[mythtv-users] Frontend Appliance, Maybe

Ken Mink ken.mink at gmail.com
Thu Feb 7 15:52:09 UTC 2013


On 2/7/13 1:06 AM, scram69 wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 9:18 AM, Ken Mink <ken.mink at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2/5/13 11:39 PM, scram69 wrote:
>>> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Ken Mink <ken.mink at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hello All,
>>>>      There's been a number of posts about low power or small frontend
>>>> boxes. I
>>>> thought I'd share some info on my current project and get some feedback
>>>> on
>>>> the viability of it.
>>>>
>>>>      Years ago I used 1st gen AppleTVs as MythTV Frontend boxes. They were
>>>> small, quiet, and reasonably cheap. They have a NVidia GPU that was
>>>> supported by XvMC. However, they could only handle up to 720p and there
>>>> was
>>>> no support for HDMI audio. With XvMC being EOL'ed in Myth and more and
>>>> more
>>>> 1080(i/p) content, I switched to NVidia ION based frontends. I tried,
>>>> unsuccessfully, to sell my ATV1s and they ended up on the parts shelf.
>>>>
>>>>        I recently I discovered that a lot of ATV1s were being re-purposed
>>>> as
>>>> XMBC boxes by replacing the Mini-PCIe WiFi cards with a CrystalHD cards.
>>>> I
>>>> prefer the MythTV frontend to XBMC(just a personal preference). Since
>>>> MythTV
>>>> supports CrystalHD, I figured I give a whirl. I currently have Ubuntu
>>>> 12.04lts with MythTV 0.25.3 and NVidia 304 running on a ATV1. MythTV is
>>>> playing SD recordings fine with HDMI audio. I haven't tackled LIRC yet,
>>>> I'm
>>>> just using a keyboard.
>>>>
>>>>        I haven't ordered a CrystalHD card yet. How is MythTV's support for
>>>> CrystalHD? I've been googling and there's not too much info. It all seems
>>>> to
>>>> relate to XBMC.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Ken
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>>>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>> Ken,
>>> Looks like there is support for the 970015:
>>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Crystalhd
>>>
>>> I have put one into my ATV1.  It's currently running CrystalBuntu,
>>> based on 8.04.  What process did you follow to install 12.04 on your
>>> ATV?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I installed 12.04 by using a virtual. I created a virtualbox system with a
>> HD sized and partitioned the same as the ATV1. I then installed 12.04 into
>> partition 4(/boot) and 5 (lvm pv). Once the install was complete, I rebooted
>> to a rescue disk and dd'ed the partitions to an external usb drive.
>> I then used the atv-bootloader recovery disk to boot the ATV1. Once
>> atv-bootloader recovery is up, its disk can be removed. I then attached the
>> external usb drive and dd'ed the partitions in.
>> After the dds completed, I installed atv-bootloader to the recovery and
>> osboot partitions. I then created a boot_linux.sh script that would boot the
>> kernel stored in sda4(/boot).
>> If the boot_linux.sh script is right and atv-bootloader is set to manual,
>> 12.04 comes right up. The only gotcha I ran into is that you need to clear
>> out the udev net rules for the nic from the virtual. It causes the atv's nic
>> to show up as eth1.
>>
>> It's not an elegant method, but it does work.
>>
>>
>> Ken
>> _______________________________________________
>> mythtv-users mailing list
>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> Hi Ken,
> Thanks for the instructions.  Why did you install into a VM as opposed
> to just installing into an appropriately sized partition on the
> external drive?
> Did you use the boot_linux.sh from this thread?
> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/atv-bootloader/3kGiSRAA3G4/discussion
>
> Steve
>
I've never had much luck getting atv-bootloader to boot install media. I 
find it easier to simply to the install into a VM and then copy it into 
the ATV.

My boot_linux.sh is very similar to that one. I source in a file from 
the boot partition that contains the version of the kernel. That way I 
don't edit the boot_linux.sh script every time I update the kernel. I 
still have to edit a file, but it's not one in the hfsplus partitions.


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