[mythtv-users] SD only Frontend video card advice

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Thu Apr 19 15:06:30 UTC 2007


David Campbell wrote:
> Brian Wood wrote:
>   
>> Folks running Myth with nVidia-based video cards just about always  
>> use the nVidia drivers for them. Support for the "older than 5200"  
>> cards you mention is no longer present in the current drivers, so you  
>> have to go to "legacy" drivers, which means the automatic and/or  
>> "simple" installation methods used by various Linux distros will  
>> probably not work, and you will have to manually fetch and probably  
>> compile the old drivers yourself. 
>>     
>
> Unless you are riding the tidal wave of Linux domination that is team 
> [K]Ubuntu
>
> DC
>   
I take that to mean that (K)Ubuntu has some sort of method to install 
the legacy nVidia drivers that the typical Ubuntu user can use easily. I 
guess that is good.

It still means you are running "legacy" drivers that are probably not 
being actively developed, and quite likely are not even having 
security-related fixes applied. Nothing essentially wrong with that as 
long as you understand what's happening.

The OP was trying to decide between a 5200 and an older card. Personally 
I'd spend the extra money to get the newer driver support, but that 
might not be true for everyone.

My main point was to be sure the OP knew that there software issues as 
well as hardware differences between the two options he was considering.

(I tried out Kbuntu and was not particularly impressed. Any distro that 
starts out by telling me that I am too stupid to be root has lost me, 
but the distro seems to be popular and that's the good thing about Linux 
- many choices. Personally if I want to run Debian I'll run Debian, not 
a stripped-down version with GUIs for everything that says I "don't 
need" to be root.)


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list