[mythtv-users] PIII 450-frontend: too slow?

[Andrew Lynch]

--- Al Bogner <mythtv-users at ml061.pinguin.uni.cc>
wrote:

> Am Dienstag, 14. März 2006 03:01 schrieb Andrew
> Lynch:
> 

[snip]

> 
> First I have to setup mythtv on my fast machines,
> and there are some very 
> crazy things. With one machine (Celeron 1000, 512MB
> RAM, Geforce 2MX) most 
> time I don't have sound and the picture is jerking,
> but 1 time it worked fine 
> and I am sure I didn't change the linux-system, but
> I have been in the 
> different configuration menus of mythtv. If I use
> this machine as a 
> kaffeine-client and listen to a kaffeinie-server
> everything is ok, including 
> resizing to 1025x768. The other thing is, that I
> have no chance to scan a 2nd 
> satellite (DVB) with a multifeed-dish (Astra and
> Hotbird).
> 

Well, if AMICUS is designed for low end PCs with low
resources, it will work even better with more capable
machines.  Maybe you should try just just getting the
basics to work first, start with a solid GNU/Linux
base (Debian), add a tuner and configure it, add X and
ALSA, get those to work smoothly and then add MythTV. 


Get all those to work together and then add in the
extra things for a more general purpose PC.  That is
the design approach with AMICUS.  Start small with
known good components and slowly build up a reliable
machine.  Add only those things the user explicitly
asks for and keep it lightweight for older PCs.

One of the benefits of using a script to integrate is
that AMICUS once installed does NOT need to be
upgraded again by AMICUS.  In short, it is Debian
configured as normal as can be.  If you want to
upgrade an AMICUS install it is just:

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

and its upgraded, Linux, X, ALSA, MythTV, the works. 
No more waiting for the distribution owners to release
the latest and greatest versions.  You can use AMICUS
again if you want but you are not dependent on it
forevermore.

> Even with a XP 2700 (512MB RAM) client the picture
> was jerking and I don't 
> understand why. It is hard to believe that the
> harddisk is too slow and swap 
> is not used. The server is a XP 2400 (1024MB RAM).
> 

There are many causes for this.  I would start with
IDE/HD DMA but you already knew that.  Next would be
to see if you are running Xv or not video driver.

$xvinfo

You know, it may take less time to do an AMICUS trial
install and see if it solves your problem than it
would to try to resolve the problem if you do not know
what is causing it on your present system.  Keep it
simple, start small, and build with known good
components.


> After I solved this, I will have a look at AMICUS.
> An 8GB-partition is waiting 
> in a P III 450 :-)
> 

Yes, the P3 450MHz is actually above the target
minimum hardware.  1 GHz or faster is overkill.  I am
targeting Pentium 400MHz with 128 MB RAM for
acceptable performance (ie, full screen video
playback) 

Even lower speeds CPU speeds with hardware
acceleration like NVidia video chipsets, ivtv tuners,
and PVR-350 video playback options.

> Is it possible to use aptitude with Amicus? I do all
> my installs with 
> aptitude, after setting up a minimal installation.
> On a reference machine I 
> do something like this:

Absolutely.  AMICUS just installs MythTV on Debian. 
If you can do it with Debian, it will run with an
AMICUS installation.  I use aptitude all the time. 
Synaptic, apt-get, dpkg, whatever tool you would
normally use with Debian.

> 
> aptitude search '~i' | cut -c5-100 | cut -f1 -d" " |
> sort -f > aptitude_i
> cat aptitude_i | tr '\n' ' ' > aptitude_i_blank
> 

I have not tried that but cannot think of a reason why
that would not work.

> Then I change the repostories at the new machine and
> wait for minor errors, 
> which most times can be solved easily.
> 
> Is there a package list of Amicus?
> 

Not really although you can review the script as it is
publicly posted for review.  AMICUS installs a bunch
of packages although itself is not packaged yet.

Some tools are installed from source and there are
options to install MythTV and MPlayer from source.

> Al
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>
http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> 

Thanks for the interest.  Please stop by the project
page to check it out:

http://amicus.sourceforge.net/

or join the amicus-users mailing list to discuss:

https://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/amicus-users


PS, the latest version of the script is 0.03 and it is
getting out of date.  There are more current
pre-release revisions in the files section.  I think
version 0.04 is not too far away.  Still need to work
out some bugs and do some testing before release.

If your system requires irblaster or hardware that is
not supported yet, just post to the list to see
if/what can be done to support your system.  Not all
configurations are supported yet.  Please review the
documentation before spending a lot of time
installing.  

Thanks!