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Efika + ubuntu + MythTV
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Author:  amigabill [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Efika + ubuntu + MythTV
Hi all, I got me one of tham $99 Efikas from Directron's recent sale, and am thinking of using it for a diskless MythTV frontend. (Diskless as in use a CompactFlash instead of motorized hard drive) I've not tried Linux on PowerPC before and am not sure how to go about all this. For the latest Ubuntu available for Efika, is MythTV in a repository ready to go or is there some work to do? I couldn't find anything here or on google for a HOWTO, and I'd appreciate any advice people have for this. What's a recommended graphics card to get Myth onto a TV from Efika/Linux? (I'd like to run MorphOS as well if/when that's ever released for Efika, so a card that is expected to work with MOS as well would be great) Thanks!
Author:  muriani [ Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:50 pm ]
Post subject: 
Radeon 9200 or 9250 is really the recommended card, if you can get your hands on one.

As fafr as myth frontend goes, you should be able to compile the source no problem, although it's take awhile directly on the Efika (lack of ram hurts in this case). You'll likely want a decently-sized CF card as well.

Another option is cross-compiling, but all my attempts at that have failed :(
Author:  Neko [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 3:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Efika + ubuntu + MythTV
Quote:
Hi all, I got me one of tham $99 Efikas from Directron's recent sale, and am thinking of using it for a diskless MythTV frontend. (Diskless as in use a CompactFlash instead of motorized hard drive) I've not tried Linux on PowerPC before and am not sure how to go about all this. For the latest Ubuntu available for Efika, is MythTV in a repository ready to go or is there some work to do? I couldn't find anything here or on google for a HOWTO, and I'd appreciate any advice people have for this. What's a recommended graphics card to get Myth onto a TV from Efika/Linux? (I'd like to run MorphOS as well if/when that's ever released for Efika, so a card that is expected to work with MOS as well would be great) Thanks!
You should look at the Debian Multimedia package repository and get the source .debs and go from there.

Note that the Efika isn't powerful enough (under Linux) to play back a great deal - MPEG2 video will be right out of the window unless you find some kind of video offload. QVGA MPEG4 is feasible and anything up to but probably not including DVD resolution of certain bitrates will probably be slow to the point of being unusable.

Your only saving grace will be that you won't be relying on the hard disk (since there is no DMA in the current Linux drivers) but on the network front end, and as a front end won't be soaking up the Efika with MySQL or other administrative MythTV tasks.
Author:  amigabill [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Efika + ubuntu + MythTV
Quote:
Note that the Efika isn't powerful enough (under Linux) to play back a great deal - MPEG2 video will be right out of the window unless you find some kind of video offload. QVGA MPEG4 is feasible and anything up to but probably not including DVD resolution of certain bitrates will probably be slow to the point of being unusable.
What if I got something like the Hauppauge PVR350? I believe this model has hardware decoded video output. I haven't kept up on that for a long time though to know what state it's actually in, and I had a PVR250 card which lacks the hardware output but used the same ivtv driver.

Anyone use this with Efika? Is there a more recent equivalent of the PVR350 that might be even better?
Author:  amigabill [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:32 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
You'll likely want a decently-sized CF card as well.
Any hints on how big? I see them up to 16GB capacities at my favorite online store.
Author:  amigabill [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:46 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Radeon 9200 or 9250 is really the recommended card, if you can get your hands on one.
Newegg sells 9200 cards in 4x/8x AGP. Can the AGP adaptor with Efika support these 4x/8x AGP cards, or does that only work with older 2x or 1x AGO cards due to voltages or something? Looks like they have quite a selection of 9250 cards, some of them being PCI directly.
Author:  ironfist [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:59 am ]
Post subject: 
Amigabill:
Are there any drivers for PVR350 for Linux/PPC?

Graphic card manufacturers never open up their source
and if they release for any Linux platform - they release
for Linux/x86. :/
Author:  amigabill [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:48 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Amigabill:
Are there any drivers for PVR350 for Linux/PPC?

Graphic card manufacturers never open up their source
and if they release for any Linux platform - they release
for Linux/x86. :/
There's a 3rd party driver called ivtv for the Hauppauge PVR cards. Mostly reverse-engineered from what I understand, an dnot supported by the manufacturer, and the PVR350 has an X11 framebuffer driver for its output. Probably pretty simple and lacking in some things we'd take for granted on a 2D graphics chip because it's a TV output thing not a Radeon competitor, but may be good enough for MythTV type stuff. I haven't loooked at ivtv for a couple years though since I got a Tivo I haven't been playing with the MythTV stuff very much, but I do still have a box for that.

http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Main_Page

I don't know if they have PowerPC support, but it is open-source.

It seems that ivtv merged into the Linux kernel as of 2.6.22. Not entirely sure about the X11 framebuffer driver with that, I've only ever used ivtv as a TV tuner driver myself, but things were always discussed together for the PVR350, so the framebuffer might be part of ivtv as well.
Author:  magnetic [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
ivtv does work on peg. iirc using x11 framebuffer on pvr 350 NOT supported...

see older threads about this.
Author:  amigabill [ Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:36 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
ivtv does work on peg. iirc using x11 framebuffer on pvr 350 NOT supported...

see older threads about this.
The only relevant older thread is for Pegasos and is over a year old. I was hoping things would have improved since then...
Author:  frostwork [ Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:01 am ]
Post subject: 
ivtv is already in kernel (since 2.6.22 afair).
my pvr350 worked quiet fine with older out-of-kernel ivtv,
the ivtv-fb driver worked for some seconds, then crashed
(the test colorbars worked though on tv).
bad luck the pvr350 doesn't fit into the efika -
lets hope it will in efika2 :)
Author:  Neko [ Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:00 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
ivtv is already in kernel (since 2.6.22 afair).
my pvr350 worked quiet fine with older out-of-kernel ivtv,
the ivtv-fb driver worked for some seconds, then crashed
(the test colorbars worked though on tv).
bad luck the pvr350 doesn't fit into the efika -
lets hope it will in efika2 :)
Have you tried using the X11 driver rather than the kernel driver? You don't need *both*. As long as you can live without a display to install it (serial cable or SSH comes in very handy here), it should work just fine. I've never heard anyone tell that the X11 driver did not work properly.

You're right about the kernel framebuffer though, it's pretty much guaranteed to explode for a lot of people.

As for the PVR350 fitting into an Efika, of course it fits - vertically very well, and if you have the correct PCI riser, then horizontally too. I'm fairly sure I have seen (maybe even owned..) a universal card.
Author:  muriani [ Wed Nov 21, 2007 9:57 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
Quote:
Radeon 9200 or 9250 is really the recommended card, if you can get your hands on one.
Newegg sells 9200 cards in 4x/8x AGP. Can the AGP adaptor with Efika support these 4x/8x AGP cards, or does that only work with older 2x or 1x AGO cards due to voltages or something? Looks like they have quite a selection of 9250 cards, some of them being PCI directly.
The 4x/8x cards work, I've been using those the whole time.
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