[mythtv-users] why you use myth...like myth, or hate Microsoft

aaron memoryguy at gmail.com
Sun Mar 2 14:22:22 UTC 2008


On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Gary Dawes <gary.dawes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2 for me.
>
> I started learning Linux back in '98 after experimenting with a freely
> shipped x86 version of solaris, which came about from some new Solaris boxes
> at work, and I wanted to gain extra experience and confidence. Still using
> Windows at work though along with AIX now, but the linux skills etc are
> invaluble.
>
> I put together a mp3 jukebox for the home (Cajun). Around 2002/3 I stumbled
> on freevo and myth (0.6 back then). I started with q bttv tuner and a 40GB
> disk, and soon outgrew it!

Wow, I started typing up my story, then decided to give up since I
couldn't get it quite right... kept trying to put in a bunch of extra
unrelated stuff.

But my story is so similar to yours, at least in regards to the
time-frame, it's scary. :)

I started using Linux in 1998 --- Slackware 3.4, which was out of date
at the time I installed it, which forced me to learn pretty quickly so
I could upgrade everything to useful versions. I installed it so that
I wouldn't have to try to find room in the crowded UNIX (Solaris) labs
at school. Over the course of the term I spent more and more time in
Linux, I found it felt more comfortable and performed sooo much better
than Windows. I still find that to be true: Windows gets bogged down
when I ask it to do more than one thing at once. And if that one thing
involves disk access, forget about it; time to go get lunch ;-)

In my previous job we used Windows on the desktop but did most of our
work on AIX. My Linux skills transferred pretty well, although I found
it frustrating how much AIX can't do that Linux can. :)  I quickly
became one of the go-to people when my teammates needed some quick
script or other help with UNIX.

In 2002, when I started that job, I wanted something to record the
handful of shows I watched that might be on while I'm at work. I
searched around and the only thing that seemed to be even semi-mature
was MythTV. Version 0.06. So I downloaded it, compiled it, configured
it (text file!), and ran it (only one executable! no backend/frontend
separation yet). It Just Worked, so I kept using it. Development was
progressing so fast. Not that it isn't now, but we're talking all the
"basic" features that everyone knows today... those were still being
added.

I also had a bttv card (ATI TV-Wonder) and 40 GB drive (for
everything) at the time, and I outgrew it pretty quickly.

Oh yeah, I'd almost forgotten.... Slackware 3.4 came with kernel
2.0.30, which had a problem with my SCSI CD drive. 4 times out of 5 it
wouldn't recognize the drive once the install floppies had booted. I
found that upgrading to kernel 2.1.107 suddenly fixed it, but it
definitely took a while to get it installed. And yet that didn't taint
my experience at all :)

-- 
aaron

"Oh oh oh. I'm incoherent with excitement. Please tell me what fascinating
bit of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia you will assail me with next."
        -- Arthur Dent


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