Install MythTV using SuSE 10

MythTV is a linux-based Personal Video Recorder, like a TiVo, except that MythTV is free, doesn't require an expensive subscription, and is customizable.  If you are installing MythTV on SuSE you really need to read this guide.  It's the best SuSE guide overall, but the author is capturing a digital signal in the UK, whereas I capture a North American analog signal.

This guide is specific to SuSE 10:

Hardware used

MythTV uses about 2.5 GB to store one hour of TV.

Steps

Install SuSE from DVD:

  1. Disable the onboard ethernet and sound in the motherboard BIOS.  This saves trouble later.
  2. Boot from the SuSE 10 DVD.
  3. Follow the graphical install, adding the following packages:
  4. Do not install lirc or ivtv and remove the packges if they have been selected. 
  5. Create a user "mythtv"
  6. Once the installer is finished and the system is ready to boot, a vga monitor is required.  The xwindows system cannot use tv-out until the nvidia driver is installed.

Install wireless card driver:

  1. Install ndiswrapper to install the wireless NIC driver.  In a terminal as su enter:
  2. If you didn't disable your onboard ethernet, resolve the multiple dhcp client interface DNS problem that occurs in SuSE. 

Install video driver:

  1. Do a Yast Online Update.  Make sure to select the nvidia driver.
  2. Using NVIDIA TV-out

Install the ivtv driver for the capture card:

  1. This was the trickiest part.  SuSE 10.0 comes with ivtv-0.3.7c.  These drivers can be made to work, but I suffered a PAL/NTSC auto-detection problem that results, for Canadians, in all the channels being off by one.  Compile the latest stable ivtv drivers from source.
  2. The ivtv drivers for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 need firmware, (the firmware for ivtv cards isn't actually stored in ROM on the cards, it needs to be loaded every time the driver loads).  Firmware for the 0.4.4 drivers goes in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
  3. Download the latest version (ivtv-0.4.4) and compile following these instructions:
    4. tar zxfv ivtv-0.4.4.tar.gz
cd ivtv-*
su
make && make install
cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/
mv msp3400.ko msp3400.ko.old 
mv tveeprom.ko tveeprom.ko.old
mv tuner.ko tuner.ko.old
mv tda9887.ko tda9887.ko.old
cd /home/mythtv/ivtv-0.4.0/driver
cp *.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/media/video/
depmod -a
modprobe ivtv
dmesg | grep ivtv
  4. Make sure that the output shows that the card was properly initialized.  (If ivtv was installed by SuSE, it is necessary to remove the old ivtv modules as per these instructions.)
  5. If it's installed correctly, the tuner will be /dev/video0.  Check to see that it exists.
  6. Test the ivtv drivers with cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg which will generate a MPEG2 file.

Install packages and rpms:

  1. Add DVD deCSS - http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.9/rpm/libdvdcss2-1.2.9-1.i386.rpm
  2. Add sources to Yast:
    3. (See this good article on getting SuSE to perform as it should.)
  3. Add packages
  4. Add rpms for mythtv
  5. There are at least two sources of SuSE/MythTV rpms:
  6. You may want to install aMSN, a MSN Messenger clone, but not in Yast.  Download the RPM or compile it..

Time server:

  1. Get NTP up and running.  This is important for correct start and stop times for programming.

Infrared Remote Control:

  1. This was tricky too.  From the FAQ at lirc.org:  "The lircd version in SuSE RPMs is compiled without hardware support. It can be only used to receive commands from another lircd over the network. This is probably not what you want. Compile your own LIRC package from source and remember to remove the LIRC RPM."
  2. Use Yast to add Øystein Olsen's lirc and lirc_i2c packages.  Ses his ivtv page
  3. Use Yast -> System -> Sysconfig editor to set the correct LIRCD_DEVICE and LIRC_MODULE. They are /dev/lirc (most likely) and lirc_i2c.
  4. edit permissions: chmod a+rwx /dev/lirc
  5. There are two config files required.
  6. /etc/lircd.conf
  7. this file is saved both as /home/mythtv/.lircrc and /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc
  8. make sure in Yast that the lirc service is configured to start at boot.
  9. reboot

Programming Data:

  1. TV schedules for North America are available from Zap2It DataDirect.  You'll need to establish a user account. Go to http://labs.zap2it.com
  2. In the "Certificate Code" field, enter ZIYN-DQZO-SBUT
  3. Fill in the survey, then proceed to the lineup choices and configure your account for your particular location and the channels that you have. This configuration will be imported into MythTV when you first run the setup program.

Configure Database:

  1. start mysql in Yast/System/System Services
  2. open terminal as su
  3. cd to the directory containing mc.sql (e.g. cd /usr/share/mythtv/database or cd /usr/share/doc/packages/mythtv/database)
  4. mysql -u root < mc.sql
  5. Set the mysql root password, replacing ROOT_PWD with your chosen administrator password:

Install MythTV:

  1. open terminal as su
  2. create a place to store video: md /var/video
  3. edit permissions: chmod a+rwx /var/video
  4. to configure backend: mythtv-setup
  5. fill database with program info: mythfilldatabase
  6. start backend server: in Yast/System/System Services, enable the mythbackend service
  7. start frontend manually: mythfrontend
  8. autostart frontend:
  9. setup channel labels

MythWeb:

  1. make sure the the following packages are installed: apache2, bind, php4-mysql, php-session, mysql-php
  2. Edit the file /etc/php.ini: change the line include_path = "/usr/share/php" to include_path = ".:/usr/share/php"
  3. You will need to make a change to the apache configuration. You can do this in YasT:
  4. Go to Yast->network services->http server->Settings->default host->Edit->Directory "/srv/www/htdocs"
  5. The default location for mythweb is /svr/www/htdocs/mythweb
  6. Edit permissions.  SuSE runs apache2 as wwwuser in group www

Other:

  1. While watching TV, I had a blue bar down the left side and across the top.  I got rid of it by using nvidia-settings to increase the overscan of the TV display.  (I use my graphics card TV-out but I did try the PVR-350 TV-out, which displayed correctly and needed no adjustment.)
  2. I added a keyboard shortcut to launch mythfrontend.  Go to K Menu / Control Centre / Regional & Accessibility / Keyboard Shortcuts and then the command shortcuts tab.
  3. Make sure all your tags are correct before you attempt to import mp3s into MythMusic.  MythMusic is probably not a great way to manage a big music collection but fine for playing a party play list.

Daily Use

Other Instructions

MythTV installation guides:

SuSE-specific installation guides:

Forums:

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