[mythtv-users] FW: Help understand the interface of Myth Media & Video Gallery

GZ gzornetzer.lists at gmail.com
Fri Feb 4 06:03:41 UTC 2011


On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 5:03 AM, Anthony Rooney <rooneyo at iinet.net.au> wrote:

> I have been provided with a link to the documentation people where I will
> feed back some possible enhancement to the wording of the steps
> recommended.
> It certainly needs to explicitly make people aware that they need to have
> permissions setup in advance for the MythTv user account (even though for
> more astute users it would be obvious) and see if I can pick up cases where
> some additional context can be provided to the instructions.  This might
> help reduce the load on discussion forums like this where people are asking
> questions about basic things like setting file location paths.
>
> Users not used to Linux will not be naturally familiar with concepts of
> setting up mounts points unless they are given explicit examples so there
> are a few cases where this need to be set out more clearly.  Mapping
> network
> drives in Windows is a similar concept however mounting locations like
> drives is a little different.
>
>
 Hi Anthony,
As other posters have indicated, please post your responses after the quoted
text.  Top posting (putting your reply above the quoted text) is considered
against the etiquette on this list.

I agree with you that the documentation for mythtv needs to be improved.
Particularly notable is the fact that the user guide on the wiki is stated
as current as of 0.20, which is even older than the version I'm currently
using (0.21). What we really need is for people to stop talking and making
criticisms and suggestions, roll up our sleeves, and update the docs.  I've
been thinking of starting to do this - in my copious spare time.

Having said that, I disagree that we need to include step-by-step
instructions many of these scenarios.  Mythtv is a relatively complex piece
client/server software that interacts with many pieces of software: lirc
(remote controls), database, tv tuner and framegrabber kernel interfaces,
firewire, and the list goes on.  I don't think it's too much to suggest to
those installing mythtv that they should be at least somewhat familiar with
some unix system administration, including concepts of file/directory
ownership and permissions, mounting drives, and shell scripting.  I believe
that we should do a better job of setting appropriate expectations.
However, we should be spending effort on documenting the behavior of mythtv
for users as opposed to documenting the behavior of unix or ancillary
programs.  Users who are accustomed to windows and not unix/linux should
really consider educating themselves more about unix before jumping into
mythtv.

Best of luck with your myth installation.
-Greg
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20110203/9cf63347/attachment.htm>


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list