Using Linux for HTPC?

[doanster]

I have a spare PC in the basement that I want to convert into a HTPC, and learn Linux on (right now we use Linux at school, but I've never tried Linux for "home use" before).. so I 'll be installing Ubuntu on it soon.

My main concerns are
1)will it work properly with my sound card? It's a Santa Cruz, and I want to be able to use the digital audio out for DD and DTS for DVDs.
2)needs to be able to play most all media formats
3)may need to work with TV tuner cards that I'll add in the future
4)user friendly

I'm very new to Linux, any advice would be awesome, thanks!

 

[Brazen]

1) don't know, but I bet a quick google search could find that out.

2) Ubuntu can play most all media formats. There are instructions in the Ubuntu guides for how to install the codecs.

3) Depends. Some tv tuner cards have great support in linux, some have no support. Hauppauge is pretty good.

4) Ubuntu is user friendly. It's not Windows, and it doesn't try to be like Windows. People who think it's not user friendly don't realize this. Linux ditros try to be better than Windows, not a clone of Windows.

For an HTPC check out MythTV (it runs on linux).

 

[SleepWalkerX]

1) My brother had that card, unfortunately it was before he reinstalled ubuntu so he never tested it there. However, according to ALSA's docs, it runs off the cirrus logix 4360 chipset which is supported by the kernel.

2) Pretty much all codecs I can think of are supported in one way or another. You just need to install all the packages.

3) You need to research its chipset. Hauppage cards are a safe bet, but this site should help you in researching.

4) MythTV has had great reviews.

I'm actually working on a linux based HTPC for a project for school. Getting all my parts right now.

 

[phisrow]

In my somewhat limited experience(Helped my RA setup a myth box a couple of years back) MythTV is somewhat tricky to set up; but works beautifully once in place. You'll want to buy a TV card that MythTV supports, not just expect any card to work; but they aren't hard to get.

Most media formats play just fine on Linux. Some are supported fully freely, some need to be downloaded separately(though this is quite easy) and some rely on the Win32 codecs(This sucks; but certain proprietary formats require it). MP3, DVD, CD audio, WAV, OGG, FLAC, AAC, DivX, Xvid should all work fine, with minimal hassle. I don't know about wma or wmv.

 

[drag]

I have a santa cruz turtle beach card, but I don't know how it does on digital out. I know it's support is somewhat spotty as rear out won't work.

I don't know for certaint, but if I had to choose right now without trying it out I would have to say that digital out is not supported.


For tuner cards check out the WinPVR-xxx series of video cards that have hardware encoding support. Those work well in Linux.

 

[drag]

I don't know about wma or wmv.

Non-DRM formats should work 'ok', but not great. DRM'd stuff is very hit or miss as you'd have to find programs to crack the protections first and that is against the DMCA.

 

[phisrow]

http://tvease.net/support/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.5
http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php
are said to be decent guides to MythTV on Ubuntu 6.10(Haven't used them myself).

 

[silverpig]

Mythtv on ubuntu is pretty easy to set up. If your soundcard doesn't work, just get an old SB Live! 5.1 off of ebay. They work great under linux and the digital out is simple to get working.

 

[JasonCoder]

Gotta say, from the perspective of this htpc builder, the Hauppauge cards have a sub par comb filter. Go with NVidia's if you can find a driver. I've heard the best things about their tv cards.

 

[bearxor]

For your purpose of messing around, Linux distros make great HTPC's.

Quite frankly, however, when you introduce it in to a living room setup with your wife using it, MCE had a much higher WAF.

As long as you're the only one using it and can deal with issues that come up, you'll be fine and it'll work well once configured.

 

[drag]

Well once it's configured anybody can use it. There is nothing that MCE does that is super-duper easy in it's user interface were you can't get something as good in Linux.

the difficult part is configuring it. Using it is easy, IMO.

 

[huggiebear]

MythTV is the most popular choice for a Linux HTPC. Google "mythtv users"; search that forum for your hardware. I recommend posting your complete computer configuration to get advice. Prepare yourself for at least 40 hours of time to get everything configured and some purchases (decent remote) to get it usable by anyone else. Google "fedora mythtv HOWTO", for step by step instuctions.

Of couse, if you get it working, you may want it connected to a TV and actually use it daily. Then it will become apparent that scheduling your life by tv time schedules and wasting time watching commercials doesn't need to affect your limited life span as much as it did. At this point you may realize that cheap old computer isn't going to cut it. If you're serious, you could save time and frustration by buying that new computer now.

For a decent Standard Definition TV setup, on the cheap, I would recommend.

Antec NSK2400 Case
AMD Venice CPU and micro ATX board
512Gb Ram
Hauppage Retail PVR150 (has IR stuff), or PVR500MCE for 2 tuners
Nvidia FX5200 chipset video card with S-Video/RCA
At Least 300Gb Storage (1 hour is about 2.2 Gb)

 

[doanster]

Yeah, I've heard that MythTV is tricky to set up... and that's from seasoned Linux users. I would be totally swamped

 

[drag]

For a newbie linux user to setup Mythtv is not horrible.

What you need to do is find a nice guide on it and then purchase the hardware it recommends and just follow the guide. It won't take much effort to get it running well.

The one that I like is http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ and that is for Fedora Core. He has pre-compiled packages all ready for you and such and goes into pretty good detail on the setup. But there are other guides for other OSes.

The only iffy part about that Fedora guide is that Fedora Core 6 was released just a bit ago and apparently people are experianced teething problems. So maybe hold off a bit on that.

A nice system to try out would possibly be Ubuntu Dapper. It has 'long term support' from Ubuntu which means that you won't be forced to upgrade to new versions to keep with good support. The downsides is that I don't know the quality of any guides that may be aviable for it and hardware support for very new stuff will be lacking.