[PLUG] Howto connect MythTV to an old analog TV

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

If you have an old laptop and old TV with no VGA port, for a few bucks 
you can get a gadget to get some more life out of them.

I just installed a MythTV front-end on an old Dell Mini9 and connected 
it to a large, but ancient analog CRT TV for $20 using 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00351VWKI/ + 
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Audio-Cable-Splitter-1-Mini/dp/B00004Z5CP/ 
and it all works great, if a little cluttered with cables (Mini9 power, 
Ethernet, VGA out, USB power for adapter, audio out).

The picture isn't all that great, and the DIP switches were set to PAL 
by default which was confusing because it *almost* worked, while I 
expected PAL v. NTSC to either work or not-work.  So at first I assumed 
since it almost worked it was correctly set to NTSC.  Bad assumption and 
I should have RTFM'd, but the docs are pretty bad.  Still...it all works 
and is good enough to use while on the treadmill or whatever.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04, which I happened to have a USB key for.  But I 
had to hack [1] it, because it did not want to install on < 4.2G.  And I 
should have bothered to create a Mythbuntu USB key because the regular 
install is Unity, which does work better on the tiny Mini9 screen, but 
which also installs an amazing amount of unnecessary crap.  Oh well. 
It's complaining about the SSD, so if/when that goes I'll swap in 
another Mini9 4G SSD (see my old PLUG posts about that) and re-install 
Mythbuntu.

Later,
JP
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[1] 
http://juliusbeckmann.de/blog/ubuntu-install-on-a-disk-with-less-than-4-4-gb-workaround.html 

* sudo vi /usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/misc.py
	"min_disk_size = size * 2" --> 	"min_disk_size = size * 1"
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