HP's z555 ships with Windows Media Center.  Will it run Linux/MythTV?
Photo: HP.  Used for educational purposes.

boot: boogie
Could not find kernel image: boogie
boot: linux jfs nofb text

yum update

• Be sure you have the full, and proper kernel source installed.  This can be obtained from http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/4/SRPMS/  Install the kernel SRPM.
  
• Go to:  http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/   and download the ndiswrapper source.
• Reference http://felipe-alfaro.org/blog/2005/08/19/smc-2835w-v3-and-smc-2802w-v2/ for more help.  What follows is an adaptation of that, combined with the official ndiswrapper installation instructions.
  
• You do not need to unpackage it.
• Move it to  /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/
• In that directory, do an rpmbuild:

rpmbuild -ta ndiswrapper-1.7.tar.gz

• This will place 3 ndiswrapper RPM's in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386

kernel-module-ndiswrapper-2.6.xx-x.xxxx_FC4smp-1.7-1.i386.rpm
ndiswrapper-1.7-1.i386.rpm
ndiswrapper-debuginfo-1.7-1.i386.rpm

• Install them.  I guess you don't really need the debuginfo one. 
  

• Apparently, the card is the same as an SMC Medalion MD41300.  Obtain the Windows drivers from here.
  

• You should see at least the following files: 

    2802W51.sys    2802W.cat      2802W.inf

• In the directory with these files, do:

ndiswrapper -i 2802W.inf

ndiswrapper -l

2802W driver present, hardware present

• Do:

modprobe -r prism54
depmod -a
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper

• Check /etc/modprobe.conf   It should contain a line:

alias wlan0 ndiswrapper

• If it isn't there, add it.
• Prevent the system from loading the prism54 modules by doing:

echo prism54 >> /etc/hotplug/blacklist

• You should now have a wlan0.  You can configure this interface in the regular RedHat GUI Network utility (or from the command line with iwconfig, and ifconfig, if you would like).
• Test the interface by pinging somebody.
• NOTE:  If you change to a different kernel, you will need to re-do these steps starting with the rpmbuild.
  

• Remove the current version of Alsa.  Of course you'll need to --nodeps these:

rpm -e --nodeps alsa-lib
rpm -e --nodeps alsa-utils
rpm -e --nodeps alsa-lib-devel

• Download at least 1.0.11rc2 from http://www.alsa-project.org/  You need:  Driver, Library, and Utilities.
• Unpackage all of these someplace where you can build them.
• We are going to do a standard ./configure; make; make install  in each directory, but for the Driver, we must pass
  

  ./configure --with-cards=hda-intel

• Reference the entry for Intel HDA on the Alsa-project site for more details.
  
• Add/Fix lines in /etc/modprobe.conf.  Here's the relevant section of my /etc/modprobe.conf

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel model=6stack-digout
alias sound-slot-0 snd-hda-intel

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
   
# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

• I am not sure why, but it seems I had to create the group 'audio'.  I did this via the User Configuration GUI, and added root and the mythtv user to this group.  Help here if you need it.  If you have to do this, there was probably either a problem in the initial FC 4 install, or in the installation of alsa.
  
• Start the sound server (if not already running), and insure that it always starts at this run level:

/etc/init.d/alsasound start
chkconfig alsasound on

• Heed the warnings about all channels being muted after the install.  Run alsamixer, and unmute/set volumes as you wish. If you are using the digital (S/PDIF)output, don't forget to unmute it. This option may not be shown by default in some mixer apps.
  
• OK - here's the part that caused me quite a bit of lost time.  The .asoundrc or asound.conf file.  I have no clue about this file, so please don't ask.  Mine is a *Very* slight adaption of the one on the Fedora Myth(TV)ology site.  I simply changed the name of the card in the comments, and changed the device for the digital out portion of the card from 0 to 1 (one occurace.)  Grab mine from here.  Note that I have only the /etc/asound.conf file, and none in the mythtv user's directory.
• Now test both the analog and S/PDIF outputs with aplay:

aplay -D analog /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav
aplay -D spdif /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav

• To make sure that the RedHat sound card detection program is not run, remove it.  You can --nodeps it or remove Firstboot too.

rpm -e --nodeps system-config-soundcard

• In MythTV, add the following to the DVD Settings:

-ao alsa -ac hwac3,

-ao alsa:device=digital -ac hwac3,
or
-ao alsa:device=spdif -ac hwac3,

• You will also want to turn on "Enable AC3 to SPDIF Passthrough" in Settings >> General.
• With the above, Music Playback (Mythmusic) does not use the digital outputs.  Music playback can (theoretically) be made to use the digital outputs via the adsp device.   If I get this working I will post more info here.  UPDATE:  TV and Music Playback via S/PDIF now seem to work for me just by selecting   /dev/adsp  in the relevant setup sections.  I did not add any options line having to do with OSS emulation and the adsp device to modprobe.conf.  I did have to set the permissions on /dev/adsp   This may need to be put in /etc/rc.d/rc.local  so that it happens every boot.

chmod 666 /dev/adsp

• Troubleshooting
• /etc/init.d/alsasound restart    is your friend.
• Check the mixer settings.  Check them again after you do the above.  Check them again after you think about doing the above.  It seems that alsa likes to use any excuse at all to mute everything.
• Check your audio systems' settings.
• Try restarting whatever it was that you are trying to play.  I have on occassion changed no settings at all, and it has started to work when it was not previously.  Either alsa is not setting something correctly, it is an idiosyncrasy of the z555 hardware, or an idiosyncrasy of my reciever.
  

• Install the proper kmdl for your kernel version.  As of this writing it is ivtv-kmdl-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4smp.i686
• Also install the audio firmware:  ivtv-firmware-audio.noarch
• Do not add anything to /etc/modprobe.conf

• Download ivtv from:  http://ivtvdriver.org/index.php/Main_Page  As of this writing stable was 0.4.2
• Unpackage it someplace where you can build it.
• Follow the instructions (top to bottom) on the How-To page to build and install ivtv.
• Don't forget the firmware section.  NOTE:  You need the encoder and audio firmware, but not the decoder.  In addition, I suggest making symlinks, and not renaming the firmware files.  .
• At this point, /lib/firmware/ looks like this:
  

-r--r--r--   1 root root 376836 Jan  7 23:25 HcwFalcn.rom
-r--r--r--   1 root root  14264 Jan  7 23:25 HcwMakoA.ROM
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     12 Jan  7 23:28 v4l-cx2341x-enc.fw -> HcwFalcn.rom
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     12 Jan  7 23:28 v4l-cx25840.fw -> HcwMakoA.ROM

• An easier way to test it is to just run gmplayer, choose Open File, select all files, and navigate to /dev/video0.  You should see live TV. you can change channels with itvt-tune -c <channel number>.  Similarly, the other tuner should be on /dev/video1.  The FM radio works too.  FM radio apps for Linux are beyond the scope of this article.

• NOTE:  Depending on your kernel version, the RPM's for lirc may work.  Just follow the "Fedora Myth(TV)ology" site instructions for installing lirc, with the changes noted below.
• To install from source, first remove any RPM's related to lirc.  If you have already installed Myth, lirc is part of that install.  We need to remove them.  I just used an 'rpm -e --nodeps', but this may cause problems with future yum updates.  lirc needs to be added to the list of things not to update otherwise it will overwrite what we install from source.  (Correct instructions for this appreciated). 
• Updated:  The 0.8.0 Releases should work fine.  Grab the latest version from:  http://lirc.sourceforge.net/software/snapshots/
• Unpackage it in a convenient directory, and run setup.sh

./setup.sh

• Choose "Driver configuration" --> "USB devices"  -->  "Windows Media Center Remotes (new version, Phillips et al.)"
• Choose "Software configuration", and verify that only the first option (Compile tools for X-Windows) is selected.
• Choose "Save configuration and run configure".
• Do make, then make install.

• Add the following to /etc/modprobe.conf

alias char-major-61  lirc_mceusb2

• Perform the following copies/links of items that are distributions specific (and/or MythTV specific), and this not installed by the 'make install':  Remember, we are still at the top of your lirc source directory.   (Some of this is not needed if you installed from the RPM's.)
  

cp contrib/lirc.redhat /etc/init.d/lircd
cp contrib/lirc.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/lirc.rules
cp remotes/mceusb /etc/lircd.conf   (This one is an overwrite)
ln -s /usr/local/lib/liblirc_client.so.0  /usr/lib/liblirc_client.so.0

• In order for the lirc module to work, it must be loaded before the  ehci_hcd USB driver.  If we wish to test this now, we have a bit of a problem.  The wireless keyboard is USB.  As soon as we unload the driver, we loose the keyboard, and cannot enter the commands to re-load it.  We can either write a script that un-loads the ehci_hcd driver, loads the lirc driver, and then re-loads ehci_hcd, or we can do the following steps over the network:

modprobe -r ehci_hcd
modprobe lirc_mceusb2
modprobe ehci_hcd

• Do:

service lircd start
chkconfig lircd on

• We can now check our remote by running irw.  Press some keys on the remote, and the pressed key function should be listed out.  Use <control-c>  to get out of irw.    If this works as root, but not as the mythtv user, just fix the permissions on /dev/lircd
  
• Download my mceusb MythTV lircrc file and install it in /home/mythtv/.mythtv   Make sure it is just called lircrc    Check the permissions.  It needs to be accesible by the MthTV user.     UPDATE:  I am still adding functions for some of the MythTV supporting apps. I will be adding more, so check this file from time to time.  Help is always appreciated.  The original lircrc file for the mceusb2 remote is here.
  
• MythTV expects the path to this file to be ~/.mythtv/lircrc, the supporting apps expect it as  ~/.lircrc   Best solution is to create a link:
  

ln -s /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc /home/mythtv/.lircrc

• My lircrc contains an irexec section to eject the DVD drive.  For this to work this script needs to be in ~/.mythtv, needs to be executable, and irexec needs to be running:

irexec &

• You should probably put this someplace in the MythTV user's startup files.  Another good thing to put in lircrc would be an irexec directive to start mythfrontend.  This way, if mythfrontend dies (as it occasionally does), you don't need to hunt about for the keyboard to re-start it.  (Ahhhh... Couch potato'ing at its best.)
  
• If you did the above as root, change the permissions so that  /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc  is owned by the MythTV user.
• Your remote should work now in MythTV.  If it does not, reference the lirc install page, or on the "Fedora Myth(TV)ology" site.
• To make this work after a re-boot, we need to modify our startup files.  We want to load lirc_mceusb2 early in the boot sequence.  WARNING:  We are messing with early boot stuff here.  Please check your typing, and be careful.  A mistake here may render the system un-bootable.  You do still have that Fedora Core 4 boot/rescue disk handy don't you?  What follows is part of what Jarod Wilson does with a patch, I am just manually pasting in the lirc part:
• Open /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit in your favorite editor. (That in itself should make you cringe.)
• Paste in the following  just after the line that reads  echo -n $" audio"
  

# lirc drivers
for module in `/sbin/modprobe -c | awk '/^alias[[:space:]]+char-major-61+[[:space:]]/ { print $3 }'`; do
	load_module $module
done

• If the remote still does not work after a re-boot, do:

• I have occasional Mythfrontend crashes when exiting for watching live TV or a recorded program.  Others have reported similar experiences.
• Minor:  The system was causing traffic on my LAN when I did not think it should.  If I wanted things on my LAN that mis-behaved, I would have left Windows XP on the box.  I found out that it seemed to be constantly trying to do name resolution for some of the things inside my LAN.  I simply added my local machines to /etc/hosts, and the nonsense traffic stopped.  This may also be due to the fact that my search domain was not set correctly.  I also removed all of the Redhat Up2Date stuff.  I'll do the updates via yum. With these corrections, the box never speaks out of turn.
• Updated  If you are checking back on this board after previous visits, you will notice that I have removed some comments about a memory leak.  My system has been running for several weeks with no crashes or miss-behavior.   I have the system "In production" now, and the whole family uses it alot.  With things configured as above, the system comes up fine after a re-boot.  The only thing I have to do is un-mute the audio channels.