7.1 - Finally finished cleaning up the code, and it looks prettier. Finishing up an FAQ about a few bugs
To all -
I apologize for the long wait. I've been a bit busy with finals and
moving, and I had installed SuSE 9.3 onto my MythBox when it first came out.
However, I hadn't gotten around to installing Myth and finishing the guide.
After a trip through "dependency hell", I've figured out how to
get it all up and running quickly, with few trips through the command
line and "./configure, make, make install." It shouldn't take
but a few steps to get your MythBox going with SuSE 9.3, and I'll
guide you step-by-step through the whole process. With SuSE 9.3, the
guide is cut down from 11 steps to just short of 5 steps. The old
guide is here, and as usual, if there are any problems, don't
hesitate to contact me here.
-Chris Robbins
Step 1 - Install SuSE 9.3
Install SuSE 9.3 as usual. Insert DVD, follow setup as directed by the installer.
When prompted for the setup summary, click on the "Installed Packages" and make sure
the following packages are also installed -
kernel-source
qt3
qt3-devel
mysql
mysql-client
freetype-2
perl-Tk
ivtv*
*ivtv was not originally found when I searched for it. I added a mirror later and
discovered ivtv. It's easily obtained, and there's an "Add a mirror"
guide at the end of this one - here. See my notes below about installing ivtv from
the RPM.
Let the install run its course. Configure network as necessary, complete hardware
configuration, and finish the install. Move to Step 2.
Step 2 - Configure NTP and Complete Necessary Updates
I advise starting SuSE Watcher and updating all packages as necessary. You
can set YOU to update automatically as updates are installed. Furthermore,
it 's easy enough (if you have a Nvidia card) to get the video card
drivers installed.
ATI Users Note:fglrx, the ATI linux driver, is packaged with SuSE 9.3. However (at
least for me), configuration still not perfect. On my Dell 600m, the
driver caused more problems than it helped, and I decided it was best
to not use it. YMMV.
Secondly, configure NTP (Network TIme Protocol). NTP will synchronize
the system clock a server near your location. Having the NTP daemon running at
startup is a nifty feature; it will keep the exact time, which is useful when scheduling
recordings. Simply go into YaST -> Network Services -> NTP Client. Set
"Automatically Start NTP Daemon" to "When Booting System."
Use Google to search for a public NTP server near your location (i.e. - google
"NTP server+Arizona") and enter the server name/IP address into the
dialog box. Click "Test" to make sure the server is running and
responding correctly, and then click "Finish" to complete NTP configuration.
Step 3 - modprobe ivtv and get Mplayer
I've had a few problems with the RPM. Theoretically, you should be able to -
# modprobe ivtv
With no real problems. However, this doesn't work as well as it should.
First off, the RPM doesn't have the firmware required by ivtv. There are
two ways to resolve this issue, and get ivtv up and running -
1.) Get the source from ivtv, and pull the firmware out using the ivtvfwextract.pl
utility (located at /path/to/ivtv-source/utils/)
2.) Install from source instead.
Both options are easy enough to follow. Below is my guide to installing from source. I'd
also like to note that SuSE 9.3 and ivtv-0.2.0-rc3j (latest version available at time
of writing) doesn't properly work with SuSE 9.3. I've had a few issues with it, so I rolled back to
ivtv-0.2.0-rc3c. If you need the latest version (for PVR-150, -500 owners), poke around the
forums and see if you find anything. I have yet to have any luck with it, but if you do, let
me know and I will post the information here.
Obtain a copy of Chris Kennedys IVTV drivers. He builds more
often than the actual ivtv project, and all the drivers I have used
are much developed than those at the ivtv project site. Go to
here and obtain the sources. I
used ivtv-0.2.0-rc3c for my box. The 0.3 versions are all still in
development and may not be stable at time of writing.
Download and untar this file to your home directory. cd into
this directory-
$ cd ivtv-0.2.0-rc3c
$ cd utils
Go get the latest
firmware for your PVR-350. Become root....
From here, cd into the driver and
utils and perform a make and a make
install
From here, we can test to make sure all of this now works. First
off though, we must get the Perl modules to deal with ivtv to use
the Perl utility ptune-ui.pl to adjust channels and
settings. This module is packaged with the IVTV driver. The perl
prerequisites for ptune-ui are-
Video::Frequencies
Video::ivtv
Config::inifiles
Filling these in is relatively easy. Google is your friend in
this case, as most of these are easy to find. After you've
downloaded these files, untar them. Change directories for each
one, and issue the command-
perl Makefile.PL
for each one you install. A few messages should be displayed,
usually stating that things ¨look good¨. From here, run a
make and a make install.Before testing,
load the ivtv module. Execute -
$ su
# modprobe ivtv
If all goes well, this should return nothing. If something goes
wrong, it will be noted here or in the system log. Change
directories to your utils directory and as user,
run-
$ ./ptune-ui.pl
This should bring up a small menu with many different numbers
and settings. Select a channel that you know will come in
relatively clear. From here, run the following command to test your
pvr-350.
cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/test.mpg
Let this run for a time, and kill it with CTRL+C
Open the test file with Mplayer. If it works with picture and
audio, you´ve conquered another hard part of the MythBox install.
Ifyou get static/fuzz with no sound, try changing the channel or
starting again from the beginning. This setup usually works on the
first try.
We need to edit a startup script so most of this loads for us
automatically. If we don´t, we´ll have to modprobe
every time we restart the computer. Find
modprobe.conf.localunder /etc, and edit
in these lines.
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-0 ivtv
The third line is for remote control support, which we will
discuss in later steps.
Step 3 - Setup apt and obtain all required packages.
Originally, I Googled for "SuSE 9.3 mythtv rpms" to find a bunch of
ready-made RPMs for the job. However, this did not work at all. There was a better way.
A Mr. Øystein Olsen of Oslo, Norway (whose site I have linked to here has an excellent guide on installing apt.
With his permission, I have used his guide (with a few tweaks) in the guide
here. What follows is an even simpler way to get your MythTV install up and running.
Installing and rebuilding the RPMS
by Øystein Olsen
This document is not indended as a replacement for the documentation at
http://www.mythtv.org/, but as a quick tutorial on how to install and
rebuild these packages.
Installing the packages
This is reasonably simple:
* First, you'll need apt and apt-libs (and lua for 9.0 and 9.1):
NOTE - Things differ here. For some reason, there can be an error in checking
signatures of the packages and the keys. It will cause a boatload of errors when you
try to update. You can turn key-checking off by executing the following.
$ su
# cd /etc/apt/apt.conf.d
# pico gpg-checker.conf
*Set GPG::Check true; to GPG::Check no;
# exit
This shouldn't cause any problems. However, if you are concerned about signature
verification, use the --checksig parameter when installing packages
Follow the next few steps. Do not install Synaptic (there are missing libraries that
won't allow you to do so.)
A small warning: Unless you now remove kde from /etc/apt/sources.list, you'll
upgrade qt and kde to the latest version. The latest version of qt
may be necessary if you intend to use mythmusic.
This step gets the all of the required packages for mythtv. Aasuming you have the other packages
needed to install the rest of the MythModules (you'll need to get at least transcode from RPM or
source), you could execute
# apt-get install myth*
to install the other modules. If there are problems or mssing packages, they will
be listed accordingly, and it's relatively easy to track down missing packages via YaST
or Google. Move onto the next step - starting up required services.
Step 5 - Starting up required services and setup MythTV.
Enter the System Services (Runlevel editor) within YaST. Make sure that mysql and
is enabled and running at startup. Leave the System Services window open - you will
need it in a minute.
Set the root password for the mysql database. Use the following command -
$ mysqladmin -u root password “password here”
Then, setup the initial database. From here, we must execute the following command
to start the database -
$ mysql -u root < /usr/share/mythtv/database/mc.sql
Assuming no errors have been returned, we can continue. Go back to the System
Services panel, and enable MythBackend. With the database already setup, this should
return no problems.
Start setup by issuing -
$ mythtv-setup
Follow setup per directions. Most of it is relatively self explanatory. One thing to note
is that (if you are in the United States/Canada) you will need a DataDirect account to grab listings
for your cable provider. Go to the Zap2it labs, and sign up for an
account. They will prompt for a password/registration code. Use ZIYN-DQZO-SBUT for this code. The service is free, although
they will ask for re-registration about once every three months. Notices are sent via email when the time comes around.
Next step - execute mythfilldatabase to fill the database with the necessary information. When
this command completes, execute mythfrontend. Assuming this starts with no errors, you should be
up and running.
