[mythtv-users] KnoppMyth Release 2

[Cecil Watson]

Sergio M. Ammirata wrote:

>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.
>
You're right it isn't.  My goal is to make MythTV trivial to install no 
matter what hardware the end user has...

>How do you upgrade to new mythtv and/or OS versions?
>  
>
Working on that...  I hope to have a new iso for each release and simply 
instructions on upgarding from one release of MythTV to the next.

>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
>  
>
Sounds good!  This is one of the beautiful things about Open Source.  
Options!

Cecil