What Next
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Backups
A normal part of mythtv maintenance is damage recovery. If god forbid your box is to go down, its best to be ready to recover quickly. This can range from having to do regular backups of the operating system, to instead regularly backing up the mysql database. Since you set up the machine with a seperate partition for recordings, an operating system backup should be fairly small and manageable. I'd recommend you investigate sbackup for this purpose.
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Upgrades
It will be your responsibility to regularly run
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade
to be sure that you grab the latest updates.
Backend and Backend/Frontend
phpmyadmin
phpmyadmin is a very useful tool for administering a mysql server. If you ever run into something that you need to directly modify in the mysql tables, but don't want to go through the trouble of learning mysql commands by hand, phpmyadmin will help. It has a web interface that will allow manipulation of tables, backup, privilege admustment and almost everything done by CLI.
Once you install phpmyadmin, I would recommend you secure your root password for it from within the interface.
To install it,
sudo apt-get install apache2 sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
If you haven't installed mythweb prior to phpmyadmin, you will also need to do install a php support library for apache. Mythweb depends on php4, by default. Either php4 or 5 may be used, however. To install the php5 library:
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5
phpmyadmin will then be accessible by going to
Adding Channel Icons
Credit to plb from the forums. The original post is here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=331913
1) Install xmltv.
sudo apt-get install xmltv
2) Obtain the script for making an iconmap.
wget "http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/browser/branches/release-0-20-fixes/mythtv/contrib/mkiconmap.pl?format=txt" -O mkiconmap.pl
3) Start mythfrontend.
mythfrontend
4) Run the script.
perl mkiconmap.pl
5) Add to your database.
mythfilldatabase --import-icon-map iconmap.xml --update-icon-map
Themes
A set of themes to customize mythfrontend are available in the mythtv-themes package:
sudo apt-get install mythtv-themes
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VNC
One way to administer a frontend is to install a VNC server, although it's often easier to use MythWeb.
Categories: CategoryMythTV
ACPI Shutdown & Wakeup
If your motherboard is capable, it is possible for MythTV to shut itself down when it is idle and wake itself up if there is a recording scheduled. One method is by using the built-in ACPI Shutdown/Wakeup via RTC alarm function of many motherboards. To see if this might be possible with your system and a guide on how you might get this working for you, visit: ACPI Shutdown Wakeup
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Samba File Sharing
A very useful thing for a mixed windows/linux/mac network is setting up Samba on your MythTV machine. A couply of ideas you can use samba for:
- Sharing your recordings via a centralized network share that is accessed through links for mythweb.
- Copying pictures/dvds/videos back and forth among the machines from on the windows/mac machines
- Mounting a windows/mac network share on your backend to access content stored on the windows or mac
See the Ubuntu guide for more information about setting up samba: http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy#Samba_Server
Plugins
Given that this machine is a backend and frontend, the mythplugins metapackage can be used. This will install all of the misc. mythtv plugins available as well as dependencies.
sudo apt-get install mythplugins
This will properly install apache2 and php4 for mythweb. If you would like to use php5 instead, install it prior to installing mythweb. All of the plugins will work out of the box except for mythweb.
If you would like some more information about what exactly each of the plugins is, and its purpose, see this wiki page: MythTV_Edgy_Plugins
Frontend
Themes
A set of themes to customize mythfrontend are available in the mythtv-themes package:
sudo apt-get install mythtv-themes
XvMC Video Output
If you have either an intel integrated graphics card or a NVidia 4, 5, 6, or 7 series card, you can enable XvMC video output. This takes a good portion of the load off of the CPU, and instead puts it on the graphics card. This can be a life saver for some users wanting to do HD playback with a lower end box, or even SD playback on a much lower end box.
* For Nvidia, you will have to modify /etc/X11/XvMCConfig to include this instead of its current contents
libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so.1
* For all cards, go to Utilities/Setup in the frontend. Choose Setup and then TV Settings and then Playback. Change the Preferred MPEG2 Decoder to be Standard XvMC. Restart your frontend app to ensure that /etc/X11/XvMCConfig is sourced and attempt to play back a file. You will notice the grey OSD rather then the normal color OSD.
For more information about XvMC, see the Official MythTV wiki. http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/XvMC
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Parent: ../ | Discuss this page
VNC
One way to administer a frontend is to install a VNC server, although it's often easier to use MythWeb.
Categories: CategoryMythTV
Plugins
For a non-backend machine, the only un-applicable plugin is mythweb. Don't install the mythplugins metapackage. This will cause all the plugins including mythweb to be installed.
See MythTV_Edgy_Plugins for more information about what plugins are available and how to install them.