Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 1/23/2014, Silver Slimer posted:
On Thu, 23 Jan 2014 13:26:30 -0500, Gene E. Bloch
wrote:

Or not. For a day or two, I've been toying with a Linux HTPC (Home
Theater PC) setup whose website, documentation, and help are quite
uninformative :-)

I've given up on that one...

A GNU/Linux based project being half-assed? I'm shocked!

Shocked! I say...

I've made a small amount of progress. No, I don't mean I just realized
I'm an idiot for doing this, but let me think about that...

Having stared at meaningless screens a bit, the things I saw made me
read the Doc a bit more knowledgeably. Also, I think I realize that the
live CDs are meant to be front ends (i.e., user interfaces) only, so you
need to install the system and do a bit of work to be able to use the
tuner.

Still, suddenly I like WMC a lot better :-)

You are no doubt shocked that I haven't resolved all of my confusions in
this area. But I'll say this: it won't take much to make me abandon this
quest. I'm not as crazy as I might seem...


It almost sounds like you were using MythTV.

The problem with that one, is it's a bit on the ambitious side.
The couple times I've tried to use it, I got stuck at the same
place each time. Namely, that the thing couldn't detect my
tuner properly. In the first installation, I eventually
figured it out (somehow). But a second attempt years
later, I couldn't remember what I'd done, and had to
give up.

As for LiveCDs, you can use the concept for every-day work.
Simply transfer them to a USB stick, and then give the thing
a "persistent" file to store the file system. The portion
holding the LiveCD part, is effectively read only. Only
the bitmap file holding the file system, "remembers" anything.
Deleting that file, erases all your changes. Leaving
the bitmap file in place, gives a way of saving your
progress from session to session. And that method of operation,
is a bit more flexible, than an installation to a hard drive.
In that I can carry the same USB key to different computers
and use the key anywhere.

That's why I have Linux Mint (Mate interface) on a USB key.
That's better than burning optical media, and I get to
carry any "forward progress" around with me. Like any packages
I install, they're stored in the bitmap file. Max bitmap file
size seems to be 4GB (as the USB stick uses FAT32). An 8GB
USB key is a good place to start.

Paul