[[!meta title="Debian on Digimatrix"]]
Caution: this is what I was running in 2004. Nowadays we just use MythTV. Some of this stuff (like the X configuration) still applies, though, which is why I'm leaving the page up.
Introduction ------------ We have a Digimatrix hooked up to our high-definition television. We use it for a number of things: * Watching DVDs * Playing music from OGG and MP3 files * Recording and playing back television shows * Storing pictures and movies from our digital camera * Hosting our pictures and movies, along with those of our friends, on a web server * Playing Super Nintendo video games * Occasional desktop tasks MythTV and Freevo vs. KDE ------------------------- This sounds like a MythTV box, right? I tried MythTV, and Freevo, and while I was impressed with how pretty they were, I just couldn't get them working quite right. [MythTV](http://www.mythtv.org/) gave a blank screen trying to watch or record TV, with no useful error messages, and try as I might I just couldn't figure out what the problem was. After spending three days on it I gave up. [Freevo](http://freevo.sourceforge.net/) had its own problems; I don't remember exactly what they were now. I do remember feeling like Freevo was held together with bailing wire and chewing gum, while MythTV had a much more polished and easy-to-use feel to it. Neither of them worked well out of the box with the Digimatrix remote control. In the end, I decided it'd be easier for everybody if we just used KDE. It lets me bind actions to the key sequences the remote control sends out, and for most TV-type activities the remote does enough to move around in [Xine](http://xinehq.de/) and [Konqueror](http://www.konqueror.org/). The [x2x](http://x2x.dottedmag.net/) program allows us to use our laptops to control things over the wireless network, when the remote doesn't suffice. The Unix `at` utility and a little shell script lets us schedule TV recordings with more ease than a VCR. Best of all, there's no meta-information filed away in some obscure database layout. Everything is a file somewhere and can be manipulated with Konqueror or the shell. This turns out to be a very workable setup. h2. Installing the base system I had to install the testing (etch) installation CD for it to have a driver for the SiS 900 10/100 network card. Installation went smoothly enough. Everything is detected at boot time except: * LED Panel and front panel buttons (including volume) * Infrared reciever * 802.11b card ([Ralink rt2400 chipset](http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/)). While I've gotten the rt2400 drivers to work, the card won't seem to associate with my WAP until some other device does it first. This is so inconvenient that I've run a long CAT-5 cable under the house so I can use the 10/100 ethernet port. I installed the following additional packages to help me administer the machine:# aptitude install less zile screen ssh strace sudo ntp ntpdateWeb server -------------- Waldorf needed to run a web server to host photo albums.
# aptitude install mathopd stunnel4 php4-cgi rssh # aptitude install netpbm jhead exiftran libjpeg-mmx-progs libjpeg-progsI won't detail my web server configuration here, since that's unique to me. X ----
# aptitude install x-window-systemTo my surprise this brought in x.org. I run an HDTV over DVI, so to get full screen, I had to change the configuration as follows:
Section "Device" Identifier "Generic Video Card" Driver "sis" Option "ForceCRT1Type" "DVI-D" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Generic Monitor" Option "DPMS" HorizSync 30-65 VertRefresh 30-60 ModeLine "720p" 74.160 1280 1352 1392 1648 697 725 730 750 EndSectionI also had to add "720p" to the `Modes` of the `Display` subsection of `Screen`. You may notice I only have 697 pixels vertically. That's because my TV puts about 23 lines in the "overscan", preventing me from seeing my KDE toolbar. I haven't yet found a way to recenter the screen, this just chops off the bottom. As a hack, I put empty KDE toolbars on the top, left, and right borders. This keeps windows inside the viewable area. h2. KDE I like KDE. I've tried MythTV and Freevo and found it's just easier to run KDE and occasionally use a mouse and keyboard. The only thing we don't get is a snazzy interface to recording TV shows, but we don't tend to want to do that very often. I may work on a web interface to XML-TV listings later on.
# aptitude install kde kdmI don't know if this is typical or not, but Debian's KDE went on without asking me a single question. Kudos to the packagers. h2. Sound
# aptitude install alsa-base alsa-utilsWe use the Digimatrix's S/PDIF output (isn't it lame that it comes out the front?). I know from a previous installation that if you just use the defaults, you need to reboot between playing 2-channel audio and using Xine's pass-through option to play a 7.1-channel DVD. I'm sure it has something to do with the sound card resetting something or other. The solution seems to be having ALSA multiplex audio, and while I don't get why this works, work it does. I put the following into `/etc/asound.conf`:
pcm.asus-hw { type hw card 0 } pcm.!default { type plug slave.pcm "asus" } pcm.asus { type dmix ipc_key 1234 slave { pcm "hw:0,0" period_time 0 period_size 1024 buffer_size 4096 rate 48000 } } ctl.asus-hw { type hw card 0 }h2. A decent desktop At this point I was able to browse the web and play music using KDE's "JuK":http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html, so I took a break to dance around the living room with my 1-year-old daughter as ABBA sang to us. h2. Playing DVDs I like kaffeine, mostly because it's part of KDE and I'm a purist. It can play all sorts of movies and even has a nice startup screen that allows you to type in numbers for various actions (play from playlist, play DVD, etc.).
# aptitude install kaffeine### DVD's Content Scrambling System ### For some reason the DVD guys thought putting an encryption scheme on the DVD was going to slow down piracy. I don't see any evidence of that happening, but because of stupid laws in the US, you have to install illegal software (as in, illegal to own) in order to watch the DVDs you've bought or rented. To become a criminal, just run the following commands:
# wget http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/deb/libdvdcss2_1.2.5-1_i386.deb # dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.5-1_i386.debThe version and/or URL may have changed since I wrote this. Apologies in advance. ### DVD drive speed ### Linux does not use DMA on IDE devices when it boots up, you have to turn that on yourself. I'm not sure what the reason is for this, probably compatibility with some ancient thing that blows up if you attempt DMA. In any case, turning on DMA will allows your DVD drive to keep up with the data on the DVD.
# aptitude install hdparmTo turn on DMA, I put the following at the end of `/etc/hdparm.conf`. While I was at it, I turned ot DMA for the hard drive too.
/dev/dvd { dma = on } /dev/hda { dma = on }### Try a DVD ### At this point I was able to watch DVDs, so I did. I watched the first DVD of the first season of Buffy, which turned out to be a terrible idea since it's pretty dark and not very high quality. I played around with the gamma settings in the KDE configuration tool, and set my gamma at 1.25. Then I adjusted the brightness, contrast, and saturation of Kaffeine, and got what I think is a pretty nice-looking configuration. h2. The remote control What good is a home theater system if you have to get up off your butt to press buttons? This is America, man! I want to be able to eat cheez-doodles and watch porn all night without having my feet hit the floor, ever. ### The keyboard thingy ### My Digimatrix came with this IR receiver thingy that goes in between the keyboard and the keyboard port on the Digimatrix. It synthesizes keypresses in response to your remote. Pretty slick! This is good enough for most things, and for a long time I just bound remote keystrokes to do certain things in KDE applications, and to certain actions in Xine. ### lirc ### lirc is the Linux Infra-Red Control system. It provides a standard interface to various IR recievers and remote controls, and supplies events to whatever wants to listen to it. KDE has a module to listen to it, so I figured I'd give it a go.
# aptitude install kdelircUnfortunately, lirc 0.7 (the version in debian testing and unstable) does not compile on Linux 2.6.12 and newer, so I had to install from source code.