables and rows I should be looking for to
> force the graphics themes/icon overhead/QT/OpenGL options back into
> their original state (I can even read source to determine specifics if
> pointed in the right direction).
>
> Q4) Can one delete most of the 13 MB of "themes" [1] without causing
> problems or is there some database table or index file that requires
> their existence?
>
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
> 1. Ignoring the 65 MB of "extra" themes I could have installed...  Did
> the mythtv developers work for a disk drive company?  If there are
> that many visually oriented "theme" developers around, then I have a
> project known as Nano at Home which could benefit from the extra time
> they seem to have on their hands...
>   

A clear case of *PEBKAC :-)

Paul H.
*