DIGIT-ARC read-only archive · snapshot: July 23, 2026

Gonna try linux on my home PC!!! Need help

24 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/gonna-try-linux-on-my-home-pc-need-help.98526/

desiibond
desiibond Original post #1
Sep 27, 2008 at 9:11 AM
Hey Guys,

Chalo, let me try Linux on my home PC.

Config:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
2Gb DDR 400 RAM
Gigabyte motherboard K8N51GMF-9. nvidia 6100 chipset
ATI HD2600XT
Pinnacle PCTV 110i tv tuner card
Already running Vista Home premium

Mostly I use this for these tasks

1) Watch TV
2) Play lot of music and movies (mostly divx)
3) sync music to ipod and motorokr
4) lot of scripting


I can't use Ubuntu. I need a distro that didn't do too much changes on /etc. I test few things in /etc. So, I want /etc to be as it is in standard linux.

I have

1) Fedora core 8 32bit and 64 bit
2) OpenSuse 11 32bit


Please tell me this

1) Which application can recognize my tuner card and play TV?
2) Which is the best app for music playback and sync to ipod
3) Which is the best app for movie playback

If anyone's living near BTM Layout in Bangalore, you are most welcome to visit my house and help me out here!!!
Faun
Faun #2
Sep 27, 2008 at 9:49 AM
Naah you will not enjoy linux, keep away from it.

Faltu mein tension kyu lene ka :D

As for some questions
Best audio player is Rhythmbox for Gnome (I used to like Exaile too previously)
Best Video Player is MPlayer (But for anything quick and dirty I use Totem)

As for Tuner card, I dont have one so cant say.
a_k_s_h_a_y
Sep 27, 2008 at 10:12 AM
Cool !
Its going to be a hard journey. Ubuntu is easy...so are others.. but not always !!

Try out Fedora 9. Not 8.
Ati Driver install went terribly bad in openSuse 11. Other wise open suse is great
unfortunately the 1 click dirver install does not seem to work for Ati atleast.
MetalheadGautham
Sep 27, 2008 at 3:46 PM
If you want a distro with the best possible performance on your rather good hardware, get Gentoo64.
desiibond
Sep 27, 2008 at 7:30 PM
^^ I can get that distro only on Monday.

posting from my home pc's linux OS for the first time :)

Installed Fedora 9.

Internet: Working fine
Audio: Working fine
gaming: have to configure wine
tv: still searching for proper setup. Can't mess with it as I have to watch Singapore GP now.

Please, any pointers to get Pinnacle PCTV 110i work on Fedora 9??

xawtv and tvtime are pretty old. any new tv viewing app available on internet now??

btw, Rhythmbox rocks.

PS: This linux now feels lot better and lot easier than what I tried about a year ago. Lot better h/w detection and many automated tasks. Good!!!
Garbage
Garbage #6
Sep 27, 2008 at 7:34 PM
^^ thats good... Welcome (back) to Linux... :) :p
desiibond
Sep 27, 2008 at 8:19 PM
^^hehe.

But dude, help me out here. Searching for TV applications for my pinnacle tuner card.
Garbage
Garbage #8
Sep 27, 2008 at 10:21 PM
^^hehe.

But dude, help me out here. Searching for TV applications for my pinnacle tuner card.
Sorry bro... As I don't have TV-Tuner, I can't help :(
gary4gar
Sep 27, 2008 at 10:30 PM
Need some more information on TV tuner card to check if its supported or not.

Please post the output of following commands from terminal
root ~ # Dmesg
root ~ # lspci
infra_red_dude
Sep 28, 2008 at 2:15 AM
Do you want "TV applications"?? MythTV is one of the best. I'd suggest you also give Debian a try.

For setting up your card, you may refer these links:
*www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Pinnacle_PCTV_110i
*www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Pinnacle_PCTV_50i
*www.cyberciti.biz/tips/debian-ubuntu-linux-configure-pinnacle-pctv-tuner.html
desiibond
desiibond #11
Sep 28, 2008 at 1:53 PM
[root@localhost ~]# lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a2)
00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev a1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:07.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7131/SAA7133/SAA7135 Video Broadcast Decoder (rev d0)
01:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller (rev 80)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV630 [Radeon HD 2600XT]
02:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon HD 2600 Series]
[root@localhost ~]#
MetalheadGautham
Sep 28, 2008 at 2:06 PM
^^ WTH dude ?

VIA firewire, ATI video/audio, nVidia Chipset and AMD CPU ?

Too many companies on one tiny rig :lol:
desiibond
desiibond #13
Sep 28, 2008 at 2:10 PM
[root@localhost media]# dmesg|grep 7133
saa7133[0]: found at 0000:01:07.0, rev: 208, irq: 17, latency: 32, mmio: 0xf4000000
saa7133[0]: subsystem: 11bd:002e, board: Pinnacle PCTV 40i/50i/110i (saa7133) [card=77,autodetected]
saa7133[0]: board init: gpio is 200e000
ir-kbd-i2c: Pinnacle PCTV detected at i2c-2/2-0047/ir0 [saa7133[0]]
saa7133[0]: i2c eeprom read error (err=-5)
tuner' 2-004b: chip found @ 0x96 (saa7133[0])
saa7133[0]: registered device video0 [v4l2]
saa7133[0]: registered device vbi0
saa7133[0]: registered device radio0
[root@localhost media]#

^^ WTH dude ?

VIA firewire, ATI video/audio, nVidia Chipset and AMD CPU ?

Too many companies on one tiny rig :lol:

hehe.
H
Hitboxx #14
Sep 28, 2008 at 2:23 PM
I have used TvTime to play TV(from the local cablewala) on my PC. I have the saa7134 Philips semiconductor as per my dmseg. It works fine in most of the cases but the only caveat is you have to set the country (frequency) as France. Yeah don't know what the issue is, but India isn't listed(naturally, as less Indians contribute to OSS) and the best and the most channels seem to be in this frequency. You also do get channels in other frequencies but not as many as in France.

The linuses I have tried this on are Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Sabayon, etc., almost all will work.

And no idea about other software though, as I never felt the need to try them, Tvtime was sufficient.
desiibond
desiibond #15
Sep 28, 2008 at 3:00 PM
^okay. I tried to start tvtime but this is the error that I see:

*** tvtime required hardware YUY2 overlay support from your video card
*** driver. If you are using an older NVIDIA card (TNT2), then this capability is only available with their binary drivers.
*** For some ATI cards, this feature may be found in the experimental GATOS drivers: *gatos.sourceforge.net/
*** If unsure, please check with your distribution to see if your
*** X driver supports hardware overlay surfaces.

ah. ATI drivers :(

@@infra, I will try to get TV working on Fedora else I will go ahead with Ubuntu or Debian.
desiibond
desiibond #17
Sep 28, 2008 at 4:49 PM
that's nvidia chipset

Nforce 6100 + 430

the GPU 6100 is disabled.

this is my board: *www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1939
a_k_s_h_a_y
Sep 28, 2008 at 5:39 PM
can you please tell me which version of fedora did you install ?? and where exactly did you download it from ??

i installed fedora 9 and the system restarts/resets as soon as i login before the sunrise. haven't the seen the fedora dawn on my PC yet !! :(
desiibond
desiibond #19
Sep 28, 2008 at 7:32 PM
^^ Downloaded from their own site.

Fedora 9

It's working fine for me as of now.
a_k_s_h_a_y
Sep 28, 2008 at 7:49 PM
good man
my bad luck with linux distros continues.
NucleusKore
Sep 28, 2008 at 9:16 PM
Use OpenSUSE 11.0 and install ATi drivers from the following repository
*www2.ati.com/suse/11.0/

With ATi Radeon Express it's a little different
*en.opensuse.org/ATI_Radeon_Xpress
MetalheadGautham
Sep 28, 2008 at 9:19 PM
that's nvidia chipset

Nforce 6100 + 430

the GPU 6100 is disabled.

this is my board: *www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1939
First try the latest catalyst drivers. They should do most tasks except GPU enhanced video decoding. If they don't work, try disabling your GPU and use the 6100 IGP. I am sure 6100 is fully supported. It has a respectable history ;).
NucleusKore
Sep 28, 2008 at 10:07 PM
*forums.opensuse.org/how-faq-read-only/393929-hardware-installing-ati-drivers.html
a_k_s_h_a_y
Sep 29, 2008 at 1:25 AM
Thanks Dr Kore ! trying suse again !!