Because of my move, I had need of a media PC system, which allowed me to watch TV, record from TV, watch DVDs, listen to music and more. Buying a pc with Windows Media Center was not an option: linux has very wonderful applications and utilities to build such a sytem.
This guide is not a real how-to, but rather the steps I took to get things running, along with descriptions and solutions to caveats and problems I encountered. Since my Media PC is still in progress of being build and configured, this guide is also a work in progress. Comments on any of the steps are, of course, very welcome.

This is a work in progress...

What this guide will give you

A PC running Gentoo, with several applications to:

• Watch TV, record from TV, and more
• Watch DVDs, VCDs and SVCDs
• Watch DivX, Xvid, MPEG4, etc.
• Listen to music (MP3, OGG, etc.)

Used software

The following software is being used:

• Gentoo Linux, with kernel 2.6.22 with Gentoo patchset r1 and Reiser4 patchset for 2.6.22 (http://www.gentoo.org/)
• ALSA as sound system, IVTV driver for the TV-tuner
• LCDproc for the LCD display, LIRc with mceusb2 driver for the RC
• Xorg 7.2, with Fluxbox as Window Manager, GDM as login manager
• MythTV for watching and recording TV, watch DVD/VCD, listen to music, watch DivX, etc. (http://www.mythtv.org/)

Used resources

I found most of the resources I used for installing my system at the following websites/links:

• http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Reiser4_With_Gentoo-Sources
• http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Imon
• http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MCE_Remote
• http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/LIRC
• http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_LIRC_for_MythTV
• http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MythDVD
• http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Internal_player

Notice

More links will be added as the guide grows.

Special thanks

Special thanks to JCM-Concepts for building the hardware.