Anyone have any success loading MythTV without using the precompiled NotMyth distro? I'm curious to see if I'll be able to get it running on SuSE 9.2 Pro or Whitebox. Thanks!

I can be installed on that distro dude.. although u might have to download and install new Qt library http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.2

I have got it to work with Gentoo so has many other people I know, also many people have gotten it to work with Fedora Core.

Here is a list of many HOWTO's different distributions.
http://mythtvtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65

I have been running Mythtv on Suse distros since 7.1 (8.2 currently).
It works fine.

Awsome, what's your setup like hardware wise? Also did you have any unusual dependencies to resolve? Also, I intend to build my Myth box as a standalone and was wondering how vital SQL is and what functionality would be lost if it's not used.

You would not be able to use Mythtv if you do not have an sql database created!
Mythtv is heavly depended on MySQL. You don't need a much to run mythtv and mysql for a single analog card, Min Requirements are P3 500 with 256 megs of ram, many people have gotten this setup to work with hardware cards like the Happauge PVR-250/350 cards but this is the BARE Minimum. For playback and record at same time much more is needed also for dual tuners or HiDef recordings.

I know the hardware requirements. My problem is I haven't touched SQL before.

I intend to use my AMD Athlon XP 2500+; 512MB memory, 250GB hdd, 16x DVD-RW. The only thing I'm not sure of are which cards to use. I want playback and record at the same time but I was not aware that you needed two cards. I thought two+ cards were only needed if you wanted to do PIP.

I'm a total newb to Myth, but am in the proces of getting it installed and configured on FC3. You've got plenty of hardware there, assuming you're going to use a Hauppauge card for encoding. (like the 250/350) If you have the 350, then I don't believe you need a seperate video card, as the Hauppauge 350 also includes a DECODER for playback. However, from what I've been reading it sounds like the 250 with a seperate vid. card is the way to go, partially because the 350 only has S-video outs - whereas a dedicated vid. card will probably have DVI/component outs in addition to S-video.

I don't think you need to know much about mySQL to run Myth. After the inital setup/config, you probably don't need to mess with it much. If you haven't already, check out this Myth walkthrough: http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php

Yes it's geared for FC3, but I would still think much of that info would be useful for almost any distro. Good luck!

Thanks a lot man! I'm probably going to go with the PVR 250 and a dedicated video card. I'm just trying to figure out which. Let me know if you run into any strange problems and how you got around them. Thanks again.

No problem. I've been told to stick to Nvidia chipsets for video cards with Myth. I haven't gotten one yet, but I'm planning to get a Chaintech 5200.

Nice. I'm aiming to use a MSI MicroATX form factor board so that I can put the entire system into a box about the size of a TiVO. No reason to waste a full ATX case.

To answer your question from waay before: my hardware is similar to yours (2700+, 512M RAM, Nvidia MX4000). I use 2 analog bttv cards--Avermedia bttv848 chipset from 6-7 yrs ago, and a Leadtek bttv878 card.

You mean watch something (playback) that is already recorded, while something else records? If so, you don't need 2 cards, one capture card will accomplish what you want.

That's what I thought. I knew that to watch live tv while recording you needed two cards. Thanks for clarifying.