[mythtv-users] Sell mythtv "set-top" boxes

[Ray Olszewski]

Preliminary comment, mainly to others: I'm focusing on Debian-Sid here 
mainly because it is what Ben and I actually use. I'm not presuming that it 
would be the best base for a MythTV custom distro. The "best" choice is, 
almost undoubtedly, whatever distro the person who actually volunteers to 
do the work is most familiar with.

I'm just using Debian-Sid here as an example, to try to make vague 
discussion a bit more concrete. And please remember, my basic view is that 
the idea of a custom distro is too ambitious for a volunteer effort ... the 
best way to prove me wrong is to volunteer, then actually to do it.

My actual interest, BTW, is in developing a Linux-based VDR (perhaps Myth 
based, perhaps not) that could be sold profitably, not a giveaway distro. 
But like others here, I haven't been able to craft a working business model 
to make this possible. Since such a system would have known hardware, a lot 
of the software issues I raise here as concerns would vanish. And since it 
would have an associated revenue stream, ongoing support would be easier to 
provide. ut that's another (though related) topic.

At 07:42 PM 6/2/2003 +0200, Ben Bucksch wrote:
[...]
>>And, on top of that, there are things like the nVidia proprietary driver, 
>>which you have to get from nVidia and you (often) have to compile locally.
>
>Similar with the kernel. The kernel (and nvidia stuff) would probably have 
>to be dealed with differently.

Yeah. As I think about this more, I suspect a Myth distro would have to 
maintain its own kernel-image package, once that already includes alsa 
drivers, the nVidia stuff,  ivtv, and any other kernel-level stuff the 
maintainer wanted it to support. Once the user has to start compiling his 
or her own kernels or modules, we're out of the realm of naive user.

Also, I've assumed the distro would use a pre-packaged Myth. Given how 
slowly changes migrate from CVS to packages, probably the distro's 
maiontainer would either need to support accessing CVS in some automated 
way, or pre-package Myth more often than we now see done.

This keeps sounding more and more like work, and tedious, uninteresting 
work at that. Perhaps you see why I'm skeptical about a maintainer 
volunteering for this.

>>You mention a Debian config. (Woody or Sid?)
>
>unstable=sid
>
>>Perhaps you would consider taking the time to turn it into an install 
>>script that a user can run
>
>hm, maybe. If I can remember which steps were needed. (The desktop install 
>was like 2 years ago, the server maybe 2 months, a long time to remember 
>*every* step). It would have to be dead-simple for me to be capable to 
>write such a script, no user interaction, but I guess the Debian installer 
>already does everything needed there (network config, timezone, keyboard 
>layout etc.)

No. It does far from everything necessary. Offhand, I can think of these 
things that are needed (and I doubt the list is exhaustive), but are not 
handled (or not well) by either the Debian scripts or the Myth installer.

1. Installing the v4l stuff. You need to choose among bttv, ivtv, the one 
for the ATI capcard, and maybe others.

2. Installing sound. Configure the alsa drivers for your sound card, at a 
minimum.  Maybe doing something with btaudio or an equivalent, depending on 
your hardware.

3. Setting up TV out. For nVidia cards, this involves installing a kernel 
module and making some changes to XF86Config-4 that debconf does not handle 
at the moment.

4. Adding the unofficial repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list .

>>The next step ... making a customized Debian install iso (or floppy set) 
>>would be fairly easy once the install script itself were written.
>
>Actually, the install image would probably be a lot easier (both for the 
>creator and the user) than the install script, but I fear the bandwidth 
>required. With "install image", I mean a tar.bz2 with the root filesystem, 
>to be extracted from a working Linux system, possibly a Debian boot disk 
>or Knoppix or whatever you like.

Well ... something on this scale pretty much assumes an iso image (or a 
physical CD). It could be built on the existing Debian-Woody install CD, I 
imagine, once a script (and a customized kernel-image) were ready. 
Remember, though, that a CD drive is not a design requirement of a MythTV 
host (mine lacks one; I installed Debian on it using install floppies, 
since my junk box is full of spare floppy drives).

This makes me think of the last possible gotcha in this process: what is a 
"typical" or "vanilla" Myth system, as contrasted with what you call "edge 
cases"? I doubt there would be consensus on this ... in practice, people 
here (me included) seem to see a "basic" Myth system as "one almost like 
mine". I've tried here not to be too narrow (for example, including both 
bttv and ivtv), but even my implied list may leave out very important things.