Thread: Help! Bailing out of window$ at last!

ok,

I do not have cable and do not plan on having cable. I only want to receive local OTA channels and FTA channels.

On the windows before it died, I had two tuner cards in the pc, one is for FTA satellite and one is for OTA local TV.

The OTA channels I am able to pick up on my home made antenna are apparently digital only channels. I can get KFDM, KBMT, KBTV, KVHP and a number of local church channels. They came in pretty good most of the time but my antenna is really a horrible botchwork nightmare. I had no earthly idea what I was doing and more or less was trying to copy antennas I saw in the forum. I did not at all understand what I was doing and the antenna *just barely* works.

But, the channel I am really interested in is KPLC-DT3 in Lake Charles, LA and is about 60+ miles away. I think that it is not a digital channel.

To be honest, I do not understand all the new "digital" channels since they turned off the old channels. I had a number of old TV's that worked great and now only tune in static. Way to go on saving the environment...

I ended up getting a new flat screen TV last year and I still can't figure out how to use the stupid thing. I've just had it connected to the pc and the pc just put satellite and stuff on it. All I had to do was turn the TV on, the pc did everything.

Now that the pc is dead we are having to watch TV using the TV as a TV and not as a big pc screen. It works but it's stupid. I hate the remote control and I can't even figure out how to go to different channels except by the up and down buttons.

Anyway.. So I was planning on buying a great big, tall antenna to put up outdoors so I can get KPLC (this tv). There are other channels listed in the area I would like to check out but I can't find them because my home made antenna isn't digital I guess. Or whatever the new thing is. I don't know..

But as for going back to windows? I would rather not. I hate it. It's expensive, causes nothing but trouble, can't be relied upon, etc...

My pc I use online is running ubuntu linux. I installed it myself. It was really easy to do. I only use it for basic things but it never, ever crashes, can't get viruses, spyware, popups, or any of that other nonsense. It runs and runs and runs and I never shut it off and it never messes up. It just works.

Windows? Never works right. Crashes constantly. Costs money. Crashes constantly. Crashes constantly. Crashes constantly. Crashes constantly. Crashes constantly. etc. etc....

I can't understand how the world puts up with windows. No wonder there's so much computer crime, the stupid thing is about as stupid as stupid can get.

And the last time something like this happened, reinstalling windows made me lose EVERYTHING I had on the pc. It just said "Oh, you've got stuff you want to keep? Too bad, windows is wiping it all out now, just to annoy you and cause you grief. Please stand by while windows trashes your life......."

I just really am sick of it. I've lost too many things on windows, things I can't replace and it's cost me a LOT of time and money in the past (crooked repair centers)..

The linux may be over my head, at the moment, but I think I would rather learn how to make that work so I can finally have an end to the trouble, a big goodbye to windows. As for the pc getting a virus? I don't see how but that alone is more than enough justification for me to ditch that nonsense and change it to virus free linux.

So anyway...

So now I have this mythbuntu but when I try to put it on a disc it says it's for a CD. All I have are DVD's. Is there any way to install it without a CD? I have none.
I do have plenty of DVD's though.

It is "mythbuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso" and is 593.9MB
no matter what I do it refuses to let me put it on a DVD.
I mean really. I didn't think they still make CD's. I haven't used a CD in years and don't know anyone else that has either. I thought iTunes killed those off years ago.

I am very much disappointed that the mythbuntu has no instructions about how to set it up. It looks complex and apparently is targeted to the propeller heads that eat that stuff for breakfast. And it doesn't even really show or tell what it even does or how it does it! They just assume you know what it does already and are there to get it and do it on your own because you are in the know already.

I have a Coolsat but it won't let me watch Fashion TV or any of the PBS channels.

And of course it doesn't let me record anything at all, doesn't tune in local OTA tv and won't change channels on a schedule. It's so, archaic. And basic. At least on the pc it was changing channels all day by itself on a schedule to my favorite shows and recording PBS History Detectives for me each Saturday morning. What I did NOT like about the pc is that it distorted the picture so it looked like the video was being sucked into the event horizon of a black hole. That was annoying. It only started doing that after I let the ex come mess with things for a week.
Before that the pictures were always pretty good.

I don't even know how to get the coolsat hooked into the bedroom TV now, the video cables are like, waaaaaaay different. Not even close.

My best friend, her ex boyfriend has pizza tv and it does tivo (I think that's what it is) and it more or less works kind of like the pc was working, only better with more options, I think. I just don't want the pizza tv. They don't have many channels I even like, they have a LOT of channels I do NOT like and they make you pay for a whole lot of channels I would never, ever watch, just to get the few that I might. It's like $100 a month to get the level that has the ones I do like. They won't let you buy only the ones you want, you have to pay top dollar for the like, golden calf package. Grrrr.... Not fair. So because of that, I'm just not interested.

The pc, like I had it, or close to like I had it, was pretty decent. I hated that it wouldn't show you what shows were playing or coming up so you had to go to Titantv to figure it out and that alone was a nightmare. After awhile you figure out what comes on when and just schedule the pc to change channels for you.
And it was doing the FTA and OTA channels as if it were one thing.
The ability to have it record anything at all, pause live tv, rewind, etc, that was really awesome! I could pause a show, drive to the store, come back and resume like nothing happened. And THEN, I would be able to fast forward through the commercials! That is my favorite part. I don't like commercials. Sorry commercial fans, I just don't like them. Commercials: Do. Not. Want.

So it's my HOPE that I can have the linux version of that do pretty much the same thing the windows was doing, just without the misery of windows.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. I can't find the windows disc to reinstall it anyway. I think dumb-dumb took it with him when he left last time. I'm not going to go buy ANOTHER copy of windows. It's like a couple of hundred dollars now!! NO WAY!!!

Last time I took a pc in to a repair place they made me buy a copy of windows xp because I didn't know where the original was and they wouldn't even work on it unless I brought all the original programs in and the serial numbers for them.
I couldn't find a lot of it. They just ended up erasing everything and installing a new copy of windows xp for $129 (not counting the labor!) and I was left to start over from scratch. That was my online pc, not the TV pc.

Dumb-dumb built the TV pc and I don't know where any of the stuff for it is, I just used it. He built it, I used it. Like a toaster or something. I didn't mess with it, I just watched it. Now I don't have a clue where the stuff is he put on it.

Ok... Put the caffeine down and get some rest now. I'll resume my attempts to figure this out tomorrow.

Thanks guys and sorry for the caffeine fueled rant...