[mythtv-users] Sound and video card suggestions

Yeechang Lee ylee at pobox.com
Wed Oct 8 14:53:37 UTC 2008


Carlo Nyto <carlonyto at gmail.com> says:
> I realized this question is frequently asked,

But you ask anyway.

> but part of that is that the hard keeps changing faster than the
> drivers.

Quite the other way around. The recommended sound card when I built my
first MythTV box in December 2005? The recommended video card family?
The same ones as today.

> I don't know of a venue more likely to find knowledegable people, I
> apologize if I have chosen the wrong one.

Right venue, but very worked-over questions.

> I have two related (and perhaps redundant) questions:
> 
> 1) What sound card is best?

<URL:http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/>

Search for "sound card". Read the first result. The suggestion given
there has been the same one given every time this question comes up
for the past many years.

> 2) What video card is best? In my case,I have an 8x/16x PCI-E slot. I
> can not accept a binary-only kernel module.

Ah, now this is a somewhat-novel wrinkle. Search for "intel video" at
the above site. Again, read the first link. Do some followup
research.

> No one will support a kernel on a system running one, and I can't
> blame them for this.

Support from whom, and for what? The technical folks at LinuxCo? Linus
Torvalds at icreatedlinux.com? The system engineers at
premademythtvboxes.com? Isaac Richards' MythTV Emporium, located at
the corner of 5th and Main in beautiful downtown Cleveland?

> I expect to run the latest kernel.org kernel, as I will have enough
> recent hardware as to require it. (part of why I can not accept
> binary-only modules)

Just what sort of "recent hardware" only runs with the
absolutely-latest 2.6.26 kernel and nothing older?[1] Why in the world
do you need such for a MythTV box, anyway?

See that second line in my signature? When I brought it on line on it
in late 2006 it was the absolute state of the art[2] in x86-based
gear. Fedora Core 6 ran right out of the box--so to speak--on it.

But you're not actually asking from a MythTV-related perspective, are
you? You never actually mention MythTV in your message and it, read in
the whole, implies you're asking about something else. Not that
there's anythng wrong with that per se, but you're coming at this
question with presuppositions that us MythTV users wouldn't understand
why they exist.

[1] Actually I'd be surprised if the Nvidia binary drivers did not
work with 2.6.26. Hasn't Nvidia distributed them for years in a form
that permits version-specific code to be recompiled on the fly as
needed? VMware does the same thing.

[2] Bottom of the barrel clockspeedwise, but still the then totally
brand-new second iteration of the Xeon "Cloverdale" processor.

-- 
Frontend:		P4 3.0GHz, 1.5TB software RAID 5 array
Backend:		Quad-core Xeon 1.6GHz, 6.6TB sw RAID 6
Video inputs:		Four high-definition over FireWire/OTA
Accessories:		47" 1080p LCD, 5.1 digital, and MX-600


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