[mythtv-users] Barebone myth tv nodes?

[Paul Barker]

myth joe wrote:

>>>If anyone does't know about them, they might take a look at
>>>logicsupply.com .  They have ide flash memory modules that plug directly
>>>into an IDE connector starting at $51 dollars for a 256MB version.  Of
>>>course if you don't know how to build a Linux system so it never mounts
>>>a partition rw, other than during development, then I can't really
>>>recommend it.  (Flash memory devices have a finite number of read write
>>>cycles.)
>>>      
>>>
>
>wouldn't using the minimyth distribution solve the problem of properly
>mounting a flash device?  I haven't tried it.
>
>  
>
I just built a MiniMyth frontend on an EPIA M10K. It was up and running 
in about 20 mins plus about half an hour for tweaking settings etc.

I really can't recommend this enough. It has full Unichrome support so 
you get H/W acceleration of MPEG. Since my b/e has a PVR250 that means 
that live and recorded shows hardly scratch the CPU. It's so easy to set 
up and has everything you need including a basic telnet server and X VNC 
so you can play with the node remotely if need be.

Basically (for those who don't know) you get a kernel, a root file 
system image compressed with cramfs and a config file. All you need is a 
dhcp server and a tftp server. The client grabs the kernel and rootfs 
image and boots the kernel and mouts the filesystem as a RAM disk. The 
config file controls the setup of each client setting things like lirc 
driver, locations for video / music etc.

If you're thinking of netbooting frontends head on over to linpvr.org 
and check it out.