[mythtv-users] New Myth User Project - Advice Needed

[Shane Hetzel]

I'm quite comfortable with Gentoo, and used it for my MythBox. The first
time it took me about two weeks to set up, mostly because of the lack of a
good lirc setup guide for my homemade IR-transciever. Anyway, it's all water
under the bridge, so let me give my impressions.


Downsides:
1) Gentoo is quite a bit more hands-on. There are good system installation
guides and documentation on the homepage at www.gentoo.org, but you'll have
to get more involved with the setup of your system than with other distros.
Read the guide and get an impression to see if you want to get that
involved.

2) It uses source-based packaging, and when you install packages, the system
downloads and compiles everything. Depending on the speed of your system, it
could take a couple of days to get everything built on the system, to say
nothing of configuring it.

3) Since it doesn't come with a "kitchen-sink" kernel, there may be some
configuration experimentation required to get all the modules built in that
you need. The "genkernel" package mentioned in the Gentoo install guide may
actually build the "kitchen-sink" kernel, but I've never done it that way.

4) There are no complete guides to setting up Myth on a Gentoo box out
there. I wish there were.


Upsides:
1) As part of the installation, you can manually build your own kernel. That
gives you a bit more experience when it comes time to make changes as
recommended/required by Myth. You could automatically generate it, but rest
assured, you will be involved.

2) Your system has only what you want on it. It's clean and efficient. I
know what every piece of my system does (more or less), because I asked for
each one to be installed. It is also built for my specific processor, which
may give me some speed advantages in the long run, but it's debatable how
much.

3) Updating packages is a breeze. Completely. Again, you have to wait while
your system builds the binaries, but all of the dependecy trees are taken
care of, and your previous config files aren't overwritten.

4) Your system can always be kept up-to-date. The current release of the
Gentoo installation disk is 1.4, which only applies to the install disk. So
long as you do the occasional "emerge -u world" command, your system will be
kept up-to-date ... forever. You will have to handle any config file merges
yourself, though.  For instance, a few months ago, the script gods decided
that "apache" no longer referred to version 1.3.27, it meant 2.0.47. So
after the emerge I had a few config files to merge/edit, but once I was
done, I had completed the process.


Ultimately, if this is your first Linux box, then I suggest Fedora or
Debian. Both will get you where you want to go, as evidenced by the large
number of people who discuss them here. If you're more experienced with
Linux, or just a bit more adventurous, you might give Gentoo a try. It's
efficient, unbloated, and just plain cool. And as long as the script
maintainers are quick about it (most are) the newest (safe) packages are
usually ready the same day they are released by the projects (openssh and
the kernel security patches being the most critical). You can even choose to
go bleeding-edge, if you feel really lucky.


I wish there had been a complete guide already out there for me, and I also
wish I had kept better notes. When I build a box for a friend in a couple of
months, I'll try to pay attention and put a guide together specific to
Gentoo. Then I'll give it to sombody for archival. In the meantime, Jarod's
guide was mostly applicable, and I recommend it in the mean time, no matter
what distro you go with.


-Shane



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Currey" <avalonforest at centurytel.net>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] New Myth User Project - Advice Needed


>
> > On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Jason Giddens wrote:
> > >
> > > - Which distribution is the best for a beginner on Linux?  Red Hat or
> Gentoo?  I donâ?Tt want to start a holy war, just tell me which one is the
> best for a newbie.
> >
> > > - How hard is it to get this up and running?  My wife will want to
know
> when this will be working, and I want to be accurate with her
>
> On debian it took me about half a day to apt-get everything and compile
cvs
> source ... with all the dependencies, it was surprisingly easy. Using
> apt-get (and apt-cache search) made it a no brainer.
>
> IMHO, I'd avoid RedHate ... I guess it boils down to which linux distro
your
> comfortable with. I'm curious if it would be as easy in Gentoo (no
> experience with gentoo at all, just curious).
>
> You said beginner ... is that linux beginner or mythtv beginner ...
>
> Note ... my debian box was a fresh "woody"+2.4.22 kernel+Xfree86cvs
>
> Rob
>
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