Applications - MythTV

Overview

MythTV is a Linux-based personal video recorder (PVR) solution. Follow the link to MythTV for further details.

Doing software development for firewalls, backups and file servers is not always the most fun thing to do. Eventually, we have to do something a little more entertaining around here. The following Howto provides a quick and easy way to install MythTV on a ClarkConnect 4.2 system.

	Warning!

This is very much a moving target, so check back often. You should also check the online forums for more MythTV tips and tricks

Installing MythTV

First, you need to add the apt repository that contains the required MythTV RPMS:

echo "rpm [pcn] ftp://core-42:linux@core.apt.clarkconnect.com System extras" > \
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/edge.list
apt-get update
apt-get install cc-mythtv mythtv

Since a default ClarkConnect system does not have many media (music, video, etc) related features, you will see quite a few RPMS installed. Fundamentally, you can break down the cc-myth TV package into four components.

• X Windows (bare minimum)
• Database
• MythTV and related media software
• Ratpoison Window Manager

X-Windows

After installing the software, the first thing you want to do is get X-Windows configured. As root, run the following:

X -configure

If all goes well, you will then be able to copy your X-Windows configuration to the proper location:

cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/xorg.conf

Mouse support has not been tested yet, so you will need to add the following to /etc/xorg.conf

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
    Option "DisableModInDev" "true"
EndSection

For some reason, the following command was also necessary (this will be fixed in a future release):

mkfontdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc

Now it is time to test the X-Windows environment:

startx

You will not see much at this point -- it's just a test. To exit X-Windows, hit Ctl-Alt-Backspace.

Database

You will need to startup your MySQL database and initialize the MythTV system. You will need to change the command below if your database is password protected (it should be!).

mysql < /usr/share/doc/mythtv-docs-0.20.2/database/mc.sql

Ratpoison Window Manager

(MythTV recommends an X-Windows Window Manager, so the Ratpoison Window Manager is included in the ClarkConnect build. Among other things, this software makes it possible to auto-start MythTV on boot.

Starting MythTV Frontend on Boot

If you want to start the MythTV frontend boot, most of the configuration has already been done. You can find details about the required configuration on the MythTV web site. All you need to do on a ClarkConnect system is add the following to the /etc/inittab file:

c7:12345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --autologin=mythtv tty7

You can reboot the system to test, or simply type init q (I think). The following configuration files are part of the auto-login process, so you may want to tinker with these.

• /var/lib/mythtv/.bash_profile
• /var/lib/mythtv/.ratpoisonrc
• /var/lib/mythtv/.xinitrc