In praise of Linux (and, er, PC World....)
19-07-2005, 15:47
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#1
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Inactive
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Glastonbury!
Services: Telewest DTV & 4Meg BB (Bath), NTL DTV and 2Meg BB (Poole)
Posts: 1,350
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In praise of Linux (and, er, PC World....)
Was bored today so I popped into PC World. I noticed they had a TV card going cheap. Just a simple Packard Bell jobbie, no bells or whistles, but for £15, I'm not complaining.
So I took it home and put it in my box. Turned on the PC, and Linux booted as normal. No "new hardware, searching for drivers", or "please insert driver disk", or anything. I assumed I'd have to download some drivers off the internet manually. Before I looked at that though, I installed a programme called TV Time, which I'd be using to actually watch TV.
So imagine my amazement when I fired up TV Time for the first time, and saw it going "scanning for channels". Two minutes later and I'm sat in front of my PC watching Sky One. Without having to configure a thing. Even the remote control worked out of the box!
I'm never going back to Windows!
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19-07-2005, 15:49
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#2
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Inactive
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Services: Depends on the person and the price they're offering
Posts: 12,384
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Re: In praise of Linux (and, er, PC World....)
Well.
I'm getting towards the stage where I'm going to go the same way I think.
My Windows Server is about to go out of the bl**dy window!
I'm still having problems with it not wanting to print anything, I'm starting to think it might be the USB adaptor on the motherboard that's gone so I'll get a USB card and try that.
If that doesn't work the big beige box is going to get turned into a Linux server and we'll see if it likes that any better 
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19-07-2005, 16:43
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#3
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Inactive
Join Date: Jun 2003
Age: 45
Posts: 14,750
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Re: In praise of Linux (and, er, PC World....)
I think this is an oddity in the hardware world. Virtually all PCI TV cards have a shared chipset core, I think its called BT8** like BT875. Support for this has long been established.
Actually a cheap card probably helps here, if it was an expensive fancy one, with a custom chipset that wasn't BT8** compatible, then you'd be out of luck.
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19-07-2005, 16:56
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#4
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cf.mega poster
Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 51
Posts: 7,101
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Re: In praise of Linux (and, er, PC World....)
Yep, I think Punky's right. The cheap and cheerful cards seem to have better support ootb under Linux. That's not to say that other better cards aren't supported at all, it's just that they tend to require a bit more configuration.
A mate set up his own PVR using MythTV with a Hauppauge card (can't remember the name) and it took a bit more work, but worked flawlessly in the end. I've been meaning to try and do the same, but not got round to it cause I'm a lazy git
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