Using wilsonet.com/mythtv as a guide, created
a custom FC3 install with the following partitions:
75mb /boot
10gb /
768 swap
all other /video
others are ext3, vdo is xfs.

using GRUB loader.

total install size is just over 1.6GB.  big, but not too bad.  eats up about 16% of the 10gb partition.

added NTP service,
created a mythtv user (mythtv)
video & audio checked out!
did an rpm for atrpms-kickstart  and apt-get update
did apt-get dist-upgrade
needed 325MB of updates.  yikes.. as bad as windows...
I'm not going to worry about the graphical APT.

shut down system when updates complete.
restared next day.  DEAD QUIET.  kinda scary, actually.

booted, ran for about 5 minutes while laptop started, and when i went to switchdesk, had hard-locked.  que?

hard locked again.  getting wierd...
booting into windows.  see if it locks.

kernel is 2.6.11-1.14_FC3
windows has not locked.  sensors show OK..  so linux problem, somewhere.
dropping to older kernel via grub (myth 2.6.9-1.667  versus 2.6.10
warned that system shut down uncleanly.  let boot as default.
kde opened and mounted the cd drive
up2date sees not using available kernel & can update to 2.6.11-1.14_FC3.
let it sit for 5 min and see if it locks...  nope!
using up2date to update kernel.
set up GPG key & RH updater
now we reboot and see what happens...  into 11-1.14
nope.  hardlock.

installed GCC to try the new ATI video driver
yum install gcc
failed.
yum install libstdc++.so.5
it installed...
now driver is installing
/lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrk.ko operation not permitted.
reboot into latest kernel.. see if it locks.. or what
at login screen.  wait 5 min. see if it locks.  locked.

tried safe terminal.  locks.

progressing to install myth using old kernel
added kver variable
not concerned w/ video drivers yet
not concerned w/ audio drivers yet

tried to apt-get install mythtv-suite -- failed broken packages.
checked out the mythtv-suite page at atrpms.net/dist/common/mythtv-suite  info there on using yum
yum install mythtv-suite
asks for perl(Net::Server:Fork)  and perl(the)

4.23.05 format- reinstall
A companion using the same hardware setup, but without the SATA drive is not having the same lockup issues.

reinstall with same basic configuration.  added GCC.
ran apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
yum install kernel
i686.2.6.11-1.14_FC3
reboot
hardlock

will just stick with 2.6.9 kernel  ARGH

comment about using the pci=routeirq startup argument
messages ended @ agpgart & loading R200 microcode
found msgboard on https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-December/msg06742.html
about AGP 4x mode, etc.  rebooted int 2.6.9 to compare messages file.loaded to sign-in screen, waited 5 min, then going into rescue CD to not taint the file.

system continues with hda DMA setup after r200 microcode.. so that's the problem.  can we set the AGP speed in bios and slow it?
no AGP speed in the bios.  set plug & play OS to YES
going into 6.11 kernel
hardlock
set pnp NO  video to onboard primary / CRT only
hardlock
set video to auto  HDD to UDMA6 / 32bit xfer ON  (was auto)
hardlock
set to umda5 32bit xfer disabled
hardlock
reset to all auto, disabled cd drive
hardlock
2.6.11 kernel with pci=routeirq
hardlock

trying new ATI drivers again  - http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/printthread.php?t=32300&pp=80
getting libstdc++.so.5 with yum
libstdc++ installed.

rpm install fails,
lsmod shows radeon module active
modprobe -r radeon does not remove.. in use
went to init 3
removed radeon
going through driver install process.  accepting defaults for most.  allowed SVGA
AGP locked user pages enabled (test using glxgears
autodetect did not find the pci card.
ctrl alt + - to change rez.  ctrl alt bksp to exit server if monitor doesnt sync.
rebooting into 2.6.9
startx fails...  no sync.
still seeing hda timeout retry
  timout waiting for DMA
  drivers/ide/pci/atiixp.c:205: spin_lock(drivers/ide/ide.c:0236e3a8) already locked by drivers/ide/ide-io.c/168
  drivers/ide/ide-io.c:186: sin_unlock(drivers/ide/ide.c:0236e3a8) not locked

booted into 2.6.11
wait to see what happens @ login prompt. init 3
kernel panic!
atiixp issue?

back into 2.6.9 - tried the fglx_gears.. failed.
still running on radeon driver.
/lib/modules/fglrx/sh make_install.sh
rebooted int 2.6.9
not loaded;
modprobe fglrx reports will taint kernel
loads.
fgl_glxgears opens black window.. no image
locks x
fglrxinfo is kewl though
display:0/0 screen:0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies INC
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9000/9100 IGP Series DDR Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.5010 (X4.3.0-8.12.10)
switching to K.
glx_gears still freezes x.

wtf?
attempting to shut down ac 97 audio.
ac97 audio on mobo disabled
booting to 2.6.9
dma timeout still a problem
rebooting to 2.6.11
hardlock.
bugzilla #133743
apparent workaround:  shut off DMA for hdd. - http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/35/2005/04/1/276139
set /etc/sysconfig/harddisks to USE_DMA=0
clearing extra labels from boot in GRUB
added ide=nodma to 2.6.9 boot string
has cleared dma error.
enabled on-board audio again
added ide-nodma to 2.6.11 boot string.
booting into 2.6.11
waiting for failure... (did not appear to run ide=nodma)
hardlock.
booted.  ide=nodma entered.
modified grub.conf to include nodma for the time being.
changed /etc/inittab back to runlevel 5 default
switched to runlevel 5

apt-get update
54mg of updates!
woot!  myth is installed.  or so it says.

attempting to build drivers for pchdtv cards - fails.  archives appear bad?

sounds like 2.6.12 is a better kernel w/ drivers built in.  trying it
script found at http://www.xmission.com/~pchdtv/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3661#3661

to rc3
kernel not listed in grub.
mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.6.12-rc2  2.6.12-rc2
not listed in grub
added a line to grub to attach kernel to list
mkrootdev: label / not found
mount error 2 mounting ext3
kernel panic - no syncing: attempted to kill init  - possible bad .config

to build 2.6.12rc3:
make menuconfig
> select Device Drivers / Multimedia devices / Video For Linux
> select "DVB Support for cx2388x based TV cards (new)"
> (also removed and added other modules as needed)
make rpm
cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386
rpm -ivh kernel-2.6.12rc3-1.i386.rpm (this will install the kernel)
/sbin/mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.6.12-rc3.img 2.6.12-rc3
cd /boot/grub
added to grub.conf
exit
success!
can see the hd-3000 cards in dmesg
up2date asks to update myth rpms.  complete.
restarting w/ dma
success!  3 min and stable.
not worried about lirc yet (will need this later)
enabled mysql to startup automatically
added myth database script
added recommended  mysql configurations (cache)
rebooted to test mysql

time to set up myth!
english language
delete card settings/
configured myth, added the hd-3000 cards, did not change the channel info
finished setup
running mythfilldatabase
starting mythfrontend!
playing dvd!  no audio though.
no live tv.

testing audio
now works
testing dvd
plays, but still choppy.
proc is @ about 50%

shut off nodma
no sound.
still choppy.. no sound.
run detect and sound comes up.

dma on DVD drive:  # hdparm -d 1 /dev/dvd
#hdparm -d /dev/dvd shows it off.

go in via root, and hdparm -d shows it on.
created custom.sh file to load alsa driver & dvd dma
reboot
still seeing atiixp errors in the dvd. choppy, shutting off dma.
update bugzilla entry?

aumix was not loading.  changed custom.sh to cmdline aumix entry
aumix -w75
added custom.sh to /etc/rc.d/rc5.d as #81
reboot
finally.  audio :)
**dma error**
hdparm -Tt read: ~700MB/s cache   ~15MB/s disk read.
claims hdc DMA is on.

DMA issue is also shown in Windows boot.  DMA determined to be on MOBO.
1 month later & 2 shipments later, finally have new mobo from ASUS. DMA problem
in windows is fixed, but still a problem in Linux.  DVDs are smoother, however.

did an apt-get reinstall of xorg-x11-devel  - errors found in installation, but
removed it from the dependency list
apt-get reinstall fam-devel - errors found, but removed (as above)
add / remove programs successfully added x-devel stack
.configure on xine-hd was successful, added Xv player

make failed - possible patch not applied?
dont want to install the drivers though...

download new 2.6.12 extras
download xine-hd 0.8

applied all of the extras (make)
rebooted
seeing DMA errors on the DVD drive

building xine-hd0.8 as in the readme.
added /usr/local/lib to .so
creating xine-lib
created xine-ui
added tools3

dtvscan failed.. no /dev/dtv device.  not using udev?
rebooted
modprobe cx88-dvb created /dev/dvb
rebooted
not there.
there once modprobed. but no dtv

maybe just forget about dtv for a while :)  no broadcasts here anyway

added a DVB.sh script to create the proper /dev/dtv objects
may need the modprobe cx88-dvb though.

The Myth system has been running for about a month, but not running myth.
DVDs are watchable (but not great) under Xine, and XMMS has been installed for
playing MP3s.  TVTime has been good for watching TV, once the color adjustments
were made.  pcHDTV cards apparently have a problem tuning NTSC cable 61 & 62.
MythTV works using v4l setup, but does not recognize ALSA subsystem, and does not
shut off the sound when closing TV.  Also, Myth does not like running 2 tuners.
Have not been able to successfully record TV, or play DVDs with a reasonable
framerate in Myth.  Also have dropped back to the stock Radeon driver, that
seemed to help DVD playback. Also switched to an ASUS DVD drive, which appears to
have resolved some of the read errors I was seeing with the NEC drive.  DMA on the
DVD drive is still not working, forcing DMA access on with hdparm works, but once
the drive is accessed, DMA is shut off.  The windows partition does not even access
the ASUS DVD drive, and can read DVDs using VLC, but not CDs.

Got the Hauppauge card in today.  Will install into system, format,  and try gentoo linux.

The Gentoo install LiveCD kept failing, right about where the system tries to mount
the CD.  I saw this with multiple other discs, Knoppix, KnoppMyth, Debian, so finally
pulled the Hard Drive out and replaced it with a PATA drive instead of an SATA drive.
The system came right up.  So, Asus Pundit-R  + SATA Hard Drive + PATA DVD Drive = BAD.
Anyone want a real nice Maxtor midline 250gb SATA drive?
Circuit City had a deal on a Seagate 160gb, so I ran out and got one of those. Gentoo
installed immediately.

Now that DMA works on the DVD drive, DVD's play MUCH nicer.  oooh. framerate!

Following the instructions on the Gentoo-wiki page, I got things running fairly
quickly.  At least, I thought I did.  (see wiki at: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_MythTV )
Turns out the PVR-250 was not tuning correctly.  That took a few hours to troubleshoot
The New PVR-250s are not detected correctly by the ivtv drivers, whether built from
scratch or emerged.  I built mine out using the instructions at the ivtv site.

New PVRs show up in lsmod -v  as:
Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)

If you're in NTSC and unable to get the card to tune correctly, it's probably not
being detected properly.  Reload the tuner kernel module with the correct type.

First, check your loaded modules to see if it's there:
#lsmod | grep tuner
(if it doesn't show up, you've got other problems)

remove the module
#rmmod tuner

load the tuner with the correct type
#modprobe tuner type=39

NOW try to tune the card.  (I used ptune-ui in X to do it in real-time while watching
using "mplayer -vo xv /dev/video0" to view the MPEG stream off the card

Right now, editing the /etc/modules.conf doesn't stick, so I'll probably write a startup
script to set the module correctly.

Now that I've successfully tested the PVR-250 card, I need to get myth running.
Emerged mythtv (takes a while!) and set it up according to the instruction on the Gentoo page.
Watching LiveTV segfaults immediately.

I've tried the requested approach in the Myth documentation, building from scratch and
using the ./configure --debug flag, but I cannot seem to start Myth from a remote or
virtual console.

Running mythfrontend -v all  (verbose logging) helps, and points that Myth is looking
for /dev/nvidia0, which doesn't exist on an ATI board.  Information in this thread:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/144660  points to disabling XvMC
in the Mythfrontend setup, but I can't find that option.  Also, XvMC support was not
indicated in the output from ./configure  when I built Mythtv.

I've uninstalled myth 0.18.1  and dropped back to Myth 0.18, and bumped a message
off to the Mythtv listserv.  With luck one of these will lead to a resolution.

No joy on playing live TV using 0.18 or 0.17.  Removed the --nolisten TCP flag from
the /usr/bin/startx (location?) script, and that lets me get GDB output from another
virtual terminal.  Posted that to the MythTV listserv, have seen no response yet.

I have also built the fglrx driver from ATI.  It looks like it's running, as I'm seeing
related output in my xorg.log files, but it did not help the problem.  Building the ATI
driver was pretty easy, just make sure you download the .run file and the correct RPM
for the environment (gentoo 2005.1 is Xorg 6.8) and pretty much just accept the defaults.

At least recording works.  Now, if I could only find a solution to manage these silly
file names.  I'm re-emerging world again, and may try to rebuild the kernel to include
DVB support for the HD3000.  Might as well make SOME progress.

I've been looking on the mythtv users list, etc, but have found no solutions to the
problem of having segfaults while using the Myth internal player.  Since I know
that it worked on FC3, and Jared has just released the Mythology on FC4, this seemed like
a pretty good time to switch back from Gentoo.  So, I blew away all the work so far (again)
and loaded FC4.

First:  RedHat wants you to DL all the CDs.  I don't really want to do that. My
connection at work, where I do most of the bulk work is only a frac T1, and getting 2.4G
of data still takes a while.  I did manage to convince the installer to do a network install
by entering "linux askmethod" at the boot prompt.  Then, point the system to a mirror that has
an "os" directory (not the iso directory!).  This way, I only needed to DL disk one. It
still took the better part of 4 hours to get FC4 installed.

Following Jared's guide, the system setup went quickly and smoothly.  I brought up
the HD3000 card as a V4L in order to test the Myth player.  Getting Myth, the HD card running,
and testing ALSA took about 2-3 hours.  When all that was done, I had a running Myth system
but I still have problems with the sound using the HD3000 as a V4L.  It seems the sound will not
pipe through the ringbuffer, so I hear things before they happen.  At least Myth works, though.

Now, I'm back to having problems with the PVR-250 tuner.  This is a new PVR-250, with
the CX23416 chip (see above).  I could get it running in Gentoo using the "modprobe tuner type=39"
command, but that chokes here in FC4.  Running that command places an error in the
dmesg:  tuner: Unknown parameter 'type'  and the dreaded "tuner unset" message.

After some work and googling, here's the modprobe.conf that makes this card work:
#ivtv-setup
alias char-major-81 videodev
alias char-major-81-1 ivtv  (NOTE: my pvr is detected as video1, otherwise, use 81-0)
alias tveeprom tveeprom-ivtv
alias tuner tuner-ivtv
alias msp3400 msp3400-ivtv
options ivtv tuner=39

With those settings, I have TV from the 250!
With that success, it's over to LIRC, which installed quickly. Below you'll find links
to my customized lircrc file (tuned for Xine and using the new hauppauge lircd file
from Jared's guide).

Rebooting proved to be a disaster, though, as neither the IVTV nor the LIRC systems
worked.  I ended up solving this by creating a short script run from /etc/rc.local
that runs
/sbin/modprobe ivtv
/sbin/modprobe lirc_i2c

#and then runs the mythbackend and lirc daemons
/sbin/services mythbackend start
/sbin/services lircd start

Perfect?  no.  But it works!

It took some tweaking in Myth to pick up the PVR-250 for default video instead of
going to /dev/video0 (the HD3000 NTSC output).  Basically, I just removed & added
and removed & added until I got it working correctly.

Another note: While reading through the forums, there was a thread where a member
told another to look for the "use XvMC" checkbox, which wasn't there.  FWIW, I also
did not have this checkbox in the TV Settings on Gentoo, but do in FC4.

Now, to modify the theme menus and start recording!

This project took much longer than I thought it would.  From miscellaneous hardware
problems to niggling software bugs that caught me just as I was about to think I had it.
I've got almost enough hardware left over to build another system, and I have yet
to get up the HD card, since OTA HD won't even be available in my area until late
next year.  In the process I've played with 3 different distro's of Linux (with a  4th
burned to CD, but never loaded, and 5 if you include KnoppMyth), and spent countless
hours looking at myth-related websites, forums, and mailing lists.

Are there still things to be done?  Sure. I don't have my 5.1 system or SPDIF, But
I've been paying for cable TV for 2 months now, with no an easy way to watch it.
Finally, that's solved.  I can now start watching Adult Swim again.  If they start
playing FLCL, I'll be set! But mainly, I've got a pretty cool entertainment system
that does almost everything I need it to.

Below are a few links that new users might find helpful, Jared's guide (which everyone
should know by now), and my lircrc file, with some tweaks to control Xine.

Enjoy, and good luck with your project.

Finally, I've been able to get out and pick up my own projector - no more taking the one
from work home on the weekends.  It's an InFocus ScreenPlay 5000, a Hi-Def ready unit
running 1280x720 LCD panels. A nice unit, and Costco had a good deal on them, including
a discount on the screen.  And since I need a 96" diagonal screen, that's a good thing.
Getting the projector set up and running was actually pretty easy.  I posted out to the
MythTV mailing list looking for modelines and was pointed a page at linuxis.us containing
ATSC modelines.  Dropped in the two modelines for 1280x720, and it came right up.
Luckily for me, the ViewSonic E771 that I'm using as a secondary monitor accepts the same
resolution and timings as the projector.  The desktop is a bit squished, but 4:3 content
looks fine, and anything I'm going to watch in 16:9 will be on the screen.  I also modified
the displaysize value in xorg.conf to 340 x 191 - a 16:9 size.  That should solve the
problem of auto 16:9 stretching on the projector.

The biggest issue I had so far was finding the setting that changes the X desktop -
virtual desktops do not play well with Myth. (right-click, configure desktop, display node
screen size).  I'd also like to find a reverse KVM to switch between the monitor and
projector quickly.  Something to look for on my next trip to Fry's.

So, I decided to move on to the HD-3000, and see if there was anything available on HD.
(not that I'm holding my breath)  this site: http://www.penlug.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DigitalTelevisionDVB
was the most useful in getting the HD3000 operational, at least, as good as it gets with
no HD content OTA.  I found that I did not need to restart UDEV, and the command posted
doesn't work under FC4 anyway.

The scan that is done in the page is via 8VSB, with no services. So the next piece would
be to get a list of QAM channels and try a scan with those.  As luck would have it,
there's a us-Cable-Standard-center-frequencies-QAM256 listing as well!
307 hits!
now, we need to go through those hits & check the bandwidth to see if there's anything
on there.  It's not likely, but I'm suprised I got this far.  I'm looking forward to OTA
DTV, but that's not slated to get here until Aug 06.

307 hits with the DVB scan on standard ATSC frequencies.  What's this mean? I filtered
all of the results out that had video PIDs of 0, since that didn't seem to make much sense.
That left me with 98 hits.  Starting to go through them, and Ch02
(567000000:QAM_256:75:76:13) synchs up with MPlayer and starts spitting out chunks of
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.  Looks like I hit on the digital radio stations!
But it's not playing smooth. I get a few chunks, then it loses synch and mplayer dies.
Lots of CRC checks fail.  some looking on the pchdtv boards shows I'm not the only one.
trying mplayer -novideo -cache 8192 -autosync 20 /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 still puts up
quite a few crc failures, but at least it kinda works for audio only.  Troubleshooting
on this seems to have started in mid-Oct, so we're bleeding edge here.

set the grp on /dev/dvb/* to video, now the mythtv user can read from it.  Seeing some segfaults in myth now, very strange
could have to do with the hd card either in mythv-setup or the driver, but ??

setting up the card as an hd3000 wasn't working well with myth, so i set it up as a dvb.  it allegedly found more stations
that I did with my manual scan.  I ran mythfilldatabase, and will try the frontend.
nope, can't get to the HD card.

i can see the channels in the guide, though.
the backend log shows: ERROR No PIDS set, please correct your channel setup
the DVB card was trying to tune to a channel that it didn't have on startup, so it would just lock out.
set up the dvb card to point to a channel it does have, and we're running.

but 1080i playback *kills* the processor.  100% usage (50% mythfrontend, 50% X).