Mailing List Archive

Pundit / MythFE distro
Ordered my Pundit this morning, am anxiously awaiting its arrival<g>.

Not sure if this is the correct forum to mention this in, please let me
know if it is not; but here goes:

Spent some time last night gathering pieces for a lightweight frontend
distribution; I am using a modified version of Midori patched for the
2.4.20 kernel (or the 2.4.20 kernel patched with Midori mods, depending
on how you look at it <g>). Will be looking for some volunteers to test
as soon as the distro is ready.

My goal is to create a special-purpose distribution for *frontend only*
mythtv boxes (IOW, not a general-purpose distro, no backend support).
My initial focus will be on the Pundit (for obvious reasons); I will
also be focusing on diskless booting (via CF and possibly PXE/netboot).

My first pass will be a proof-of-concept; once it is running, I will
focus on making the distro more friendly.

It would be *very* beneficial if current users of the Pundit would send
me their configurations - Specifically, XF86Config and your working
kernel config if you have re-compiled. Also, I would be very grateful
if someone could email me a non-corrupted version of the Pundit user's
manual PDF; tried downloading it from several files last night to no
avail...

I am hardly a kernel expert; have cobbled together several embedded
devices with custom kernels however, and am confident that I will be
able to produce a working product. I intend for this to be a learning
experience, so comments are very welcome. I'll be working on this in my
spare time (of which I don't have a huge amount), so please be patient.

== Steve
RE: Pundit / MythFE distro [ In reply to ]
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You must have got the last one from NewEgg, because now they're sold
out. =)

Have you considered just installing something like Mandrake, tweaking
it, remove extra stuff once it's been setup the way you like then
using something like mindi to create a bootable CDROM? This way,
you've still got a distro that is well known and supported, but if
you need to restore from CD you can do it quickly / easily?

You can still use the various *drake utilities to perform the
configuration / customization.

Anyway, just an idea.

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Re: Pundit / MythFE distro [ In reply to ]
> Van: Steve Davidson <smdavidson@belugasoftware.com>
>
> My goal is to create a special-purpose distribution for *frontend only*
> mythtv boxes (IOW, not a general-purpose distro, no backend support).
> My initial focus will be on the Pundit (for obvious reasons); I will
> also be focusing on diskless booting (via CF and possibly PXE/netboot).

If I were you I'd start with a Knoppix CD, strip about everything but X,
and apt-get MythTV frontend (seperate package?). Yes, it would be kinda big
(100-150MB) for a mini distro, mainly due to the hardware detection. But it
could be used to automagicaly generate a much smaller one by stripping
hardware detection and the apt database. Install that to a Flash disk or
something.

And talk a bit with the guy that makes Morphix (Knoppix remaster), he knows
how to intergrate nVidia drivers and other 'cool', but handy, stuff. Yes, I
know these are not needed for the Pundit, but you will have a nice general
purpose 'distro' up in no time.

Henk Poley <><