MythUbuntu Media PC

I'm thinking of building a media PC for my Sony Bravia as a fun little project, and also being able to record programmes/films to hard drive would be a really useful deature. I'm planning on using the 'Myth Ubuntu' for this. I think you have to install the original Ubuntu first then the Myth Ubuntu on top of this? Has anyone built a PC using this OS before...It would be the first time i've used linux.

The spare parts i've got set aside so far are:

Micro ATX gigabyte p45 motherboard
Intel Q8200
4GB Crucial RAM
ATI 4850

Just need case, decent PSU (probs have to get a micro ATX one for a media PC case, haven't decided what one) and a digital tuner card. Though I need to check what one would be compatible with the software.

If anyone has done anything similar to this, would be very grateful for any help/comments

my HTPC runs Ubuntu and has ran Linux for the past....I dunno, 7+ years or so? I refuse to pay for an OS to stream media to my TV. Biggest gripe/complaint is video card drivers with full on HDMI support. I went with ATI as the Nvidia driver was straight rubbish for Linux.

So far no complaints, no hiccups, no real issue at all. Got 2TB of storage on it and run the OS off a small partition and store my massive amounts of media on my data partitions.

I believe you can do it either way. You can download mythbuntu as an OS, or as a program to be used with any of the other *buntu systems.

I hard that there is great support for the hauppauge tv tuners with the V4L (video for linux) drivers. I have one and It states that you have support right out of the box but I am still in the process of getting it to work

tlarkin said:

...I went with ATI as the Nvidia driver was straight rubbish for Linux.

Click to expand...

I heard just the opposite. although when I was using the ATI drivers for my 4850, things were smooth.

Here is what sucks about Linux as a media center PC.

1 - no silverlight support - this is just stupid, but Android OS has a netflix app so I bet someone ports that over to other Linux platforms

2 - No support for services that require DRM

Otherwise you don't need a ton of codecs, some of the best media players are supported and developed on Linux like VideoLAN player. I have found ATI drivers to be superior to Nvidia in Linux for a while now, just my experience.

can check out win8 dev preview, a little buggy but runs everything really, i haven't checked how it works with my win7 drivers, but i know it lets me use a wifi adapter that the newest supported os was xp, so it has some nice stuff going on, is also very light and boots fast.