Linux and Media PCs

[Fester]

Hi,

Does anyone know if Linux is a good operating system for making a media PC? By that, a mean a computer that has functions somewhere like a Tivo...

What software comes to mind?

I do all this already using an EPIA SP1300 board, a streamzap remote, RF keyboard and mouse, Medio, and Snapstream BeyondTV. I'd like to see if I can build one using Linux instead of Windows...

Fester

[Fester]

Hi Unit21,

Thanks for the very useful information. This will come in handy.

I'm going to remove the Windows hard drive from my media PC and try to re-build the PC as a Linux machine.

As a matter of fact, I just tried Knoppix yesterday. It loaded flawlessly from CD. I also tried Ubuntu the day before. Both OSes run at the about the same speed, however, Knoppix bundles a lot more software. The Ubuntu 5.10 live CD generated several error messages during boot. Knoppix did not generate any errors.

Fester

[Fester]

Unit21 wrote:
Linux as a MediaPC is possible and qorks quite well.

Howdy!

I haven't posted in a very long time. I wanted to let you know that I've completed my little "freevo" computer. It doesn't sport Linux since I had too many problems getting Ubuntu 5 installed on an EPIA SP 13000 mini-itx board. I could have tried other Linux, but I had Windows sitting around...

The final machine is an EPIA SP 13000 mini-itx with 1 GB ram, 400 GB SATA HD and Windows XP Home.

I use BeyondTV 4.4 to record shows, and watch TV. This configuration with a Gyration wireless mouse and keyboard works incredibly well.

I did try Sage, Hauppaugge Win TV and the Yahoo Beta software, but none of these worked properly. BeyondTV 4.4 is glitch-free on my small 1.3 GHZ system. I can even watch record shows while it's recording other shows in the background.

The machine is housed in a Travla 137 case which sits in the cabinet under the TV set. The Travla case makes it look like another piece of the entertainment system instead of a computer.

I'm very pleased.

Fester

[Fester]

Unit21 wrote:

MythTV runs smooth and plays pretty much any media-file I can throw at it, but my gfx-card is a bit sluggish sometimes. Not so much during playback, but the menus can sometimes slow down to a crawl...

Hi Unit21,

I had the exact same problem with SageTV. The menus would be so slow I couldn't use it. To my surprise, Snapstream's BeyondTV 4 works great on a via epia 1.3mhz board with Windows XP Home and BeyondTV costs much less than SageTV.

Now that the media pc works well, it's no longer available for hobbying ha!. My wife just loves it and uses it to record all sorts of shows. I'll have to buy some other machine to explore Linux.

Fester