[mythtv] Building without X dependancies...

[Mike Gibson]

On 2/6/07, Peter Schade <l-case at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Perhaps I don't understand the capabilities though. Should mythtv be
> > able to display ALL its menus as well as live tv and recordings direct
> > on a PVR-350 framebuffer device without X installed or being redirected
> > to another X server? Not having seen it work, and having compilation
> > problems as I do I'm starting to question myself.. ?
>
> You need also qt/embedded for the frontend-menus. The directfb part you
> talking about should be for the playback. qt/embedded also uses directfb for
> rendering the menus.

Using qt/embedded also requires a few changes to the myth code,
particularly getting rid of some GL stuff.  As long as your card's
implementation of the Linux Framebuffer plays nicely with DirectFB,
then you can probably get mythfrontend to work on the framebuffer.
But I'm not too familiar with how myth uses DirectFB so don't take my
word for it.  However, unless you know something I don't, qt/embedded
doesn't support DirectFB.  qt/embedded will render to various graphics
cards directly and will use the Linux Framebuffer interface if all
else fails.

I'm currently working on a DirectFB driver for qt/embedded
specifically so I can get the myth menus working with DirectFB, and
while it works, it's still quite slow, so I haven't released it.  My
personal desire is to use the amazing matrox mga support in DirectFB
with myth.  The eventual goal being a frontend that requires no X and
works nicely on my TV.

I'm worried though about myth's use of DirectFB for other things like
video playback.  There may be incompatibilities there.  I haven't
tested mythfrontend yet though.

Mike