On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Josh White <<a href="mailto:jaw1959@gmail.com">jaw1959@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>> I plan to run Mythbuntu on the home built machine, and if I go with the<br>> Apple TV, I'd like to set it up such that I can use it along with the apple<br>
> tv features as seemlessly as possible (I seem to recall seeing that someone<br>> had Mythtv show up as a menu item on an older version of the ATV, I'm not<br>> sure if that's still possible). If not, I'd like to dual boot the ATV to<br>
> run mythbuntu if possible, or debian.<br><br>I went to a linux users' group talk on "AppleTV as a Myth frontend" last week, and the presenter recommended against trying to use the OSX version of Myth on the AppleTV. <br>
<br>Apparently the biggest problem with using the AppleTV as a frontend is that Myth is a memory pig, and there's not much community support for making it more efficient, which I personally don't understand, but I suppose it is what it is. So, Linux, X, and Myth take 350-500MB of memory, and the ATV has 256MB. Basically he said it's going to swap, but he's not found it to be a problem in practical terms. It sounds like it's a good idea to build your distribution including only the pieces you need, and leave everything else out.<br>
<br>Other key points were<br><ul><li>for HD content up to 720p and 1080i, there's no issue, but that most 1080p content is at too high a bitrate for the ATV processor. </li><li>streaming live TV takes a long time to start--some people care about that, some don't. </li>
<li>otherwise it's been very stable (for ~1yr)</li><li>the small form factor, quiet operation, and general inconspicuousness were nice and had a high wife acceptance factor (these are important for me as well--I despise machine noise and blinkenlights in the bedroom, or anywhere, really...<br>
</li></ul>Personally, I have two AppleTV's, and as soon as I can get my programming source issues worked out, I plan to switch them over to being Myth frontends.<br><br>I guess one of the good sources of information is at <a href="http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/">http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/</a><br>
<br>I've also looked at <a href="http://awkwardtv.org">awkwardtv.org</a> and <a href="http://www.appletvhacks.net/">www.appletvhacks.net/</a><br><br>Someone at the meeting also mentioned that there's a Mythbuntu-like project going for Myth on AppleTV.<br>
<br><br>-- <br>Heath Roberts<br><a href="mailto:htroberts@gmail.com">htroberts@gmail.com</a><br><br>