MythTV Setup

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Contents 1 Introduction 2 Features 3 Hardware Setup 4 Install the Needed Software 5 Mysql Setup 6 Schedules Direct Setup 7 Backend Setup

Introduction

MythTV is a powerful Digital Video Recorder to watch your television shows on your computer.

Features

1. Record television shows
   
2. Watch LiveTV
   
3. Transcode your recorded shows into various formats (default is mpeg 2)
   
4. Scheduled recordings
   
5. TvGuide through zap2it
   
6. Plugin functionality
   

Hardware Setup

Users of Hauppauge 150/250/350/500 Cards should read the Ivtv Setup Guide
Most others will want to read the Bttv Setup Guide
(to be expanded)

Install the Needed Software

In MEPIS 7.0, the standard repos will work fine. In MEPIS 6.5, verify you have the needed repo included:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe 

Then as root:

apt-get install mythtv mysql-server-5.0 mysql-client-5.0

Mysql Setup

First start the server,
As root:

/etc/init.d/mysql start

Now verify it is up:

ps aux | grep mysql

There should be 2 lines similar to this:

root      2916  0.0  0.1   2564   380 ?        S    17:08   0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
mysql     2945  0.0  5.1 129396 13056 ?        Sl   17:08   0:14 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/Soldier.pid --skip-locking --port=3

And possibly a 3rd like this:

root      3524  0.0  0.3   3176   792 pts/0    S+   21:51   0:00 grep mysql

The third doesnt need to be there but the first two have to be there, atempt to restart the server with the same command used to start it above
Now add it to the startup system,
As root:

ln -s /etc/init.d/mysql /etc/rc3.d/S20mysql
ln -s /etc/init.d/mysql /etc/rc0.d/K20mysql
ln -s /etc/init.d/mysql /etc/rc6.d/K20mysql 

Set up a password for the root account, use a secure password, replace 'newpassword' with the new password

mysqladmin -u root password 'newpasword'

Now import the default table:

mysql -u root -p < /usr/share/mythtv/mc.sql 

Schedules Direct Setup

Zap2it is no longer offering free channel listing, however Schedules Direct is now filling in. From their site, "Schedules Direct is a non-profit organization that provides raw U.S./Canadian tv listing data to Free and Open Source Applications." At the moment, there is a fee of $20 per year and they cover the US and Canada. See Schedules Direct to sign up.

Backend Setup

NOTE: Information is relevent to version 0.18 currently in the MEPIS 6.5 repos, changes are minimal between .18 and .19. The MEPIS 7 repos contain mythtv 0.20.

Now that your card is all set up, and the mysql backend is up, its time to set up mythtv.

(to be continued as soon as i get screenshots uploaded)