Mythbuntu Control Center (MCC)

After the installation and setup are complete, and the system has rebooted, the first thing you will want to do is go to the MythTV setup menu and open the Mythbuntu Control Center at the bottom.

You have to put in your admin password to open the Mythbuntu Control Center. The Mythbuntu Control Center (MCC) is what really sets Mythbuntu apart from Knoppmyth and Mythdora. You should be able to do all of your standard maintence from within the MCC. The MCC is also expandable to include whatever options developers want to add. The updates happen during system updates without needed to change anything.

The first thing to do in the MCC is go to Advanced Managment. From the Advance Managment page you can install extra software using the Synaptec Package Manager, launch a terminal, manage and apply updates, and configure MySQL tweaks not usually available on a standard MythTV installation. First thing to do is launch the update manager to get your system up to date. The update process will be very familiar to any *ubuntu user. Apply the updates and restart the computer. The restart is more of a precautionary step to make sure the system still boots and loads everything it should.

After the reboot, go back to the MCC and load the proprietary drivers for your video card if you did not do that during the initial setup. If you have a Nvidia video card, you can go to the Launch Nvidia Settings tool to set up your resolution for a HDTV or EDTV.

Don't pay attention to the fact that AMD drivers were used in the above screenshot. I only did that because I took the screenshots with my virtual machine and actual pictures from my real MythTV computer.


If you do not have a ATI or Nvidia video card it is still a good idea to launch the Xorg Config to set up your video resolution.

With the driver installed, reboot again, or restart the X session, to have the changes take affect.

Most of the important settings are now done. If you want to you can watch and record as much TV as your harddrive will hold. Just to make this walk through more thorough we will take a closer look at the rest of the MCC because that is the main feature that sets Mythbuntu apart from MythDora and Knoppmyth.

The MCC system roles is where you can set up the computer to install and use the regular *ubuntu desktop. If you choose to install a full desktop you will be presented with a progress bar showing you what is happening while you download the requested desktop files. You are also able to change backend and frontend options for MythTV. You have the options of setting up the machine to be a primary backend, secondary backend, or not have a backend running at all. This only applies if you have more than one machine running MythTV, but it can save you a lot of terminal time when it comes time to expand your system. Frontend options are also available allowing you to turn off the frontend on a machine completely if you only want to use the machine to record TV or run user jobs.

The MythTV Configuration page gives you a great place to run the MythTV Setup without having to quit MythTV, open a terminal, kill the backend, and start the setup manually. This worked flawlessly every time I tried it and saved more time than I thought it would.

The first time you run MythTV Setup from here your user will need to be added to the root user group but don't worry, that will all happen automatically when you click to launch the setup. You will be logged out and back in but once you are logged back in the MythTV setup should start.

Applications & Plugins is another place where the Mythbuntu Control Center shines. While I am sure it is possible to leave out plugins from Mythdora and Knoppmyth I have never seen a simple check box for each plugin without having to leave MythTV.

An option to change or set the MythWeb password is another time savor that will keep you out of the forums and using MythTV.

The media playback applications can be installed from the Synaptec Package Manager but to make things simple the Mythbuntu team thought checkboxes would be more effective. For common media applications this is a great addition.

Remote control is the same as we saw in the initial configuration, but it is great to also have this option in the MCC. The bottom check box allows Mythbuntu to create remote mappings per-program instead of using one button mapping for the whole system. This is supposed to make things easier when you run programs not a part of MythTV.

Knoppmyth has a great web admin page, far more advanced than this, but the the MCC System Services page gives you a very simple and very condensed version of what you may or may not need on your system. Most of the options are self explanitory but if you don't know what the service is the description next to the drop down box should be able to explain everything you need.

Artwork & Login Behavior once again is all about saving you time when you want to do something new with Mythtv.

If you already installed a full Ubuntu desktop on top of your Mythbuntu installation, you can set the system to either log into MythTV at startup or log into your regular Ubuntu Desktop.

If you are in the standard Ubuntu desktop and want to change this setting again, don't worry, the Mythbuntu team thought of that too and added the MCC to the administration options in Ubunutu.

Because Mythbunutu is a "all in one" system for MythTV, it would not be complete without the ability to play DVDs. That is where the Proprietary Codecs configuration page comes in handy. From here you can simply check what codecs you want to install on the system and then hit apply.

These checkboxes will add the sources to your sources.list file for you and whenever there are updates for the codecs they will show up under the standard update manager in the Advanced Mangement page.

Mythbuntu

1. Mythbuntu Overview
2. Mythbunu Installation
3. Mythbuntu MythTV Configuration
4. Mythbuntu Control Center
5. Mythbuntu Summary

This article was written and researched by Justin Garrison, you can read more from Justin at http://1n73r.net/.