Basic Install Instructions
From MythDora
Upgrade from previous version
If you want to upgrade from a previous version, Geoff (G) Scott has put together a very nice step-by-step guide that can be found here. This is particularly useful if you wish to preserve any media (recordings, DVD rips, etc.) with a minimum of fuss.
Basic Install Instructions
There are two ways of installing MythDora: Auto and Custom. Auto means just what it says: you put the disk in, boot it, and it does the rest. Please note that the auto installer can only install onto a single hard drive and that there are no options for preserving other OS installations for dual-booting. Please read this if you would like to do a custom install, which is recommended only for advanced users and those users who need to install onto multiple disks. The custom installer is quite similar to a Fedora Core installation but has been simplified.
Please note: After installing the latest version of MythDora, you will need to update your installation before trying to capture Channel Lineups or listings from SchedulesDirect. The simplest way to proceed is to log in as root and execute (in a terminal window):
# yum update \*myth\*
After you have installed and after first reboot, you will then be greeted by the setup menu. This is a series of questions about your hardware and what you're using. These questions are very self-explanatory so there should be no need to go into detail here. After you have answered these questions, X will then restart and you will enter the MythTV-specific part of the setup process. The first screen is the language; I assume you know what language to choose here :-). After choosing your language, mythtvsetup will begin. There are five sections in mythtvsetup:
1. General
2. Capture Cards
3. Video Sources
4. Input connections
5. Channel Editor
I will briefly go over things using a one card setup(PVR-250). You must perform these steps in order, especially on an initial install, and you must finish all of the steps.
General
If this is an all-in-one setup, you may either leave the first screen alone, or you may provide the IP address of the box. If this is a frontend-only install, you must provide the IP address of this machine in the first entry as well as the IP address of the Master backend server in the fourth entry. If this is a backend-only setup, enter the IP address of this machine in both entries. Leave the rest as it is. Ignore the next screen: although it says /mnt/store, this will be automatically changed when you exit mythtvsetup. At the third screen, change the Channel frequency table to the appropriate table. You may have to play around with this setting, especially if you get blank/snow screens on certain channels. After that, I normally uncheck Master Backend Override, but this is not strictly necessary. It should be safe to leave the remaining screens with their default settings.
Capture Cards
In this section, you add your cards. Begin by selecting "New Capture Card". Since I use a PVR-250, I choose MPEG-2 encoder card(PVR-x50,PVR-500), which also includes the M179 and the PVR-USB2, although they are not listed. Following this is the Video Device; on systems with a single encoder card, this will normally be /dev/video0. Next, select the default input. If your TV signal is coming directly from a coax cable plugged into the capture card, select "Tuner" for this entry. Otherwise, if your TV signal is coming from an external tuner plugged into the composite or S-Video jack on your tuner card, select the appropriate input. If you have additional capture cards, add them in the same way that you added the first card, being certain to select the correct device path for each card. DVB and Firewire tuners have somewhat different setup options, and are beyond the scope of this document.
Video sources
Video sources are essentially sets of channels that can be accessed by a particular capture device. If all of your capture cards are able to access the same list of channels, you'll only need one video source, but if you have tuners that access different lists of channels (for example, analog cable vs digital cable, or cable vs satellite), you'll need to set up a video source for each unique set of channels you have access to. Each video source requires a name, which is completely arbitrary, although it is wise to give it a name that is meaningful to you: for example, the device the video source will be attached to (such as /dev/video0), or the source of the video (such as "Cable", "Digital Cable", or "Satellite"). After naming your video source, you must select the source of its guide data. Users subscribed to SchedulesDirect will probably wish to set this to DataDirect, and migrate to SchedulesDirect later. If DataDirect is still active at the time that you install MythDora, you may also enter your DataDirect User ID and Password in order to retrieve the channel lineups. If you have already set up your channel frequencies for your tuners, you should not need to adjust the channel frequency table. XMLTV users will have a different set of setup steps, which are outside the scope of this document.
Input connections
In this section, you will match your capture cards to your video sources. Make sure that there is a video source associated with each capture card you have installed--MythTV won't be able to use any capture cards that do not have video sources. It is not recommended that you scan for channesl or fetch channels from listings sources, as these will be done automatically after exiting mythtvsetup.
Channel Editor
The channel editor is used to globally alter channel information, including items like hue, contrast, fine tuning and others. Users in North America shouldn't run the channel editor until after completing initial setup and running mythfilldatabase at least once to populate the database.
Final Step
Once you have completed mythtvsetup, press the Esc key to exit, and mythfilldatabase will run. This may take some time, depending on your internet connection. XMLTV users will be given an xterm popup window in which mythfilldatabase can be run manually. Once this finishes, your system will reboot for the final time.
Things to know
If you ever need to get back into mythtvsetup, simply exit mythfrontend. Then, at the desktop, right click -> Multimedia -> mythTV setup. There is NO NEED to stop mythbackend as this is done for you. When you're finished with mythtvsetup, simply exit and repeat the steps above, but choose MythTV. You DO NOT need to restart mythbackend as this is done for you, as well.
If you ever restart X, you will be automatically logged in as your mythtv user, so there is NO need to manually log in for any reason. Also, there should not be any reason to login as root, unless you know what you're doing.
You can get to an xterm without ever leaving mythfrontend. This option is located in MythDora tools. If you want to use the internet simply type 'firefox' from xterm.
The official package updater is yum. Please remember NOT to do a apt-get dist-upgrade or yum upgrade unless you absolutely must do so.
If you're interested in looking at your system info, open a browser and enter your hostname or ip address followed by /cgi-bin/sysinfo.cgi, like this.
http://ipaddress-or-hostname/cgi-bin/sysinfo.cgi
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