[mythtv-users] KnoppMyth Release 2

[Sergio M. Ammirata]

I have been doing a lot of reading about hardware and builds and think
that the approach for a MythTV solution should be slightly different.

Here are the shortcomings of the KnoppMyth approach:

System is not optimized for a specific hardware.
How do you upgrade to new mythtv and/or OS versions?

I have done OS builds from scratch before and already have a framework
that will get me 90% of the way (less than 16MB). However, keeping the
hardware support too generic is too ambitious and besides, that is what
the Mandrakes and Red Hats builds are for. We need to create an OS build
that can be upgraded on the fly from the internet when we decide to: Add
features or plugins to mythtv, fix a bug on mythtv, add applications to
the OS or patch and/or enhance the kernel.
As I said, I already have a framework that works this way. All I have to
do is customize it to the specific hardware platform and add MythTV and
it's dependencies to it. The entire OS will only take between 30 to 50
MB.

After a week research I came to the conclusion that there are two
hardware platforms that are optimal in
price/performance/appearance/noise for the MythTV ensemble.
1) PUNDIT for mid to high end back-end and front-end systems.
2) EPIA-M 1000 for a low cost front-end machine and maybe a low end back
end. The ideal case for this is manufactured by casetek.com.tw (I can
get these cases for under $50 in large quantities).

I already purchased all the parts for option 1 and I will start
configuring my build this week. I will be happy to work on the second
option if someone is kind enough to donate the hardware.

If someone wants to add to the build, the source code for the kernel
will be available (based on kernel.org 2.4.21). As far as the rest, it
is built with standard open source tarballs compiled against the latest
uClibc. People wanting to add apps/add-ons to this build will be able to
test their code by compiling the uClibc libraries in their own distro
and compiling their new apps with uClibc. These new apps can be packaged
as add-ons to the distro and downloaded as options.

I have decided to call this project PiVoR !!!! (Personal Interactive
Video Recorder). Accordingly I have purchased the .org, .com and .net
and will be setting up the site soon.

How does this sound? Are there people interested in contributing or
participating in a project like this one?

Sergio

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-
> bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Simon Kenyon
> Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 6:16 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] KnoppMyth Release 2
> 
> Cecil Watson wrote:
> > Hello Everyone,
> >
> > KnoppMyth is my remaster of Knoppix to include MythTV.  It is my
hope
> > that with KnoppMyth, the install of MythTV with be a trivial one.
This
> > release is based on Knoppix 07-26-2003 and MythTV 0.11.  I've
updated
> > all the packages on Knoppix and am using Matt's .debs for unstable.
> > MythGame and MythVideo are installed from source.  The ISO is 293
megs
> > and can be found here:
> >
> > ftp://ftp.rdt1.org/From/KnoppMyth/
> couple of questions
> does it support:
> 	the hauppauge 250/350?
> 	epia-m motherboards?
> --
> simon