LinHES

LinHES is an open source attempt to make the installation of a GNU/Linux operating system and the MythTV media center software as trivial as possible. It includes everything one needs to get a decent settop box up and running in a shortest time as possible.

Distributed as a dual-arch Live CD

The distribution can be downloaded via Softoware’s secure servers or from its official website as a single, dual-arch Live CD ISO image of approximately 700MB in size, engineered to run on either 64-bit (x86_64) or 32-bit (i386) hardware platforms. You must write the ISO image to a CD disc or USB flash drive of 1GB or higher capacity in order to boot it from the BIOS of a computer.

Boot options

From the boot menu of the Live CD, you can boot the live environment with default options and drivers, directly start the graphical installer without boot splash screen (verbose mode) or using the VNC install method, boot an existing OS, run the Memtest86+ utility to test the RAM, run the HDT (Hardware Information Tool) utility to view detailed hardware information, reboot the machine or boot the distribution on special hardware, such as Atomic Ant.

MythTV at its best

Before you can access the MythTV user interface, you will be prompted by some sort of a welcome screen that includes links to an official installation guide, the main bug tracker of the distribution and the support channels. Clicking the large OK button will redirect you to the first time setup wizard where it is a must to select a language and country. Then you can install the distribution or just run the MythTV frontend.

Bottom line

Summing up, LinHES is a great and popular distribution of Linux that uses the MythTV open source media center software and supports a wide range of computers, so you will be able to easily assemble a box that has the following functions: PVR/DVR, Jukebox, Picture Viewer and Game Station.

What is new in this release:

• LinHES R8.4 updates MythTV to 0.28-fixes as well as updates to the kernel, system libraries, nvidia drivers and many other parts of LinHES. LinHES R8.4 has moved to OpenPHT, a fork of Plex Home Theater and Kodi has been updated to 16.1. Also, the /myth/recordings directory has been improved to better support Plex media scanning. Simply create a Plex library with Myth in the name (i.e. Myth TV Shows , Myth Movies or Myth Sports) and the directory (/myth/recordings/TV Shows, /myth/recordings/Movies or /myth/recordings/Sports) and the Plex library will be re-scanned when /myth/recordings is updated.

What is new in version 8.4.1:

• LinHES R8.3 brings updates to the kernel, system libraries, nvidia drivers, the latest MythTV 0.27.4-fixes, and many other parts of LinHES. LinHES R8.3 now includes the option to install Plex Home Theater. Additionally XBMC has been updated to Kodi.

What is new in version 8.2:

• LinHES R8.2 brings updates to the kernel, system libraries, Service Menu options, MythTV 0.27.4, LinHES theme and many other parts of LinHES.

What is new in version 8.1:

• Changes:
• MythTV 0.27/fixes
• Removal of classic local website
• New stuff:
• Xymon alerts will appear on the console as well via osd
• New default LinHES Theme

What is new in version 8.0:

• Changes:
• i686 has been dropped, all packages are compiled for x86_64.
• Old nVidia drivers have been dropped. The current nVidia drivers support the 8xxxx series, gt2xx and later.
• xconfig.sh will no longer generate full xorg.conf files, instead it places snippets in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
• Fbsplash was removed and replaced with plymouth
• rrdstats was removed and replaced with xymon, which is part of supplemental web (installed by default)
• grub2 replaced grub
• tightvnc replaced by tigervnc
• Fluxbox has been replaced by enlightenment as the default window manager. set_windowmanager.sh may be used to restore fluxbox
• Remote selection was reorganized. Now there are 4 major types of classifications, which should make it easier to find more common remotes.
• Partition change, instead of 3 partitions there are now 7 for the main disk. Home and /data/srv/mysql are separate partitions. This will make updates even easier and help prevent system corruption due to a filled disk.
• The mount point for myth data has moved to /data/storage/disk0/media /myth is provided as a symlink for legacy purposes.
• Package cache has moved from the main drive to /data/storage/disk0/pacman/pkg
• Standalone system type has been dropped, because of network changes within MythTV it's no longer feasible.
• rc.conf was dropped, as it's no longer used for system configuration
• mythbackup/mythrestore have been replaced by lh_system_backup/lh_system_restore.
• Zoneminder/mythzoneminder are no longer half-implemented in the service menu.
• New stuff:
• Language selection screen during install
• Overall a better system integration, both as a standalone system and with remote frontends.
• Added a new OSD message subsystem. This stops messages from overlapping and should keep things looking more consistent.
• Added an option that will cause slave and frontend systems to wait for the masterbackend to become available. This is enabled by default.
• New version of add_storage. This is a program to make adding both new and old storage very simple. It asks a couple questions and takes care of the dirty work. Storage will be added to /data/storage/$drive_serialnumber
• NFS and Samba share definitions are auto generated. The share information is provided by add_storage.
• For first time setups autocard.py will detect tuner cards, create static dev nodes, and add them to mythtv. Cards detected include pvr-xxx, dvb cards, hdhomerun, ceton infinitv, hdpvr. For the ceton infinitv it's expected that the cards network is running at it's default values.
• Frontend system, will run /etc/X11/autostart when starting up regardless of the windowmanger selected. If you need to start custom things for X, this is the place to put it.
• vnc support was added for both the main display and running a seperate session. If enabled via the service menu the seperate session will be located at $ip:1 and the mirror of the main display will be $ip:2
• New website on the masterbackend. Things such as system health checks, backup/restore, updates, logs and much more can be found on the local website.
• Automated and install of a a self-signed SSL certificate
• Integrated channel change script for set top boxes. This script matches the transmitter # with the transmitter number in /etc/systemconfig. To use the new script with the first transmitter, enter "change_channel_wrapper.sh -n1 -c" as the tuner change channel script in mythtv-setup. Previous LinHES releases left all of this up to the end user.
• patched version of mythutils to save/restore/clone settings between systems.
• Options to mythbackend/mythfrontend can be added in /etc/conf.d/mythbackend or /etc/conf.d/mythfrontend. The startup scripts reference the MYTH_ARGS variable which is sourced from their respective file.
• Many more behind the scenes changes.

What is new in version 7.4:

• netcat added to repos
• Upgrade transmission-cli to it's current version
• MythTV 0.25.2
• RipD
• Update HandBrake to 0.9.8