[mythtv-users] FC3 Install has never worked

Tue Apr 5 03:05:29 UTC 2005

I have had so many issues with this that this post is going to be
REALLY long. I have been through this 68 times trying various
techniques and have never successfully gotten this box going.

For starters I have followed Jarod's documentation to the letter. I
think I have it memorized by now. : -) I have even emailed him on some
of this stuff. I feel like I have completely lost my mind and my wife
wants to throw me and this computer out in the woods.

Hardware:
ASUS P4P800SE
1GB DDR 400 RAM
Ultra 160 72GB
Ultra 160 146GB
200GB IDE
Sony DRU-700A DVD burner
Memorex CD burner
Radeon 9600SE
Adaptec Firewire controller (only used for video capture from camcorder)
Linksys WMP54G PCI
Hauppage PVR-350
(I know it seems like a beefy machine for this project, but I have a
dual boot scenario so I can utilize the enemy OS to compile home
movies to DVD)

First and foremost everything in this box works as advertised in the
enemie's OS.

Following Jarod's doc I perform a scratch install with my FC3 install
DVD. I carve out 10GB on the 72GB SCSI disk for FC3 and dump /swap on
a chunk of the 146GB drive. The 200GB disk is completely dedicated as
/video with xfs. Everything comes up fine. I even have sound out of
the onboard soundmax going out the S/PDIF over digital coax to my
receiver without making any changes from the scratch install.

I tried various methods with different kernels. My biggest hurdle at
first was my wifi card. Holy crap what a painful experience getting
that thing stable was. I tried the serialmonkey port:
http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Although I could successfully get that port to connect and stay up for
a bit after a while it would either die off quietly or just lock up
the box altogether. So as much as I hate to turn my back on a native
Linux driver I just didn't have the time to fool with it anymore as
the myth install was a much higher priority. I finally chose the
ndiswrapper route and it went SOOOO much smoother. The card is stable
and works like a champ. The bad part about the ndiswrapper route is
the stack 4 issue. I had to use a kernel with that turned off. I did
my initial testing with the kernel linuxant provides, but I knew this
would probably cause me some alsa/ivtv headaches down the road so I
used ATrpms kernel and source
(kernel-smp-2.6.10-1.770_14.rhfc3.at.i686.rpm) which also worked fine
with the ndiswrapper route. I have not tried to recompile the 770 FC3
base kernel yet? One of the posts Jarod replied back that you could
turn off the stack 4, but I have read elsewhere that they didn't
include the option. I haven't looked. I feel the PVR-350 is a blessed
card for this project and I feel that the kernel provided by ATrpms
should be the gold standard so I stuck with that.

Note I have done the entire install with the base 770 kernel and AT's
new kernel and the results at the end are always the same. It just
doesn't work. Other than pumping dd out I have never seen TV come out
of this card except in Winblows.

On with the show:

Problem 1:
Once I install anything that deals with an alsa update from AT good
bye S/PDIF. Noted earlier was working fine before ATrpms. (Doesn't
matter aRts off or on, alsamixer kmix no matter what setting there is
nothing) I can get sound from the PC speakers, but the digital out to
my receiver goes away. I have read the alsa pages, customized
.asoundrc – doesn't matter. ATrpms makes that connection go into never
never land. The onboard chip on the motherboard for soundmax is
intel8xo and from what I have read is an Analog devices piece. 
Problem? Yes Show stopper? No. Moving on

Problem 2:
When running a stock 770 kernel lirc works great with /usr/bin/irw.
Upgrading to ATrpms lastest kernel it bombs. I get this in my
/var/log/messages:

Apr  4 12:57:03 localhost kernel: lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver
registered, at major 61
Apr  4 12:57:03 localhost kernel: bttv: Unknown symbol tveeprom_read
Apr  4 12:57:03 localhost kernel: bttv: Unknown symbol tveeprom_hauppauge_analog
Apr  4 12:57:03 localhost kernel: lirc_i2c: chip found @ 0x18 (Hauppauge IR)
Apr  4 12:57:03 localhost kernel: ivtv: i2c attach [client=Hauppauge IR,ok]
Apr  4 12:57:03 localhost kernel: lirc_dev: lirc_register_plugin:sample_rate: 10

As mentioned earlier if I was running a stock 770 kernel and ran
/usr/bin/irw and started pressing keys on the remote I would see
messages on the screen. Using the ATrpms latest 770 kernel I get no
messages and that output in /var/log/messages. This was not seen using
the 770 stock kernel:
: Unknown symbol tveeprom_read
: Unknown symbol tveeprom_hauppauge_analog

Problem 3:
X on the TV. The redhat in the lower left corner is almost not even
seen and the date and time are completely gone. I read a blog where a
guy had run some ivtvctl commands to adjust X on his TV and provided
his settings for PAL. He said to tweak with them to get NTSC to line
up right. I tried half a dozen hex combinations and moved X all over
the place and at times turned X green and purple, but never quite got
it dialed in where I felt it was totally usable. I used vnc and a
laptop to get through some of the stuff, but always felt this wasn't
quite right. I thought that perhaps using vnc may be causing some
issues so I decided to work through setting up myth through the TV. (I
have done this using a display attached to my video card as well and
it never made a difference. I still never got myth going.) I used
mkinitrd from Jarod and have the PVR-350 as the standard out. (I don't
want a monitor in my den unless I am dealing with DVD home movies and
winblows)

Problem 4:
mythtvsetup? Wtf? The next buttons don't work. The first question
about clearing the cards config. I select yes and press the space bar.
It acts like it should. Tab to next and press the spacebar and
nothing. The only way I got to the next screen was alt-f4. That
happened on the next screen as well. In the following screens I had to
be in an area that can be changed and press the enter key to move to
the next screen.

All done with at-stable all done with apt-get. All done following
Jarod's site to the letter. Since this is my first myth install I
don't have the advantage to know what a working install looks like so
I may be a complete idiot on some of the post install activity
(mythtvsetup), but I do know that some of these earlier problems just
aren't right. I'm not a newb when it comes to Linux in general, but
this install has become the bane of my existence. I have never had
this much trouble before installing a box and running an application.

Thanks for any insight and I would be curious if anyone else out there
is having this much trouble with a PVR-350 and FC3. I know everyone is
going to say the problem lies between the floor and the keyboard : - )
  (has been the case sometimes), but if anyone reading this has
similar hardware and has seen these issues please HELP ME. I'm losing
my mind. My hair is falling out (mostly by my pulling it out).

Thanks
Regg