mysql on Slackware

25, Jul, 2009

I am far from any sort of mysql expert. I know just barely enough to make myself dangerous. Take heed on what your about to read, and double check everything!

To setup mysql on Slackware, read /etc/rc.d/rc.mysql. Tells you everything you need to know.

Install the initial database for mysql as root

mysql_install_db --user=mysql

Then start mysql

rc.mysqld start

Create a password where {password} is the password you want to create.

mysqladmin -uroot password {password}

Login to mysql and create the MythTV database. I’ve followed MythTV’s instructions before, and copied their sample database over. The following works just as well.
[Read More…]

MythTV is truly Mythical

20, Jul, 2009

It’s been a long and cumbersome road, but our MythTV backend is now fully functional. This was no real fault to MythTV. As with anything new, there’s always a learning curve. One thing MythTV is not shy about it is the shear number of configuration possibilities. If I had to fault MythTV on one thing, it’s on a not so impressive configuration GUI. Give me a TEXT (not XML) file to edit, and I’m happy.

The amount of time it took, is purely my fault. With so many options and configurations, I just had to try most of them out. RAID or no RAID, LVM? What pretty much made that choice for me was MythTV’s use of Storage Groups. Thinking ahead in the short term about how many frontends I would possibly connect, and a little math, told me I really did not need the speed benefit of RAID. Standard ATA/100 drives would more than accomplish recording one stream and feeding to 2 clients at the same time with ease. Storage Groups negate the need for LVM. Running out of space? Plug in a disk, and add it to the Storage Group.
[Read More…]

MythTV … my beginning

9, Jun, 2009

I’ve always wanted a MythTV setup. The feature list and capabilities are a geek’s dream, and couch potato’s necessity. Looks like I could kill two birds with one stone here. Myself the geek, and The Boss (my girlfriend) being the re-run queen.

It’s not that I’ve never played with MythTV, we just never had a worthwhile tuner. We have a Pinnacle DC30 Pro, and an old Truevision Bravado 1000. These are hardware mjpeg capture cards. Great for capturing home movies, and VHS, not really ideal for continuous TV capture. In the box of spares we also have some non Linux supported hardware mpeg cards (DVexplore chipset). Over the years I’ve used various BT8×8 TV tuners, but could never get the results I wanted out of them.
[Read More…]