[BUGA] Sell me an Apple!

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

I give up!  Getting multimedia to work on BSD or Linux is just more
pain than I want to go through.  Today I started again trying to
install MythTV on a box at home.  I had previously had so much trouble
getting it to work with FreeBSD that I decided to use Ubuntu instead.
That wasn't as successful as I hoped: some things worked better than
FreeBSD, but others worse.  In particular, mplayer didn't work after
installation (missing fonts), and there was no obvious way to get
support for my tuner card.  If anybody has a pointer about how to
proceed on the tuner front, I'd be grateful.  dmesg says:

  [4294696.025000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK2] enabled at IRQ 10
  [4294696.026000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:08.0[A] -> Link [LNK2] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
  [4294696.026000] cx88[0]: subsystem: 1462:8606, board: MSI TV- at nywhere Master [card=7,autodetected]
  [4294696.189000] cx88[0]/0: found at 0000:01:08.0, rev: 5, irq: 10, latency: 32, mmio: 0xe6000000
  [4294696.215000] tuner 2-0061: chip found @ 0xc2 (cx88[0])
  [4294696.225000] tuner 2-0061: microtune: companycode=3cbf part=42 rev=2f
  [4294696.230000] tuner 2-0061: microtune MT2050 found, OK
  [4294696.307000] tda9885/6/7: chip found @ 0x86
  [4294696.327000] cx88[0]/0: registered device video0 [v4l2]
  [4294696.328000] cx88[0]/0: registered device vbi0
  [4294696.329000] cx88[0]/0: registered device radio0

In any case, I'm fed up.  I have real work to do.  At a recent ADUUG
lunch, people suggested that an Apple might be the answer.  So I
researched that, and I'm still not sure.  Once upon a time, a Mac Mini
was so cheap that it was almost a no-brainer, but the prices have gone
right up.  But I have space, so I don't need a Mac Mini.  But what do
I need?  After examining the material, I have lots of questions:

- What machine?  A G4 PowerMac looks like it would be a good choice.
  But how much power do I need to drive a 1280x720 display?  In other
  words, what frequency processor should I be looking for?  How much
  memory?

- Can I even get MacOS X to display at this resolution?  The salesman
  at NextByte wasn't able to confirm, and browsing through the setup
  menus it looks as if Mac OS hasn't heard of this standard
  resolution, though I hope that it will recognize it if the projector
  tells it to do so.

- Do I need a different display card?  The projector understands HDMI,
  but I'd need to get a cable, not the end of the world.

- If I get a machine with PCI slots, how easy is it to get Mac OS to
  understand cards such as the TV- at nywhere described above?  The CD
  that came with the tuner doesn't support Apple.

- Some of the machines on eBay come with Mac OS 9.  How much trouble
  will I have running Mac OS X on them?

- Some people on eBay offer machines with Mac OS X but without CD, and
  others offer "used" CDs/DVDs of Mac OS X.4.  Is this legal?

- The digital tuners I've seen for Apple are USB devices, and they're
  expensive.  Corresponding PCI cards are available from round $100.
  Is there any chance of getting one to work with Apple?

- Are there any good mailing lists on these topics?

- Any other gotchas I should know?

This doesn't mean that I'm turning my back on (free) BSD or Linux, but
as I said, I have better things to do.  And many of you will know from
previous messages that I'm not sold on eye candy, and that I'm
somewhat ambivalent about the PowerBook G3 that I have (and not
because of the speed).  Also, my apologies to the Linuxsa people, but
I know that there are some Apple heads out there.

Greg
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