Linux is just not ready for the living room.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:13 am

Sorry, but it just isn't. I know that that's a very insulting accusation, since a living room PC is hardly as encumbered by all the expectations that keep desktops tied to windows, and much more capable of still doing a good job despite more limited functionality, but it's an accusation that's in order.

I've recently come across the situation of having a spare PC around which is reasonably suitable for most sorts of tasks. So I decided that I'd probably be able to make it most useful as a mythTV box.

So I looked around for a mythTV focused distro. I was hoping for one based on debian or something like that hoping it would run and boot faster. Nope, nothing available but mythdora and mythbuntu(well, and knopmyth).

Okay, too bad ... in that case I'll just pick whichever one has fluxbox/blackbox/icewm, raine and dosbox.

Hmmm, neither does. Well, mythdora at least has ratpoison, I'm pretty sure that's also a very light window manager, and it does have a bunch of emulators. And it just seems like a more complete package, good for a system which ought to be fine staying offline.

Okay, so I grabbed the mythdora 5.0 DVD and got around to installing it. The first hassle was the so called "custom" partition option being incredibly dumbed down and resistant to letting me set things up how I wanted them. It tried to automatically put partitions in certain locations, it was very uncooperative about letting me chose what would be a primary or logical partition, it wouldn't let me use reiserFS, it wouldn't let me leave a partition unformated, it forced me to set mount points for everything.

Well, at least it was possible to chose where to put the partitions after trying a few things. The rest of the installation was straightforward enough, well, except that it set the desktop size higher than my monitor could display so it had to scroll back and forth.

After i started it up, I realized that I'd want to use a spare wireless mouse with it, instead of the wired one I had connected while installing. Uh oh. That might have worked fine if I had it hooked up while installing, but now I can't seem to find any hardware configuration options ... the configuration options are apparently heavily tied to to Gnome, which is incredibly dumb for a distro for which a light window manager fits so much better.

Even though it wouldn't work neatly like this, testing how it played videos was still in order. That didn't seem to work. Then I realized that it put the "storage" folder where all the videos and such are supposed to go in the root partition. WHAT!? WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING!? What is it with linuxes wantonly putting stuff that can be very big in that partition which is supposed to be small?

Not even one media center distro that looks good on paper and functions as it should. Not ready for the living room, let alone the desktop.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:37 am

Linuxes' strength is also its weakness: Open source. Because linuxes vary so much due open source and GNU license, some distro's can be very hard for the beginners... and sometimes even some more advanced peoples.

you have ran into one most common Linux beginner problem: You want to run slightly specialized task and have bit more exotic product like wireless desktop etc. If you have know-how these thing can be by passed but not everyone have that know how.

I just hope this won't turn you away from Linux completely. God I've fought with countless distro's when trying to install them on none-standrd set-up like laptop.

Windows has been criticized well... a lot things but peoples really to think stop how well Windows Installation has been done. XP's partitioning program is superior for G-partition (one of most common partition tools in Gnome's) in ease of use.

My old laptop can't run DSL, even its made for old and lightweight as it freezes in ACHPI detection and if you don't do ACHPI it frozes Xaunthent...

My laptop has been also verified 100% compatible for the Ubuntu... well my Ununtu 8.04 LTS can't install more than 800 x 600 resolution. Even it installed everything else. Sucks big time... Not worth of 100% verification.

Linux is good if you know how to use it or have standard hardware. Because its open source, its very versatile but also that is its weakness as tere are countless versions and not all versions are made for Average Joe in ease of use.

I like Linux very much but as much I like Linux, I honestly can say that I would not remove Win XP from my main rig as my main OS... XP has lot's of negative sides but it also have lot's of strong sides. In my use, XP's strong sides easily outweight its weak sides.

I'll do check after I get more used Linux and get to understand it bit more. But until then...

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:06 am

No, as far as turning me away from linux, this probably is the last straw. It's not really the main thing about it that rubs me the wrong way, that would be the userbase. Everything about it, I'd rather not repeat all the common gripes, but there's one that's particularly annoying, how a lot of it basically wants linux to suck in order to "keep the riff-raff away".

You can call it a specialized task, I guess, but it's not really a niche function, from everything I hear, mythTV is the closest thing to a "killer app" that linux has. It's something that linux should put a good bit of focus on, but I guess they won't because all the bitter open source zealots think everyone should install linux on their desktop, and hence be experienced with every aspect of it and accustomed to all the hassles of it so that a mythTV distro which is as good as it could be won't have nearly as much of a point.

tehcrazybob · Post by **tehcrazybob** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:30 am

Your post is entitled "Linux isn't ready for the living room," but it should actually be "Fedora isn't ready for the living room." I'm sure there's some purpose or good use for Fedora, but I couldn't tell you what it might be. Please, I beg you, don't let your opinion of Linux as a whole rest on a Fedora-based distribution.

You're quite right that there are some issues with Linux, and that in most Linux circles asking questions is like banging your head against a wall. As you said, the people who know what they're doing tend to support keeping it complex so they can feel like a guru, and generally belittle those who ask simple questions. Additionally, if you want to step just slightly outside of the default options, you'll often have problems that require a great deal more knowledge.

However, there is one distribution which is a shining example of things done right, and you chose not to use it - Ubuntu. Mythbuntu would have fit your needs perfectly. It runs XFCE, which is only marginally slower than FluxBox. Ubuntu and its derivatives have exceptional hardware detection; I've used it on several computers and had my wireless mouse and wireless network cards detected and installed automatically, and the proper drivers for my video card have always been installed automatically after I confirmed that closed-source drivers were acceptable.

In addition, if you have odd hardware or very unusual desires, the Ubuntu community is very friendly to people of all skill levels. In my experience they've always been willing and able to answer even the simplest questions quickly.

Again, I implore you not to base your opinion of Linux as a whole off of Fedora. I understand that you can't be expected to test each and every distribution until you find one that you like, and that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking you specifically to try Ubuntu before you give up on Linux totally - it's what Linux should be like.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:31 am

Well my take on this is that I agree with the thread title, though not for the reasons the OP sets out. I tried for year to set up a MythTV-based HTPC and it was deeply frustrating. It's just not finished yet, and frankly, it never will be because finished isn't the object of the exercise.

For my HTPC I've switched to trying to use Windows + SageTV and my experience has been an order of magnitude better ... but it's still not a viable replacement for a cable/satellite STB when it comes to general simplicity of use and responsiveness.

From my long and bad experience ... I'd entitle this thread "The PC is not ready for the living room".

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:56 pm

I said why I picked Mythdora, it at least had a decent sized load of packages, ubuntu has its weird one CD philosophy, and for some reason xubuntu and mythbuntu don't even bother filling that one CD up. I don't have a TV tuner card, I don't want to get one preemptively on the basis of blindly assuming that a media center PC will work well, so I'd like to actually try out a living room PC with some other functions before jumping in. Besides, the reviews said those two distros were roughly even.

I think you missed my point, this is an opportunity for a shining distro, if it just packed in all the things that would work great on a living room PC. But all there seems to be is two desktop distros minimally retooled to run mythTV.

Also, I did try xubuntu once, I needed to install it twice, had some other issues with it, and I really didn't like the security model ... okay, I can understand not being able to do all the root account things, but how can it let you do administrative functions with just a user password?

I'm getting the impression that these aren't better options than just using a regular distro with mythTV added on.

And it's not like I've had a remotely flawless experience with linux regarding other aspects of it anyway.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:03 pm

tehcrazybob wrote:Your post is entitled "Linux isn't ready for the living room," but it should actually be "Fedora isn't ready for the living room." I'm sure there's some purpose or good use for Fedora, but I couldn't tell you what it might be. Please, I beg you, don't let your opinion of Linux as a whole rest on a Fedora-based distribution.

You're quite right that there are some issues with Linux, and that in most Linux circles asking questions is like banging your head against a wall. As you said, the people who know what they're doing tend to support keeping it complex so they can feel like a guru, and generally belittle those who ask simple questions. Additionally, if you want to step just slightly outside of the default options, you'll often have problems that require a great deal more knowledge.

However, there is one distribution which is a shining example of things done right, and you chose not to use it - Ubuntu. Mythbuntu would have fit your needs perfectly. It runs XFCE, which is only marginally slower than FluxBox. Ubuntu and its derivatives have exceptional hardware detection; I've used it on several computers and had my wireless mouse and wireless network cards detected and installed automatically, and the proper drivers for my video card have always been installed automatically after I confirmed that closed-source drivers were acceptable.

In addition, if you have odd hardware or very unusual desires, the Ubuntu community is very friendly to people of all skill levels. In my experience they've always been willing and able to answer even the simplest questions quickly.

Again, I implore you not to base your opinion of Linux as a whole off of Fedora. I understand that you can't be expected to test each and every distribution until you find one that you like, and that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking you specifically to try Ubuntu before you give up on Linux totally - it's what Linux should be like.

I don't know what makes you think Fedora is the problem. It sounds like the problem is switching out hardware after the installation, not a problem of recognizing hardware that was already installed before the Linux install. My guess is that most if not all distros have a problem with that unless you manually install the drivers.

Linux is a great OS for servers, but it will be a very long time (maybe never) before it competes on the desktop. What Linux geeks think is acceptable in terms of set-up and configuration is completely unacceptable to the masses. As the market place shifts market share to the Mac because of ease of use, it doesn't seem likely that Linux will make many converts among non-IT computer users. There may be some corporate or government desktop Linux installations where an IT department completely maintains the PC, but for the average home or small business user it is out of the question on the desktop.

What I find annoying about Linux is that when you search for help:

1. Most people who answer the questions assume the person seeking help is already a Linux OS expert (or at least wants to be), and/or

2. The person answering the question has very poor communication skills (their explanations are cryptic to say the least). Even the manuals are pitiful.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:11 pm

Each to their own taste, and expectations. It is not really fair to criticize in such a general fashion and entire OS family because one of it's non-mainstream siblings didn't meet your expectations.

Many thousands (millions?) of people use various forms of Linux on a daily basis on their desktops. Our firm only has Windows machine for testing things for clients and has been, except for one or two BSD based boxes, a completely Linux operation for the last 8 years, both on the servers and on the desktops. I know of others who can say the same.

Ubuntu has gone a long way to popularizing Linux in recent years. None of the distros are perfect - then again that's true of every OS in the marketplace.

I have heard the same said of OS/2 that it's dead and gone but most people would besurprised how much OS/2 is still used in vertical markets such as DP, banking, insurance etc.

Bottom line use what works for you in your situation, but please don't label an entire system as useless because one small variation didn't do what you expected it to do.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:16 pm

NyteOwl wrote:I have heard the same said of OS/2 that it's dead and gone but most people would besurprised how much OS/2 is still used in vertical markets such as DP, banking, insurance etc.

That is only because it is too costly to convert them.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:27 am

m0002a wrote: I don't know what makes you think Fedora is the problem. It sounds like the problem is switching out hardware after the installation, not a problem of recognizing hardware that was already installed before the Linux install.

Yes, exactly, that is it, that is one of the problems. I haven't been able to get that mouse working with other distros either. It does get annoying how they seem to expect you to install new distros all the time. And I'm apprehensive about doing that when my backups are a good bit short of perfect because I did lose a partition once.

m0002a wrote:Even the manuals are pitiful.

Yeah, manual deficiencies are annoying. I remember running across a manual page and the writer saying in it that he doesn't like writing documentation. WTF? Then why can't he get someone else to do it for him? You'd think that with all the zealots in the linux community, that they'd be able to find people to take the non programing tasks off the hands of the programmers.

NyteOwl wrote:It is not really fair to criticize in such a general fashion and entire OS family because one of it's non-mainstream siblings didn't meet your expectations.

Sibling? It's a linux distro in the same way as any other. It doesn't have to be less mainstream, in fact, as far as I can tell, it has the potential to be more mainstream. There's no justification for you claiming that linux should only be expected to perform one function and that anything else is just a bonus and completely beyond criticism.

NyteOwl wrote:Our firm only has Windows machine for testing things for clients and has been, except for one or two BSD based boxes, a completely Linux operation for the last 8 years, both on the servers and on the desktops. I know of others who can say the same.

Of course, the scarcity of games and other distractions is an advantage for business settings.

However, I have to admit that I'm not all that upset at the self important expert mentality. I kind of understand it. I've had a similar gripe with the game "cube".

You see, cube is kind of centered around the concept of letting you edit levels on the fly from inside the game. It does suffer some limitations because of that. I didn't like that, I think I was pretty good at working with a normal level editor, what with visualizing it ahead of time and such. I don't know if I really had anything against something like cube existing, but I would have preferred if it had a sibling or rival project with a more normal level structure.

But I suppose that never really mattered,since cube, like a lot of open source projects, is incredibly bland in certain ways.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:30 pm

I came in here to agree, though after reading some of it I do disagree.

Part of the problem is that Linux does seem to have this expectation that it will magically take your old hardware and work great on it--and even more so in a non-standard living room environment.

I had a devil of a time fiddling with Mythbuntu, and then XP with a couple media-centre setups, and eventually just went with Vista Home Premium. It also took some fiddling, but a lot quicker and it now runs in the bedroom with a very high WAF.

One thing I ran into with Mythbuntu, was that I did a stock Ubuntu install, *then* installed Mythbuntu as a package afterwards, so that I would actually have all the stock Ubuntu files in. Made it easier to get video and remote keyboard and mouse to work in the end.

The security model of Ubuntu and others seems nice to me. It's more or less run in user mode unless an explicit command is given to do something in administrator mode, and you then have to give that password to approve it. Not much different that Vista with UAC or XP with 'Run as...'.

What is the one CD philosophy?

So in the end, all I can say is Linux has a way to go for everyday computing in an easy and accessible manner.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 6:05 pm

Speaking as someone who's had a solidly-working Gentoo-based MythTV setup for several years...

mathias wrote:So I looked around for a mythTV focused distro. I was hoping for one based on debian or something like that hoping it would run and boot faster. Nope, nothing available but mythdora and mythbuntu(well, and knopmyth).

Emphasis mine. Why did you think a debian-based distro would run and boot faster? Also, ubuntu is built on debian, so anything built on ubuntu is implicitly built on debian.

mathias wrote:Okay, too bad ... in that case I'll just pick whichever one has fluxbox/blackbox/icewm, raine and dosbox.

Although those distros may not have your window manager choice as the default, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a way to install them after the fact. I've never used the MythTV-specific distros, so I don't know. But I have used ubuntu, and I know the package repositories have those popular lightweight window managers available.

There is a file (or maybe group of files) that tells the ubuntu/debian package system where to look for software (i.e. repositories). Worst case you might have to edit or create one of those files to tell the package manager where to find additional software.

mathias wrote:Even though it wouldn't work neatly like this, testing how it played videos was still in order. That didn't seem to work. Then I realized that it put the "storage" folder where all the videos and such are supposed to go in the root partition. WHAT!? WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING!? What is it with linuxes wantonly putting stuff that can be very big in that partition which is supposed to be small?

To which storage folder are you referring? "Vanilla" MythTV (i.e. no add-ons/plugins), has really only one storage directory that is important, which is the folder for recorded content. It's also configurable. Perhaps the default (root partition) is based on the belief that most people will only have one big partition for the operating system, software and video storage. But, it's fairly easy to change (mythtv-setup I think), or, as a hack, you could create a symbolic link from the root partition to your big store.

Plugins, like MythVideo and MythMusic, have their own storage locations. Also configurable. I don't know what they default to.

Another way to look at it is this: The root partition is the one partition that a developer knows will always be present. How each individual user will partition his system cannot be known in advance; there are simply too many possibilities.

mathias wrote:Not even one media center distro that looks good on paper and functions as it should. Not ready for the living room, let alone the desktop.

Like I said, I don't have any experience with the distributions that were specifically designed for mythtv. But I would guess that their are designed with only a handful of extremely simple scenarios in mind. Likewise, for those who want a more customized installation/setup, the best bet is to probably start with a base installation of any Linux distro, and install, configure and tweak accordingly. In other words, if you know enough to know you want something customized, you probably know enough to actually do it. (And here I mean the general "you", i.e. I am just speculating on the thought process of the mythtv distribution developers.)

I've generally had very good experience with the open source community in general. I've been on and off the mythtv-users mailing list at times, and the folks there I've always found to be friendly. The gentoo forums have a lot of really knowledgeable people. The ubuntu forms in my opinion have a lot of particularly nice people as well. But that's just my experience.

Another idea: the mythdora and mythbuntu developers are probably willing to hear ideas and suggestions, or at least user experience testimonials, as long as you approach it with the right tone.

In all fairness, you need to run through the exact same thing you tried to do with mythdora with Windows. Get a Windows distribution that automatically sets up a mythtv-like media center for you, lets you do a custom partition scheme with ReiserFS, etc etc. I know virtually nothing about Windows, so don't know how feasible this is.

Now, having said all that, I struggled quite a bit to get my MythTV running smoothly and totally to my liking. My fiancee suffered through several instances of things not getting recorded, things not playing correctly, etc etc. I get the impression a fair number of people will echo that sentiment---mythtv is a bitch to setup and get working correctly, but tends to be pretty solid once you get it going. I personally don't recommend people use mythtv unless they are linux geeks like myself or have the patience to work through a lot of issues on their own.

In fact, I think this phenomenon (hard to setup/install) is well-known, and (again, speculation) distributions like mythbuntu and mythdora are trying to change that. But it's a volunteer-driven effort. As far as I know, there isn't any big money behind MythTV like other open source efforts (the Linux kernel, the Ubuntu distribution, Mozilla, SuSe, etc). So naturally they start with the low-hanging fruit, i.e. what is the most typical/common setup and hardware, and automate for that. Ease-of-customization comes after the basic stuff is working well.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 6:30 pm

tehcrazybob wrote:As you said, the people who know what they're doing tend to support keeping it complex so they can feel like a guru, and generally belittle those who ask simple questions.

Is there really a belief that some open source and Linux developers actively make things over-complex to massage their ego?

Perhaps there are a few. My perception is that open source software (including Linux) is rooted in a "for an by developers" motif. Many of the earliest open source efforts were simply one person or a small group of people coding stuff just because they had a need that wasn't being met. Or they were curious about something. Or had some unsupported hardware. Or they were just playing. Basically, just about any conceivable motive except profit. So they just gave the code away, saying to everyone else, "here's something I did, maybe you'll find it useful too... if not, feel free to further develop it to meet your needs." So naturally the earliest stuff was anything but "user friendly"---it was generally designed by very technical people who "lived" in their hardware/software worlds day in and day out. "User friendly" to them is naturally not for the general public.

But that has been changing, quite dramatically over the last decade I believe. Now there are people getting involved who want to make things easier, want to write documentation, etc.

Unfortunately, as with most large groups of people, there will always be the turds. In the Linux community case, it's the zealots, who generally don't do anything but turn people off to Linux. I used to work with a guy who vehemently loathed Linux only because all the Linux guys he knew in college where of the "if you don't run Linux you're dumb" zealot variety.

The zealots I guess want to see Linux take over the desktop. But don't forget, all Linux folk aren't jerk zealots. Furthermore, the Linux/open source community in general is huge (think globally) and getting bigger every day. The whole open source philosophy means there is no single owner or direction---lots of people trying to take it in lots of different directions. Because no one controls it, instead of being pulled apart, it just grows. If your need is at the edge of that growth, i.e. an area where it's just starting to be taken, you're either going to have to help out, do a lot of work on your own, or just wait until that growth gains more momentum/support/maturity. In other words, there are a lot of people in the community who don't care about "the desktop" or "taking over" or anything like that... the large number of people who just want to scratch an itch, who keep the spirit of the original movement. But those people just kind of quietly do their thing, so they are not as visible. The zealots are that small group making a disproportional amount of noise and generally being unhelpful.

yefi · Post by **yefi** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:23 am

m0002a wrote:What Linux geeks think is acceptable in terms of set-up and configuration is completely unacceptable to the masses.

And it's the one thing which matters to the average end user. It's like if we had open-source cars except they had no ignition and you had to start them up with a crank.

Do you think people would line up outside their houses at 8.50am cranking up their open-source cars to get to work, or do you think they'd pay for cars where the bonnet might be sealed, and the engine might be binary code, but which would just go?

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:42 am

Something like the eeePC just "goes" out of box. That's perfectly fine for the average end user. There's no magic reason why a computer pre-loaded with Linux should be any more difficult than a computer pre-loaded with Windows.

Personally, I find it amazing how much annoying crap Windows users put up with. I switched to Debian because it was just so much easier to deal with than Windows--plus I didn't have to pay for the "privilege" of constantly dealing with arbitrary updates and reboots and nagware/crippleware.

For me, the "killer app" for Debian was apt-get. The idea that the computer would go and install and keep all of my desired software for me, without me babysitting "user friendly" graphical wizards and tediously installing one application at a time.

For me, linux was "ready for the living room" even before I switched to Debian. At the time, Knoppix was the easiest Linux to try out and install. What blew me away was that it played all video codecs out-of-box. This was a huge pain for me to keep up with on Windows. And then this "Knoppix" thing just plain worked, out-of-box! That hooked me, even if all I really knew how to do at first was use linux to play videos. Good enough for "the living room", since that's all the TV computer needed to do.

After I became more familiar with Linux, I learned how to do a bunch of things which wouldn't even be possible in Windows, or which would cost a lot of money. Diskless netbooting was one of my favorites--since then I've switched to RAMbooting which offers much greater performance.

I still dabble with Windows for various reasons, but it amazes me how little free software there is for what seems like simple little things. For example, in Linux if you want to access a remote filesystem with ssh, you just mount it using sshfs (both free and Free software). But in Windows? You can PAY for a utility which does it, or you can search around for some obscure outdated piece of software which is apparently buggy and unstable to the point of crashing your computer.

The entire Windows software community just seems to have this "for profit" mentality--which is why we have so much nagware/crippleware. The mentality in the GNU/Linux software community is so completely different. Most of the time, it's simply a matter of some guy who wants some feature, so he writes some code to do it. It might not even be a full "application", it might just be some code module to do something like aufs. Maybe it's not the easiest thing in the world for others to use, but it works and because the source code is open and Free others can figure out how to integrate it into other linux distributions.

yefi · Post by **yefi** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:13 pm

While certain things will just go, getting certain things to work on GNU/Linux can be, in my experience, quite troublesome.

I guess half of that problem is that we have been conditioned for Windows. Bill has built up an information monopoly. In that respect, Linux is a different ignition system which is made to feel as difficult as a crank because we are unfamiliar with it.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:26 pm

yefi wrote:While certain things will just go, getting certain things to work on GNU/Linux can be, in my experience, quite troublesome.

Yes, that's true. That's why I was specific about my examples of "just plain worked". For what I wanted my living room computer to do, Knoppix was just awesome. It was much easier than Windows, for what I needed it to do, so that was enough for me to switch.

I guess half of that problem is that we have been conditioned for Windows. Bill has built up an information monopoly. In that respect, Linux is a different ignition system which is made to feel as difficult as a crank because we are unfamiliar with it.

Information monopoly or not, I find that Windows is terribly limited and it can't even do many of the things I take for granted with Debian GNU/Linux.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:30 pm

matt_garman wrote:
mathias wrote:So I looked around for a mythTV focused distro. I was hoping for one based on debian or something like that hoping it would run and boot faster. Nope, nothing available but mythdora and mythbuntu(well, and knopmyth).
Emphasis mine. Why did you think a debian-based distro would run and boot faster? Also, ubuntu is built on debian, so anything built on ubuntu is implicitly built on debian.

Doesn't mean it's exactly as fast. For example, vector is based on slackware, but it's not the same, AFAIK it's even faster. And from what I've heard, ubuntu is slower than debian, like the other distros in that niche. Now, okay, ubuntu is still very closely related to debian, and having slapped a lot of mandrake packages onto suse I know that that's a big advantage otherwise, but my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience of linux boot times gave me reason to worry.

matt_garman wrote:Although those distros may not have your window manager choice as the default, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a way to install them after the fact.

Yeah, sure, I could install the network components and then remove them afterwards(that would result in it being just as fast as if I never installed the same components, right?) ... however, nonstandard window managers sometimes integrate poorly, hell, in this case the included window managers were integrated poorly.

It can also be an advantage to not have to download all the programs on the fly, like if you're still on dial up or if the target computer happens to be somewhere without internet access(eg. cottage).

matt_garman wrote: To which storage folder are you referring? "Vanilla" MythTV (i.e. no add-ons/plugins), has really only one storage directory that is important, which is the folder for recorded content.

/storage. That's where it seems to want to have everything, like roms for example.

matt_garman wrote:It's also configurable. Perhaps the default (root partition) is based on the belief that most people will only have one big partition for the operating system, software and video storage.

Now, what kind of linux user actually does that? In any case, if there was only one partition

... how would a folder manage to end up outside it? I don't see why it couldn't be /home/storage(that can be made a seperate partition, right?).

matt_garman wrote:In all fairness, you need to run through the exact same thing you tried to do with mythdora with Windows. Get a Windows distribution that automatically sets up a mythtv-like media center for you, lets you do a custom partition scheme with ReiserFS, etc etc.

Uhhh, do I? There's other things about windows that would be advantageous for a quick and dirty living room PC, like the tendency to boot fast or the option of tossing on whatever suitable 3rd party programs you have at hand. And windows isn't nearly as obsessive about having the functions of various partitions rigidly predefined, which I have to say, can be very advantageous in certain situations.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:45 pm

mathias wrote:Doesn't mean it's exactly as fast. For example, vector is based on slackware, but it's not the same, AFAIK it's even faster. And from what I've heard, ubuntu is slower than debian, like the other distros in that niche. Now, okay, ubuntu is still very closely related to debian, and having slapped a lot of mandrake packages onto suse I know that that's a big advantage otherwise, but my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience of linux boot times gave me reason to worry.

When you talk about "fast", what do you mean? Programs load faster? Boot times? It just "feels" faster? What's the metric?

And why is Debian faster? Why is vector faster than slackware?

If you want the fastest boot time, all distributions can be configured to do exactly the same thing at boot. Generally speaking, it's a factor of two functions: kernel options, and programs that start at boot. If you build a tiny kernel that only supports your hardware and does nothing else, plus start no services, your boot time will be about as small as possible.

mathias wrote:
matt_garman wrote:Although those distros may not have your window manager choice as the default, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a way to install them after the fact.
Yeah, sure, I could install the network components and then remove them afterwards(that would result in it being just as fast as if I never installed the same components, right?) ... however, nonstandard window managers sometimes integrate poorly, hell, in this case the included window managers were integrated poorly.

What do you mean by network components? And how does their presence affect whether the computer is fast or not?

mathias wrote:
matt_garman wrote:It's also configurable. Perhaps the default (root partition) is based on the belief that most people will only have one big partition for the operating system, software and video storage.
Now, what kind of linux user actually does that? In any case, if there was only one partition ... how would a folder manage to end up outside it? I don't see why it couldn't be /home/storage(that can be made a seperate partition, right?).

I would think a lot of Linux users would only want one big partition... In fact, that's how I have my laptop set up. It is, IMO, simply a matter of preference and what your goals are.

Also, what do you mean by, "how would a folder manage to end up outside it?" Literally, any folder can be its own partition.

mathias wrote:And windows isn't nearly as obsessive about having the functions of various partitions rigidly predefined, which I have to say, can be very advantageous in certain situations.

I don't understand what you're saying here... what do you mean by rigidly predefined?

In your example above... So MythTV defaults to /storage for the storage folder. You have several options: (1) change Myth's configuration parameter so that it points to whatever directory you want (and that directory can be another on the same partition, or a totally different partition); (2) make that directory a symbolic link to another folder (you don't touch the myth configuration, and myth doesn't know any better); (3) you make that directory a mount point for another filesystem (which can be another partition on your existing drive, another disk all together, an NFS file system, an SMB filesystem, a USB drive, your IPOD, etc).

In fact, I've done just this for my parents' MythTV. I can't remember how I initially set it up, but they only had one drive. Whether I partitioned that drive or gave them one big partition doesn't matter... the point is, I bought them a new drive, installed it, formatted it, then made their existing storage directory a mount point for the new drive. I didn't have to do anything in MythTV.

Anyway... I'm not saying MythTV is a walk in the park or trivial to setup by any means. I know I struggled to get mine just right. But I also started from scratch, before there were even MythTV-specific distributions. And I have absolutely zero experience with Windows, outside using it for office/email/web. But I do have a strong suspicion that familiarity is playing into the situation here: because I have so little Windows knowledge, I doubt I could set up a reliable media center with Windows as quickly and painlessly as I could with Linux (not because either is better, only because I'm that much more familiar with Linux). My point in my original reply was to to try an balance out a subjective experience, and clarify some points I thought were inaccurate (or at least misinterpreted).

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:22 am

IsaacKuo wrote: Personally, I find it amazing how much annoying crap Windows users put up with.

I couldn't agree more, I do tend to flip out when I have to deal with windows ... well, not exactly flip out, but I do get irritated by all sorts of things about it.

IsaacKuo wrote:For me, the "killer app" for Debian was apt-get. The idea that the computer would go and install and keep all of my desired software for me, without me babysitting "user friendly" graphical wizards and tediously installing one application at a time.

Yes, that's a great point, and I think this is part of what makes the zealots so annoying, how they spit at such huge potential. But perhaps they shouldn't be blamed, the thought of linux being easier than windows is a bit revolutionary, and it is very much an uphill struggle to try to match easyness of something that comes preinstalled.

IsaacKuo wrote:That hooked me, even if all I really knew how to do at first was use linux to play videos. Good enough for "the living room", since that's all the TV computer needed to do.

But you're forgetting one thing, besides actually playing videos, it needs to have some way of being controlled that's appropriate for a living room setting. Therefor, the more wireless devices it supports the better. Being controllable with a gamepad can also be good in some cases, I'm not sure how good linux is with regards to that.

I'm pretty sure in a worst case scenario that could be done with joy2key and scripts, those ought to be prewritten ... maybe not just for mythTV. I'm not sure how something like that would get distributed though.

IsaacKuo wrote:Maybe it's not the easiest thing in the world for others to use, but it works and because the source code is open and Free others can figure out how to integrate it into other linux distributions.

But linux distributions don't seem to be too big on integrating specialized tools for the purpose of making it well suited for one function or another. One example that I think illustrates this really well is the virtual drive kernel module(the one that lets you use clonecd images). I've had lots of trouble trying to install it ...if it was integrated into a distro that would have made such a distro the best option for some, but I didn't even manage to find any info on which distros it could be added to with the fewest obstacles.

On the other hand, linux does have a basic tool of that sort built in, but it's limited to just .iso files, for some reason certain people seemed to think that that is adequate. Yeah, your point does apply the windows equivalents, alcohol 120 is commercial and daemon tools has become adware or something like that, but at least they've worked.

matt_garman wrote:When you talk about "fast", what do you mean? Programs load faster? Boot times? It just "feels" faster? What's the metric?

Yeah, all of those. Including the last one, I remember the criticisms of that view was by server optimization proponents when developers were faced with the prospect of putting in a fair CPU scheduler like the one in the con kolivas patches, and I don't really care for them ... damnit, it's not just some vague intuition-centered concept, if it, for example, stalls routinely in certain situations that's a way in which it's failing to run fast, no matter what certain benchmarks say to the contrary.

matt_garman wrote:And why is Debian faster? Why is vector faster than slackware?

I don't know, the distro reviews didn't go into that, do you think they should have?

matt_garman wrote:If you want the fastest boot time, all distributions can be configured to do exactly the same thing at boot. Generally speaking, it's a factor of two functions: kernel options, and programs that start at boot. If you build a tiny kernel that only supports your hardware and does nothing else, plus start no services, your boot time will be about as small as possible.

...

Yeah, and it would be even faster if I were to get half the OS rewritten in assembly language one way or another, but I'm not going to do that.

matt_garman wrote:What do you mean by network components? And how does their presence affect whether the computer is fast or not?

The packages that are required to connect to networks, which mythdora did give me an option to not install.

Why wouldn't the lack of networking packages(including the firewall) improve speed?

matt_garman wrote:I would think a lot of Linux users would only want one big partition... In fact, that's how I have my laptop set up. It is, IMO, simply a matter of preference and what your goals are.

Well, frankly, that soundly like a ridiculously bad idea for general practice, especially with how linux tends to depend on installing newer distros all the time.

matt_garman wrote:Also, what do you mean by, "how would a folder manage to end up outside it?" Literally, any folder can be its own partition.

I mean why would you have to worry about people with just a / partition when deciding what directory the files should be in? (in case that's not clear enough,) In other words, why would you have to worry about other partitions not being there when they're going to get lumped into the / partition anyway if they're not separate?

matt_garman wrote:I don't understand what you're saying here... what do you mean by rigidly predefined?

For example, how it expects all programs to be in either /bin or /opt.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:54 am

mathias wrote:
IsaacKuo wrote:That hooked me, even if all I really knew how to do at first was use linux to play videos. Good enough for "the living room", since that's all the TV computer needed to do.
But you're forgetting one thing, besides actually playing videos, it needs to have some way of being controlled that's appropriate for a living room setting. Therefor, the more wireless devices it supports the better. Being controllable with a gamepad can also be good in some cases, I'm not sure how good linux is with regards to that.

It was good enough for my specific purposes. Previously, my TV computer was running Windows 98 and I was simply controlling it via a mouse with a really long PS/2 extension cord. I also had a wireless mouse but the range was simply inadequate. (I later got my hands on a second hand IR wireless keyboard with mouse-stick with plenty of range).

matt_garman wrote:I would think a lot of Linux users would only want one big partition... In fact, that's how I have my laptop set up. It is, IMO, simply a matter of preference and what your goals are.
Well, frankly, that soundly like a ridiculously bad idea for general practice, especially with how linux tends to depend on installing newer distros all the time.

Debian, Arch, Gentoo, and their derivatives don't. People who use rpm based distributions must just LIKE installing newer releases all the time.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:40 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:Debian, Arch, Gentoo, and their derivatives don't. People who use rpm based distributions must just LIKE installing newer releases all the time.

Hah! I think you just might be right. Suse indeed is such an unbelievable piece of crap. The problem is, even if you're switching to an apt based distro, you still have to reinstall that one time.

Damnit, backing up to DVDs is a pain in the ass.

Well, at least now I am fortunate enough to have decent bunch of spare computers, and even with a good number of extra hard drives.(but some of them are probably unsuitable for linux, I think I'll eventually toss freedos on the oldest). I guess I should just stop putting up with rpm distros right away.

proc · Post by **proc** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:51 pm

Indeed I chose to install Arch Linux after some Debian bad experiences and in more than two years I didn't reinstall on 8 PCs (I'm a systems administrator and I use Arch Linux on some workstations at work). Thanks t the rolling release system they just give updates when they are tested (think of dist-upgrading every time I update my system).

Strong points of Arch Linux are:
* things are simple to understand (not simple as noobie friendly, but as with reduced useless complexity)
* community is very helpful and friendly
* i686 optimized and fast
* you can install dvd deconding software, skype and nvidia drivers without going crazy

Bad points are:

* less packages than Debian / Fedora
* probably others but nothings come to my mind now

Please consider that Debian is not bad at all and as good tutorials and a huge community, but I just prefer the Arch Linux way of doing things.

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:17 am

mathias wrote:For example, how it expects all programs to be in either /bin or /opt.

windows and *nix have places where operating system binaries and libraries, and user installed programs are kept. Both have places to store user data. So they are both the same in that respect
e.g. explorer.exe is in \windows but firefox.exe is stored under \Program Files. So to me that argument (regarding rigid predefinition of directores) isn't valid given that all operating system I know about have had some form of order imposed. I'll be very impressed if you can name one operating system that stores everything in the root of the directory tree.

When I started reading this thread I knew what you were going through because 10 years ago I went through much the same set of emotions - now I have some knowledge/experience behind me and the willingness to learn/adapt to new operating systems. It sounds like most of the problems you are having are down to "I want to put a CD/DVD in the drive of the computer and walk away from it while it installs and sets itself up".

My advice would be to pick a distro you like and install that on your spare box the way you want to. Then after the OS is set up you install/configure Myth to your satisfaction, you won't be alone in that task as there are walk throughs and howtos all over the net.
I've already done what I recommended above with Debian 3.0 netinstall, myth, lirc, + tv tuner which since been superceded by the new HTPC based around Vista Home Premium (with hind sight that was a bad idea!) which comes with media center.

One last thing: if at first you don't succeed finding the configuration app, edit the config file

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:39 am

quikkie wrote:
mathias wrote:For example, how it expects all programs to be in either /bin or /opt.
windows and *nix have places where operating system binaries and libraries, and user installed programs are kept. Both have places to store user data. So they are both the same in that respect
e.g. explorer.exe is in \windows but firefox.exe is stored under \Program Files. So to me that argument (regarding rigid predefinition of directores)

Okay, but I was thinking of how windows lets you have multiple /program files/ directories across multiple drives without any hassle. And there doesn't seem to be much logic to how certain things seem to get displaced to /opt, like how that includes most but not all kde apps. Also, windows tends to use longer names under /program files, so that makes sifting through /usr/bin more of a hassle.

But I don't know why I'm nitpicking about the inconveniences of a unix-style partitioned up drive, the point I was getting at is that a lackluster partitioner can make a distro very discouraging or problematic.

In fact, I don't even like using partitioners, at least when I shouldn't have to. They scare me, especially with how they warn you all the time that "you can lost data!" That's one problem I've had with suse, the default way of assigning mount points was to use the partitioner.

quikkie wrote:It sounds like most of the problems you are having are down to "I want to put a CD/DVD in the drive of the computer and walk away from it while it installs and sets itself up".

No, hardly. It's far more like "I want something kind of like suse or vector linux, but designed for the living room." And yes, I can see how just that is unrealistic too.

Having tried using xubuntu for a bit, I have to say that my first impression is not great, and that kind of makes me see distros like suse more positively again. I'm starting to think that maybe it's just better to carefully develop a good methodology for organizing your partitions and backups and just switch distros around a bit more frequently.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 9:38 pm

Aaaaarrgghhh. I've been using xubuntu a bit more, and my experience has been quite horrible. The way it attempts to hide complexity is very annoying, whereas distros like suse have a ton of configuration utilities, xubuntu seems to want to pretend to not need any as much as possible. "Don't you worry your pretty little head off what's going on inside", I guess this must be the famous ubuntu ease of use I've been hearing so much about. Took me a while to notice that it doesn't even have a firewall.

For some reason, it makes everything too small to read, even at a lower resolution(and resolution configuration is being a pain too). Color scheme options are also terrible.

The package manager GUI groups programs together very crudely and arcanely.

(Xfce is also a pain, but that doesn't really have anything to do with ubuntu)

And on top of all this I've installed it on an old ball bearing hard drive.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 7:41 am

If I'm understanding you correctly, this machine is going to be solely used for MythTV. In other words, the box will become a MythTV appliance.

So why are you insisting on customizing the underlying distribution? And why would you care what the distribution is based on, what WM it has, custom partitions, file systems, or where files get stored? Why would boot speed matter? I'd assume a box like this would need to be left running 24/7 so recording could take place whenever it needs to -- so boot speed would not affect usage.

If you're going to use mythdora, why don't you just install it with the defaults and use it the way it was designed to be used? I think you'd have a much better experience that way. If what you really want is a general purpose Linux distribution, choosing a myth distro which is decidedly NOT general-purpose is only going to frustrate you (as you've obviously already discovered).

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 7:58 am

And likewise, if you're looking to customize everything to the nth degree, you might want to look at gentoo, arch, or Linux From Scratch. Of course there are other "low level, hands-on" distributions, but those seem to be fairly popular. Of the three, I've only used Gentoo. I keep meaning to try arch, and have heard good things.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:25 am

Dave wrote:If I'm understanding you correctly, this machine is going to be solely used for MythTV. In other words, the box will become a MythTV appliance.

Not exactly, I intend to use it simply as a living room PC, ie loading it with various things which appropriate for that. So, sort of yeah, that's not too unusual for a mythTV box, I mean, it does integrate together with emulators and such, right?

Dave wrote:Why would boot speed matter? I'd assume a box like this would need to be left running 24/7 so recording could take place whenever it needs to -- so boot speed would not affect usage.

That's not really a good idea, it has an old extremely hot running palomino core CPU. And I don't even have a TV tuner card yet. besides, there's the whole general responsiveness issue which would logically be tied to resource usage.

The partitioning was mostly in case I'll want do something else with it later, or simply install a new media center distro.

Dave wrote:If you're going to use mythdora, why don't you just install it with the defaults and use it the way it was designed to be used?

But that's exactly what I've tried to do! But I still really could use configuration utilities, like for if I want to add some new hardware. Like a gameport, which it doesn't have(and the mythTV interface does not seem to be at all well suited for a mouse).

Linux is just not ready for the living room.

Linux is just not ready for the living room.

Re: Linux is just not ready for the living room.

Re: Linux is just not ready for the living room.

Re: Linux is just not ready for the living room.