DISCLAIMER #1: I'm trying my best to keep my cool here, but I am rather agitated right now. I apologize in advance for any aggravation which makes it into this message.
DISCLAIMER #2: While I use words such as "we" and "us" in this message, I really can speak only for myself. Such statements are my personal observations of others. On 4/6/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The experimental system consisted of:
...
PCI SATA controller
... which the PC could not boot from, due to apparent BIOS compatibility issues. If you had left that old 100 MB IDE drive you weren't planning on using at home, you would never have been able to boot from a hard drive at all.
MythTV was successfully installed to this machine, in roughly the same amount of time as was required to install other higher-end systems.
I disagree with that assessment. We spent a lot of time just trying to get your system to boot anyway at all. Then we had to burn media just for you. Then there were the several failed install attempts. All of that sucked up time we could have been spending with other people. If we hadn't wasted time helping you with your pile of crap PC, we would have gotten done sooner with the people who at least brought hardware that worked. I'm know I'm being harsh, but you seem to be intent on parading your "proof", when, in fact, you cost us all time. We were willing to help you out anyway. Now you throw that back in our faces. I find that rather rude.
Getting pissed at the person who's helping you, or at the person whom you're helping, won't help the software get installed.
You were dragging down the entire operation. That's why I finally gave up and walked away from you. If you are such an expert, you don't need our help, and we don't need you arguing with us. I see now that we should have made good on our threat to turn away people who didn't follow the instructions.
The FC6 installer, anaconda, has lots of bugs.
Your system didn't meet the minimum requirements for Fedora. At that point, all bets are off. It is legal for the installer to make demons fly out of your nose. Given that your system seemed to have some hardware issues (SATA BIOS problem, could not boot from USB, could not read some install media), I would also tend to have suspicions in that direction. I do think we should look at other alternatives, but not because of your experiences.
As this [boot loader] is one place where distrinstallation commonly gets tripped-up ...
Source? Nobody else had a problem with their boot loader. I can't recall having a boot loader problem with supported hardware on Fedora. Ever. Debian Etch had no problem installing a boot loader when I tried it last year.
* Installing and configuring MythTV and its database was almost exactly like what was done for all the other systems. From this, it appears evident that the greatest source of gotchas and glitches come from installing the underlying OS rather than from the MythTV suite itself.
While I believe it is true that more problems came about doing the base install, we certainly had our fair share of issues with MythTV configuration as well. So while "more" is correct, one should not take that to imply the MythTV aspects were problem-free.
* When downloading channel information, Myth failed to populate the UI with the information. Ben had to hit the button, wait patiently until it BLINKED, and the channel data appeared.
It is worth noting that your system was the only system that had that problem.
MythTV can be installed to, and is usable on, systems like that described above, subject to some limitations (like not being able to record one show while watching another).
Most end-users do not consider stuttering video playback (even for a few seconds) to be generally acceptable. People want their stuff to work. Period. The ability to watch one show while recording another is a key part of "the DVR experience". While we can certainly make people aware that you can make do with less if you are willing to accept less, I don't think we want to go down the road of trying to support such. It puts a heavier burden on us, and I see little point in delivering something which will disappoint and frustrate people.
It seems wise to strengthen the "your system must POST" requirement to say that "your system must be in a state in which it can boot from BOTH internal and external media".
That's a good suggestion. We definitely need to re-visit our requirements.
Performing "custom" or "server" installs can reduce install complexity ...
Unless you consider *user experience* as part of "install complexity", and that's arguably the most important part. The goal here is to make it as easy as possible for people to install MythTV. That means with a minimum of user interaction. Custom package selection, post-install package additions, editing config files, and so on -- all of that is something to be minimized and avoided, for our purposes.
A DVD-ROM drive is not necessary for a smooth installation.
It is when all we brought with us was DVD media. :)
The following can be added to our list of acceptable hardware: * bt878 based capture cards * 82810E based video cards
Negative. This isn't about what might work. This is about what we *know* will work. Your experience only reinforces that sticking to an HCL is important. If we can expect the kind of problems you had with every system which deviates from the HCL, we need to make HCL compliance a strict requirement. We cannot afford to spend hours dicking around with every piece of junk PC someone digs out of their closet. We have limited resources in man-power and time. If you want to go it on your own, fine. Great. More power to you. That's what makes Linux great. You have that option. We're doing this for people who do not have that option. -- Ben _______________________________________________ gnhlug-org mailing list gnhlug-org@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-org/
