[conspire] (forw) Re: New guest at CABAL, this Saturday: MythTV, Bluetooth, video, TV

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Alon Gotesman <gotesman at gmail.com> -----

Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 12:49:05 -0700
From: Alon Gotesman <gotesman at gmail.com>
To: installers at linuxmafia.com
Subject: Re: [conspire] New guest at CABAL, this Saturday: MythTV, Bluetooth, video, TV

Rick,

I'm bring my box, but do I need anything else?  Specifically, should I haul
my monitor?  I know your website says yes, but I wanted to confirm.

As for your suggestions and comments:

My only attempt has been to get Ubuntu to communicate with my Treo 650.  The
two can see each other, but not actually pair.  It's frustrating, although
there's always a chance that my Bluetooth USB dongle is bad (I got it on
eBay and had occasional problems with it with Windows).

As for my tuner card, it's a DViCO FusionHDTV5
Gold<http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVICO_FusionHDTV5_Gold>.
I only worried about it being Linux-compatible (which it is, according to my
research) and didn't pay attention to chipset.  A Google search showed is
showing that it uses Conexant CX23882 chipset.

I'll see you later this afternoon!

Alon

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:06:49 -0700
To: Alon Gotesman <gotesman at gmail.com>
Cc: installers at linuxmafia.com
Subject: Re: [conspire] New guest at CABAL, this Saturday: MythTV, Bluetooth, video, TV
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Alon Gotesman (gotesman at gmail.com):

> I'm bring my box, but do I need anything else?  Specifically, should I haul
> my monitor?  I know your website says yes, but I wanted to confirm.

Yes and no.  The main advantage of bringing your monitor is that you can be
absolutely certain your X11 configuration of your Linux distribution
will work with your monitor -- because you'll have set up your
distribution using your monitor.

I have two LCD monitors that people may borrow on a first-come,
first-served basis.  One is small-ish (maybe 15" diagonal), and normally
used just only for servers.  The other is 17" diagonal, and a reasonable
desktop monitor.  However, I have really no idea what its maximum
resolution and supported frequencees are.

> My only attempt has been to get Ubuntu to communicate with my Treo 650.  The
> two can see each other, but not actually pair.  It's frustrating, although
> there's always a chance that my Bluetooth USB dongle is bad (I got it on
> eBay and had occasional problems with it with Windows).

I sympathise.  I'm honestly not sure what is involved in getting Linux
kernel driver support for your USB Bluetooth device.  As a very general
heuristic, USB interfaces to the more exotic types of devices (e.g.,
ADSL modems) are often Linux-problematic.

You might wish to see if you can buy an inexpensive Bluetooth adapter --
preferably PCI, if such things exist -- which could serve as a
replacement, or alternately might just help during our debugging phase
and thereafter sit on your shelf as a spare.  That would help separate
hardware from software problems.

If you do buy such hardware, it's best to if possible stick to chipsets
that are documented on primary Linux Web pages as known to be supported
-- as opposed to just going to the store, buying, and then hoping for
the best.

> As for my tuner card, it's a DViCO FusionHDTV5 Gold....

Looks like you've already found a primary Internet information resource,
about Linux support for that card.  I have no relevant experience,
myself.  

Peter and Mark, who've both responded to you separately, are actually
_much_ better help resources on this matter than am I, largely because I
personally haven't worked with that caregory of hardware.


----- End forwarded message -----