Frontend installation section covers the installation of MythTV frontend for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. The actual installation process is quite easy due to the provided MythTV 0.21 installation packages via Ubuntu package management. However, this tutorial shows you howto set up frontend when backend is running on different computer. I won't go over the Ubuntu installation procedure since there are multiple good guides available in the Internet. I start this guide from the assumption that you have just finished Ubuntu 8.04 installation.
My MythTV frontend is running on a machine descriped in hardware frontend section. The computer is swithed on on demand basis rather than being always on.
1. MythTV frontend installation
2. Digital sound via SPDIF
3. Shutdown frontend from menu
1. Install and configure MythTV frontend
Start frontend installation by running:
$ sudo apt-get install mythtv-frontend
In order to use your current user account for mythtv related tasks, add the username to mythtv group:
$ sudo addgroup username mythtv
To make it effective, log out and then log in again. Then start MythTV frontend by running:
$ mythfrontend
You are asked some basic settings. After answering those, you should be able to see MythTV start screen.
To install additional themes for MythTV, install theme package:
$ sudo apt-get install mythtv-themes
To change the theme in use, start MythTV and select Utilities / Setup » Setup » Appearance and change UI Theme.
To start mythfrontend automatically at login, create autostart file where you can add also other software you need to lauch at login.
Make it executable:
$ chmod +x autostart.sh
Then to make the system to actually run it at login, at GNOME desktop, select System » Preferences » Sessions » Add. Type descriptive name for it and browse the autostart.sh file for command. Next time you log in to GNOME, mythfrontend should run.