[mythtv-users] Dell Studio Hybrid - success

[Greg Mitchell]

With the weakening Canadian dollar, I figured it would only be a matter 
of time before Dell adjusted their prices (or at least their offerings 
for the Studio Hybrid) so I took the plunge a couple of weeks ago and 
ordered one.

I picked up the then on special 2Ghz Core 2 duo (T5750) model, and it 
arrived a day before I had to leave town for a business trip.

When I got back, I tried installing Gentoo on it for a few days, having 
no luck with getting Xorg going at any resolution to my Sharp Aquos 
1080p set.  I eventually swallowed my pride and tried the gentoo liveCD 
with the same results - no X whatsoever.

In desperation, I thought I'd try Mythbuntu 8.10, just to see if it 
would even be able to display anything.  Within 30 minutes of having put 
the disk in the drive, I had a fully installed fully 1080p, SPDIF 
optical outputting HD playing frontend.

Mythbuntu "just worked" on it, though it didn't detect my existing 
backend.  After having lived with an xbox frontend for 3+ years, having 
a "real" frontend in the livingroom, able to finally playback my 
firewire-captured HD is a dream.

Just thought I'd say thanks to the Mythbuntu folks who may be reading 
this, and report success on the little machine.  I know I could have 
done it cheaper with an appleTV or something, but I don't think I could 
have done it any easier.

Greg