[mythtv] Matrox G200 TV out works! HOWTO!

[Ray]

On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 05:48:15PM -0500, John wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Well, I've just ordered myself a G200 (16mb AGP) and am ready to take the
> MythTV plunge!  It will be a dedicated MythTV system.  I have read the G200
> How-To (several times) and the additions to it.  Here's the problem...
> 
> I'm a very experienced s/w developer, but it's all in Windows (and DOS
> device drivers if that counts for anything ;-).  I have a boxed copy of SuSE
> 8.0 Personal here next to me and a PIII-800, 512mb RAM, 80gb ready to use.
> The problem is that I don't know what the best version of Linux is for my
> G200 setup?  Isaac uses Debian Unstable, Ray (below) has a RH 8 RPM
> but that's just the kernels (not sure how close that gets me?), and other
> threads say Gentoo is fastest.

Actually I'm using Debian Woody (stable).  That's a version of a
distribution just like Red Hat 8 or Suse 7.1 etc.  Installing a newer or
different kernel should be pretty easy with any current distro.  Myth (and
the G200) should work pretty equally on any Distro although you'll probably
get more effective help if you use what others here are using.  I havn't
tried Gentoo yet but I'd expect this is the sort of app that would get some
benifit from it.

>  Ideally, I'd download an ISO image, burn
> it, and install the new system from that, but I know that's asking waaaay
> to much.  So, what's the simplest way to get this new system
> up-and-running? I've only installed Linux twice and both times from
> "pre-packaged" installs. HD formats and cmd lines don't scare me.  Docs
> that "assume" a lot do. ;-)

Probably the easiest distro to install (of the ones I've tried) is Mandrake
and there are at least a few Myth users on Mandrake but I don't know
anything about dealing with hardware setup problems there.  Debian is a lot
more "manual" than Mandrake, RH or SuSe but I actually prefer that but it's
not the easiest Linux to start with.  One other nice thing about Debian is
that a lot of developers and documentation writers seem to use it.  When I
first started with Linux I used Slackware, in part because most of the docs
I'd read were written by Slackware users.

> If I downloaded the Debian image Isaac points us to and installed it, it
> wouldn't have the support for the G200 built-in right?  Is it an easy add
> then or do you almost start over to add that?

Neither :)  Once you install Debian (or any other distro) then you make sure
the audio and video seem to be working fairly well and your hard disk is
using dma mode.  Then you start following the instructions in the howto.  I
don't think there are any pre made debs for the cvs version of Myth so using
Debian won't be an advantage in that respect unless you wait for 0.8.

> 
> I'm willing to learn and contribute code (lots of C++ experience).  Would I
> be best off going for the CVS setup?

Probably you'd be best off getting whatever distro you want (maybe you like
one of the ones you've tried allready or maybe you have a local friend who
uses Linux?) installed and spend the next few weeks learning all you can
about Linux.  You might as well get the Marvel drivers and and mjpeg tools
installed and working well on their own.  Then when Myth 0.8 comes out you
should be ready for it.

-- 
Ray