[mythtv-users] Beta of MiniMyth2 RPI2 edition

Sun Jan 31 09:29:11 UTC 2016

On 27/01/16 20:27, Piotr Oniszczuk wrote:
> Hi *
>
> Last year Santa Claus decided to gift me RPI2 :-)
> I started to play with it and later I decided: let my RPI2 learning be
> useful for others.
> So I decided to prepare small, dedicated to MythTV frontend distro
> converting RPI2 into ready to run MythTV frontend.
> Goal is to get running MythTV on RPI2 in easiest possible way.
>
> Currently procedure is like this:
>
> 1.Partition SD card
> 2.Download & unpack file to SD card
> 3.Insert SD card into RPI2
> 4.Power-on RPI2
> 5.Select discovered MythTV backend.
> 6.You should get fully running MythTV on PRI2
>
> Now I have initial ver. with current MythTV master.
> This is beta & prof-of-concept - so expect changes and issues....
>
> If anybody wants to try, procedure is following:
>
>
> 0.You have to have working in Your LAN:
> -MythTV backend with current MythTV master
> -properly working DHCP server
>
>
> 1.Partition SD card:
>
> (a) Start fdisk to partition the SD card:
>     "fdisk /dev/sdX"
>
> (b) At the fdisk prompt, delete old partitions and create a new one:
>     Type o. This will clear out any partitions on the drive.
>     Type p to list partitions. There should be no partitions left.
>     Type n, then p for primary, 1 for the first partition on the drive,
> press ENTER to accept the default first sector, then type +100M for the
> last sector.
>     Type t, then c to set the first partition to type W95 FAT32 (LBA).
>     Type n, then p for primary, 2 for the second partition on the
> drive, and then press ENTER twice to accept the default first and last
> sector.
>     Write the partition table and exit by typing w.
>
> (c) Create and mount the FAT filesystem:
>     "mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1"
>     "mkdir boot"
>     "mount /dev/sdX1 boot"
>
> (d) Create and mount the ext4 filesystem:
>     "mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX2"
>     "mkdir root"
>     "mount /dev/sdX2 root"
>
>
> 2. Install MiniMyth2 RPI edition software on SD card:
> (replace "xx" in URL!)
> (a) Download software (as root, not via sudo)
>     "wgethxxp://warped.homenet.org/MiniMyth2-rpi2-latest.tar.bz2"
>     "bsdtar -xpf MiniMyth2-rpi2-latest.tar.bz2 -C root"
>     "sync"
> (b) Move boot files to the first partition:
>     "mv root/boot/* boot"
> (c) Unmount the two partitions:
>     "umount boot root"
>
>
> 3. Insert SD card to RPI2, power-on
>
>
> 4. You should see country/language selection screen. Select appropriate.
>
>
> 5. Next You should see BE selection. Select BE and use "Save".
>
>
> 6. Normally you should see reloading frontend and next famous MythTV
> main menu, but due MythTV ARM bug, mythfrontend initial reload gives
> black screen. Solution to this is simply kill mythfrontend process.
> Build-in watchdog will auto restart and You should finally get all working.
> So do following:
>     (a) fire terminal somewhere in LAN
>     (b) type "ssh -l root <RPI2 IP address>"
>     user: root
>     pass root
>     (c) type "killall mythfrontend"
> Frontend should restart automatically
>
>
> 7. Go to MythTV setup and select in playback profile openmax etc. Do the
> same also for audio. Set rest things accordingly to Your's preference.
>
>
> 8. Ask MiniMyth2 to update to most current version:
>
> (a) fire terminal somewhere in LAN
> (b) type "ssh -l root <RPI2 IP address>"
> user: root
> pass root
> (c) type "pacman -Sy"
> (d) type "pacman -Su"
> press 'y'
> (e) reboot RPI2 to get running new software
>
>
> 9. Setup all boring things like TZ, etc.
> (a) ssh as root/root
> (b) Check the current zone defined in the system:
>     "timedatectl"
> (c) To list available zones:
>     "timedatectl list-timezones"
> (d) To change your time zone:
>     "timedatectl set-timezone Zone/SubZone"
>
>
>
>
>
>
> If You have problems:
> (a) Log via ssh as root/root
> (b) type "cat /home/mythtv/mythfrontend.log"
> (c) type "journalctl -b"
>
> See what problem might be....
>
>
>
>
> IR remote support:
>
> This distro has pre-installed LIRC support for Microsoft MCE remote.
> (https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MCE_Remote)
> So - if You have such remote - just plug-in it's USB IR receiver and all should work.
>
> If You have other remote - then just follow this procedure:
>
> (a) Identify is there remote/receiver a known config for it:
> Use "irdb-get" command to search the remotes database.
>
> Example for a Streamzap remote:
> "irdb-get find stream"
>
> will return:
> atiusb/atiusb.lircd.conf
> digital_stream/DTX9900.lircd.conf
> snapstream/Firefly-Mini.lircd.conf
> streamzap/PC_Remote.lircd.conf
> streamzap/streamzap.lircd.conf
> x10/atiusb.lircd.conf
>
> (b) Download appropriate config
> "irdb-get download streamzap/streamzap.lircd.conf"
> Downloaded sourceforge.net/p/lirc-remotes/code/ci/master/tree/remotes/streamzap/streamzap.lircd.conf as streamzap.lircd.conf
>
> (c) Copy the downloaded remote conf file to
> /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.d/
> to allow LIRC to support it.
>
> (d) Prepare appropriate lircrc file and put it in /home/mythtv/ as .lircrc
>
> (e) Reboot RPI2 and see is it working.
> If not, You can use "irw" to see is remote recognized, and if it is - what
> KEY codes it emits to lirc daemon. They should correspond with definitions is .lircrc file
>
>
>
> Your feedback is always welcome!
>
>
> BTW: MiniMyth2-rpi2-latest.tar.bz2 resides on my home server (with 120/12 Inet access) - so expect slow downloads.
> If anybody knows free hosting space for HTTP downloads - pls advice!
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I have just tried MiniMyth2 and it works reasonably well against my 
mythbackend 0.28pre with DVB-S/S2 and DVB-T/T2 tuners (I am in the UK 
using Freesat and Freeview).

The main issue I have is with HD (H264), both LiveTV and recorded 
programs in that there is some jitter, even with OSD renderer set to 
softblend (in openmax profile), if set to opengl2 HD is totally 
unusable. SD live TV  and recorded programs are ok.

These results are comparable to my RPI2 build  on Debian Jessie (x86_64) 
using  Lawrence Rust mythbuild.sh system. Although under RPI2 Raspbian 
Jessie only xcb works for me (eglfs seg faults at startup).

Mheg (Red Button) services work, but  live TV  stutters very badly even 
using softblend.

The good news is that Mythbrowser (Web) and MythNews (News Feeds) do 
work (I believe this is due to later QT5 version than in Lawrence Rust 
build which uses 5.4.0).

I tried to change to Steppes theme, but download failed in Theme 
Chooser. Steppes (2.17) did work when I installed it manually from git. 
Changing theme does work in Lawrence Rust build.

I also used bcmstat,sh via ssh from another PC to check memory/cpu/gpu 
usage which were all reasonable -see 
https://github.com/MilhouseVH/bcmstat. Change "python" in first line to 
"python2"

  The image I created was done as root on Debian Jessie (x86_64) using 
tar with the --numeric-owner option.

Mike