Freevo PVR box

Software

Freevo is not a full distribution, just a suite of software to add on top of linux.

So i had to choose a base linux distro to install on.

I want with Debian because it's fast, simple and lightweight.

I actually used the XFCE CD ISO version of debian, so XFCW would be preinstalled. XFCE is not required but it's nice to have an X-windows environment and windows manager on hand when you want to run other tools for things not covered by Freevo (say a browser or a dvd encoding tool etc ...)

So got the debian image here:
http:cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/i386/iso-cd/ (debian-testing-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso)

Burned it on a CD using cdrecord (or whatever CD burning tool you have).

Then boot the CD and install debian.

Configure the network during instalation etc ...

After installing and booting debian, you will probably want to upgrade/update it.

show /etc/apt/sources.list

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

add the freevo repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list

....
deb http://debian.geole.info/ etch main contrib non-free
deb http://debian-multimedia.org etch main

Then install freevo

apt-get update
apt-get install freevo

Working on the box itself is usually not practical, because it's next to the TV, and probably not plugged to a computer monitor, doesn't have a chair in front etc..., so best is to install tools so we can work on the box remotely.

I use SSH and VNC

apt-get install openssh-server
apt-get install vncserver

Then you can start the vncserver and log to it from another machine
Starting VNC:

# note, without the depth parameter it won't work right.
vncserver -depth 16 -resolution 800x600

run on :0 ?

start vncserver at boot ?

From the remote machine, you can log using:

vncviewer 192.168.0.105:1

That will give you a nice xfce desktop, from there start an Xterm and run "freevo" and see if freevo starts.

Configuring freevo

Explain config of the tv grabber, retrieving listings, zap2it labs etc ...

FIXME: nvidia tvout
http:home.comcast.net/~andrex/Debian-nVidia/index.html

FIXME: freevo plugins

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