Building An Ubuntu MythTV Box

The MythTV setup we are building today is a combined backend and front-end. For storing these recordings we had used two Serial ATA 2.0 hard drives from Seagate. For the operating system, audio recordings for MythMusic, and other files we had used a Seagate 7200.10 320GB hard drive. The other hard drive used was for the MythTV recordings, which was a Seagate 7200.10 500GB. Both of these hard drivers have Perpendicular Recording Technology and 16MB of cache and are backed by a Seagate five-year warranty.

Originally we had planned to use a NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT 256MB graphics card in this MythTV setup due to its passive heatsink and video playback capabilities. However, NVIDIA has abandoned XvMC support in its Linux drivers for the GeForce 8 family. The AMD/ATI Linux drivers also lack XvMC support. What we had eventually decided upon was the integrated graphics on the Tyan Toledo i965R. The Intel GMA 3000 is a slow performer for gaming, but the open-source Linux drivers will contain support for XvMC in the near future. After some testing of the MythTV and the GMA 3000, we were satisfied with this integrated graphics processor.

The rest of this system was based upon the hardware used in our recent review of the SilverStone Sugo SG03. The Sugo SG03 is an excellent microATX chassis that can work extremely well for a HTPC/PVR machine. The SilverStone SG03 is made out of aluminum and features an extra large mesh grill on the side and front. This is one of our most favorite microATX cases to date so it was an obvious choice for integrating this into our MythTV build. Other hardware included 2GB of RAM, ASUS DVD-RW SATA-based burner, Intel Pentium D 820, SilverStone Element 500W power supply, and the SilverStone Nitrogon NT06 cooler.