[mythtv-users] Starting out - Which Distribution?

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Feb 8, 2004, at 09:31, Daniel Jimenez wrote:

> Michael Segulja wrote:
>> I am what I would consider an expert in Linux, but I'm very new to 
>> the whole PVR world on Linux.  I'm very excited to have found MythTV 
>> and I really look forward to seeing what I can do with it.  However, 
>> I have one question before I get started.  I'm curious to see if you 
>> would recommend any one distribution over another?  I don't want to 
>> start some sort of flame war over this, but I'm sure there are some 
>> distributions that are easier to get working than others for MythTV.  
>> I prefer Mandrake 9.2, and is the distribution that I run on my 
>> desktop machines.  I also recently discovered Gentoo, and although I 
>> haven't installed it yet, it looks very promising because it seems to 
>> be ready for MythTV once installed.
>> Thanks for your advice.  Just looking for some general ideas to point 
>> me in the right direction so I can start playing around with this.

I usually recommend using whatever you're most comfortable with, in 
which case, I'd be inclined to say you should use Mandrake for the most 
trouble-free experience. However...

> If you are very familiar with Linux I'd definely recommend Gentoo. 
> Easy install

You're kidding, right? I like Gentoo quite a bit, but I'd hardly call 
it an easy install. At least not when juxtaposed to many of the other 
distributions out there.

> takes care of all dependencies and you don't have a bunch of bloat.

Definitely one of the things I like. And no, speaking from the "expert 
in Linux" point of view, it isn't a difficult install, but certainly 
not an easy install (unless you've done it several times, which he 
hasn't). The biggest part is probably that it takes forever and a day 
to get everything onto the system, unless you're running on a blazingly 
fast box and/or using distcc. (Forever and a day translating loosely to 
"quite a bit longer than most other mainstream distros".)

> YMMV as always.

Quite a bit, especially in the case of Gentoo. But if you're already 
interested in Gentoo, I will reiterate that I really do like it quite a 
bit, and its certainly something worth looking at. Just be prepared to 
dedicate a good chunk of time to it. There's a bit of a learning curve 
there when coming from an RPM-based distro.

> Good Luck!

Copy that. ;-)

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
     http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
MythTV, Fedora Core & ATrpms documentation:
     http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
MythTV Searchable Mailing List Archive
     http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/
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