Using a Tv Card With a form of Linux

Um ive recently been looking into getting linux as ive heard that it boots a lot faster than windows. I dont really know the details of it yet and how id get it to work but all i want to do is find out a few things:

I would like to dual boot with one os being my windows installation and one being my linux installation that i can access my tv card on. Id like to access my tv card using linux as i heard its faster at starting up than windows xp (correct me if im wrong) - i mean id like my linux partition to start up like a tv really but also be able to use my modded windows xp as well.

I have a 120gb p4 2.66ghz pc with a compro dvbt300 tv card and a his x800xl 256mb agp graphics card. i Also have a 160gb external hard drive as well.

I dont expect it all to be possible (due to driver issues and such) but id like to know how to go about making it work if it is possible.

Um i have like no experiance with starting up a Linux Pc.

What id like to do is turn on my pc and pick the linux operating system to load....then at startup load the tv card app straight away.

Oh yer and i thought this was kinda cross platform as im talking about more than one os and dual booting....not about cross platform apps...please correct me if i misinterpreted this form of thread

#362541

1) dont switch operating systems cause it boots faster, thats a very very stupid reason

2) linux doesnt nescarly boot any faster of slower

3) http://www.ubuntu.com/ < check there to see if your TV decoder is supported and use that, if it is configureation will be minimal.

#362547

im not really switching as such i just wanted to know if it would start up dvb faster....i wouldnt be that stupid to just change my os for a teeny reason like that

#362550

Your best bet would be to google for a 'Linux HTPC distribution'. (Home Theater PC)

This will get you a media center (boot from CD or install) distribution that lacks all non-media related stuff and therefore boots faster - general purpose distributions like Ubuntu are way too loaded.

Among others, try these:

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/ (especially the links section)

http://linuxtv.org/

http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/

Edit: try this one too:

http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html

The problem may be your TV-Card: Drivers aren't as readily available as under Windows, especially if the hardware is new.

#362561

wooo thanks ill try those .... thanks herdy werdy

um ive heard that someone is making the drivers for the tuner on mt card but im not sure if they are going to be for the whole card

#362619

I am curious as to why you need to switch to linux to do this.

I dont think that linux will necessarily give you faster boot times- and definately not as fast as just turning on a tv.

It may be good to setup such a linux system for a standalone HTPC (think XBMC) but I would not recommend creating dual boot just for this.

#362659

it was just a thought really....no probs, though atleast now i know it wont make much of a difference...

#362717