LinHES Linux Home Entertainment System Introduction:
LinHES is what I called my home entertainment system. LinHES is of course based on KnoppMyth, but the setup I describe can be accomplished with any Linux distro and MythTV. My setup consists of a master and slave backend. My master backend is in my bedroom and it is used to store all recorded programs. My slave backend is in my living room. It's primary function is to entertainment visitors. Both backends are hooked up to a TV via, TV out(SVIDEO). SBE is also hooked to a Kenwood receiver w/ surround(works w/o additional tweaking!). NFS is used to share the files between the systems. MBE hardware: Chaintech 7NIF2 w/ Athlon XP 2400+ 512 megabytes of RAM 120 gigabyte hard drive Hauppauge PVR 350 Hauppauge PVR 250 DVD-ROM drive SBE hardware: Asus A7N266 w/ Athlon XP 1800+ 512 megabytes of RAM 160 gigabyte hard drive nVidia Geforce 4-440mx w/ TV out Hauppauge WinTV model 401 AverMedia M179 DVD-ROM drive 2 Logitech Wingman Wireless rumblepad RadioShack 15-2116 universal remote Installation: I performed an auto install on MBE, while SBE was installed manual (I wanted /cache no larger than 5 gigs). Both systems installed w/o issue all hardware was seen and worked w/o additional configuration. MBE was recently changed to R5 Alpha(auto upgrade and not ready for the average user), while SBE is running R4V3. Both are of course running MythTV 0.15.1. Customization: MBE: /etc/hosts: 127.0.0.1 mbe.mysettopbox.tv localhost 192.168.1.91 sbe Added the following to /etc/fstab: sbe:/myth /mnt/sbe nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,soft,nfsvers=3 /etc/exports: /myth *(rw) update-rc.d nfs-kernel-server defaults Made a directory under /mnt called sbe and symlinked music and video to sbe/music and sbe/video. mkdir /mnt/sbe cd /mnt ln -s sbe/music music(Setup-Music Settings-General Settings, change the directory to hold music to /mnt/music) ln -s sbe/video video(Setup-Video Settings-General Settings change directory to hold videos to /mnt/video) Ran mythtv-setup and change both IPs from 127.0.0.1 to my actual IP. Modified /etc/mysql/my.cnf, commented bind-address and restarted mysql. Finally as the user mythtv: cd ~/.mythtv rm -fr MythVideo ln -s /mnt/sbe/image_cache/MythVideo/ MythVideo SBE: /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost 192.168.1.91 sbe.mysettopbox.tv sbe 192.168.1.92 mbe.mysettopbox.tv mbe Added the following to /etc/fstab: mbe:/myth /mnt/mbe nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,soft,nfsvers=3 /etc/exports: /myth *(rw) update-rc.d nfs-kernel-server defaults update-rc.d -f mysql remove update-rc.d -f apache remove rm -fr /etc/cron.daily/mythtv-backend Made a directory under /mnt called mbe and symlinked tv to mbe/tv, music is symlinked to /myth/music and video is symlinked to /myth/video. mkdir /mnt/mbe cd /mnt ln -s mbe/tv tv(mythtv-setup 2nd screen, directory to hold recordings, change to /mnt/tv) Run mythtv-setup and change the first IP to the IP for SBE and the second to MBE's IP. Configure capture cards and bind input to source(configured during MBE setup). Finally as the user mythtv: cd ~/.mythtv rm -fr MythVideo ln -s /myth/image_cache/MythVideo/ MythVideo vi mysql.txt DBHostName=mbe DBUserName=mythtv DBPassword=mythtv DBName=mythconverg LocalHostName=sbe At this point, one can reboot boot systems or: MBE:/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server start SBE:/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server start MBE:mount /mnt/sbe SBE:mount /mnt/mbe M/SBE:/etc/init.d/mythtv-backend restart Tips : In Setup-TV Settings-Playback-2nd screen, "Action on playback exit", set this to "Save position on exit". This way you can migrate watching a recorded show from one system to the next. |