<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style><style type='text/css'>body { font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 8pt; color: #000000}</style></head><body>Has anybody tried an AppleTV with OSX and a myth frontend?<br><br>----- Original Message -----<br>From: "Scott D. Davilla" <davilla@4pi.com><br>To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users@mythtv.org><br>Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:10:39 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central<br>Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] AppleTV with Linux<br><br>>This is great news. A low cost, small, low-noise HD capable <br>>frontend is like the holy grail. Out of curiousity, how extensive <br>>are the changes you made to a base kernel in order to get to this <br>>point? Meaning can someone with reasonable linux experience be able <br>>to get a box to the point you have?<br>><br><br>I'm currently backing out kernel changes that were made over the past <br>few months in trying to resolve the glitch. I might drop that path <br>and jump straight to the current MythBuntu distro kernel and restart <br>with that.<br><br>With my new bootloader, kernel changes are minimal and are isolated to;<br>1) imacfb (for console support)<br>2) realtek (for analog audio support)<br>3) IR support (there are two methods and I need to figure out which)<br><br>If I do it correctly, I might not have to rebuild the kernel, just <br>two or three kernel modules.<br><br>nvidia driver is currently the current 169.09 but I think the <br>previous versions will be ok. My gpu/vram clock adjustments using <br>nvidia-settings can be done after the nvidia driver is loaded so it's <br>just a script somewhere.<br><br>Given reasonable linux experience, it's pretty easy once you get past <br>the point of creating the proper gpt GUID partitions. There are rules <br>and required gpt GUID formats which can only be created by a patched <br>parted under Linux or under OSX.<br><br>You do have to make a decision of A) using the original internal HD <br>and resizing the last partition to add an ext3 root filesystem or B) <br>replace the internal and install linux to the new drive. If you <br>choose A) then backing up the original partitions is highly <br>recommended.<br><br>Since the AppleTV boots linux using a secondary bootloader that looks <br>like a darwin mach_kernel, you have to keep the first three partition <br>GUIDs intact to get boot.efi to load the mach_kernel loaded. In the <br>past, one needed a bunch of OSX bits but I've eliminated that <br>dependency. You don't actually need two of the three original GUID <br>partitions but it seems to boot faster if they are present.<br><br>For testing, I boot on a USB pen drive which has my rescue tools and <br>sshd. From that, I have a script that does a kexec to the kernel on <br>the internal drive. That way if I hose the internal kernel, I can <br>recover quickly.<br><br>My current internal drive has three gpt partitions formatted the way <br>the appletv firmware expects. Then an ext2 for /boot and ext3 for <br>root and swap. This is "old style" to make the two flavors of older <br>bootloaders happy. The new bootloader will not require a separate <br>ext2 /boot and everything can live under root. It should also be <br>possible to boot using an external USB HD using the new bootloader. <br>Then you would not even have to crack the box (which is pretty easy).<br><br>The real easy way to install is to create the partitions using the <br>patched parted and install a linux distro using an existing Linux <br>box. Then add the bootloader bits to correct partitions and grap a <br>copy of boot.efi from the appletv 1.1 update on the web. boot.efi is <br>the only file that cannot be distributed. chroot into this rootfile <br>system and rebuilt the kernel/initrd. Stick it in (or attach via USB) <br>and go.<br><br><br>Scott<br>-- <br>-----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Scott D. Davilla Phone: 919 489-1757 ext 13 (tel)<br>4pi Analysis, Inc. Fax: 919 489-1487 (fax)<br>3500 Westgate Drive, Suite 403 email: davilla@4pi.com<br>Durham, North Carolina 27707-2534 web: http://www.4pi.com <br><br>_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-users mailing list<br>mythtv-users@mythtv.org<br>http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users<br></body></html>