Today we'll be looking at MythDora, the third and final entry in our MythTV distro roundup.  We'll look at the ease of setup, feature completeness, and extra perks it offers you, the user.  So sit back and enjoy this quick overview of MythDora.

Installation

The installation starts out in typical Linux fashion with a standard grub screen.   But the background on this one gives you more of a DVR feel right from the start than the other two MythTV distros we've tested so far.  The boot screen offers you six basic options:

Install or Upgrade an existing system
Install or Upgrade an existing system (text mode)
Auto-install default system
Rescue installed system
Boot from hard drive
Memory Test

The first two offer you a step by step expert installation of the entire system in either graphical or text mode.  The third gives you the ability to automatically install a default version of the distro.  If you're someone who likes to poke and preen and tweak till the cows come home, the first two are perfect for you.  If you don't, I highly recommend the third option.  ^_^

To get started with the automatic install, you simply choose the third option on the boot menu, select your timezone, enter a six character password for root, and then grab something to drink while you wait for the installer to complete.  So far this has been one of the easiest initial installs out of the three MythTV distros I've tested so far.  The advanced mode asks quite a few more questions, like disk partitioning and minor system tweaks, but nothing overwhelming.  Interestingly enough, once it's done installing packages, you're asked to reboot.  Yes, that's it.  Just three steps (four if you count the reboot) and you're done with the initial install.   MythDora has to have the easiest install of the three leading MythTV distros.  So does it remain this easy the rest of the way through?  Let's find out.

Post Install Setup

Upon booting up for the first time, you're greeted by yet another setup screen.   But this merely sets up your system for first time use.  The amazing part is how easy it is to go through this part.  Unless you want to change anything, all the defaults are already specified for you and you simply need to click "forward" to agree to them.  The last step is to click "Setup MythTV".  The irony of that is, other than choosing your remote, and answering whether or not you have an IR blaster, the rest is essentially the same as the previous setup, which is more or less just clicking ok or next until you run out of options.

After this is done, you are immediately dropped into your MythTV frontend, ready to use it at a moment's notice.  Up to this point, MythDora has been one of the most painless setups I've encountered in a long, long time.  It really holds up to its claim that it's one of the easiest MythTV distros to install and use... up to this point, I fully agree with them!

Exploring the System

Once into the actual MythTV interface, you're greeted with the typical six section setup.  Everything here is pretty much par for the course, as you're asked to setup your TV capture card, video sources and more.  The interesting part is how much of the other setup stuff is done for you already.  You only have a few other steps to complete at this point until you're ready to begin using your system.

The user interface for MythDora has essentially the same available features as was seen in MythBuntu, save for a seemingly redundant feature for internet streams.  There are both "play online streams" and "Internet streams" menu options that land you in exactly the same place.  The TV, video, music, image, and other sections within the system are organized and laid out in a much nicer fashion than was seen in the two previous distros.

If you're an internet video junkie, you'll find that the list of Internet streams in MythDora is a bit more up to date than either of the two previous distributions and playback is much more stable.  I didn't think it could get more stable than MythBuntu, but after seeing MythDora, MythBuntu's handling of the streams seemed almost clumsy and questionable.

Now once you're done using MythTV and you want to do something else, MythDora can be configured to either be a pure MythTV DVR system, or it can switch between being a DVR, and a desktop.  Yes, a desktop.  With MythTV turned off, MythDora switches to being just a normal Fedora 9 system.  It's a little lean on installed software, such as Firefox or Open Office, but if you really want to install those and use your MythDora as a desktop as well, then then that's very easy to do.  Just click on "applications", then "add/remove software" and install whatever you want.

Conclusion

Overall I loved the system.  It's dead easy to setup, easy to use, and very flexible and expandable.  If you ask which of the three distros I liked best, that would depend on what kind of person was using them (ie, newbie vs. experienced user) and how much they wanted to tinker.  For the new user, MythDora is the king all the way.  For hackability, tweakability, and just plain old uber geeky fiddling, I'd say MythBuntu.   And if you're a pioneer who likes to work with young distros or projects that are just getting off the ground, KnoppMyth would be the one for you.

And that brings us to the end of our roundup, since these are really the only mainstream MythTV distros available right now.  There are others, but given none that are classified as actual "distros" just yet, we'll be stopping here.  In the future, we'll keep looking at more as soon as they become available.