Table of Contents
This version of vdr is adapted to fit
seamlessy into the SUSE Linux filesystem hierarchy:
/etc/vdr contains configuration files that you
might want to modify to suite your needs (e.g.
channels.conf). See man 5
vdr for the syntax of those files.
/var/spool/video is the place where recordings
are stored. If you are low on space you should consider putting
this on a separate partition. Recordings can take up several
Gigabytes.
/usr/lib/vdr contains shared libraries for
plugins. If you compile you own plugins you need to put them there.
/usr/include/vdr contains header files
necessary to compile
plugins.
You almost never want to run the vdr
binary itself. Use /etc/init.d/vdr to
start vdr as daemon on console 9 or
runvdr to start it in the current
terminal. You can configure several parameters for these
scripts in /etc/sysconfig/vdr.
vdr as packaged on SUSE LINUX does
not run as root but under a special vdr user account to
reduce the risk of damage to the system in case of
(security-)bugs. Do not try to re-use the
vdr start scripts for a self-compiled
version without applying the necessary patches!
vdr as packaged on SUSE LINUX contains a
minimal /etc/vdr/channels.conf for
Astra-19.2E (DVB-S). You can create you own using
dvbscan. For example if you live in
Nuernberg, Germany and want to create a channels.conf for
DVB-T you would run
dvbscan -o vdr /usr/share/dvb/scan/dvb-t/de-Nuernberg > /etc/vdr/channels.conf
If you have a full-featured card and intend to run vdr
on a dedicated machine just like a regular VCR, you probably want also
use a remote control unit to control vdr. Unfortunately, the remote
control unit shipped with the popular Hauppauge DVB cards is not
supported out of the box. You need to install the Remote Control-Plugin
contained in the vdr-plugins package. For
home-brew hardware or if you also have an analogue card with
remote you might want to use lirc. Use the
yast runlevel editor or chkconfig to have
dvb, lirc and
vdr started during boot.
With a full-featured card you can use xawtv
for watching TV on your desktop. You should append
/usr/share/doc/packages/xawtv/vdr.config to
your ~/.xawtv file to control
vdr from within xawtv.
Budget cards do not have an mpeg decoder so you can't connect
a TV set to them nor use v4l applications like
xawtv or kvdr to watch
TV. Instead you may use the xine-plugin for vdr (package
vdr-plugins). To tell
vdr to use this plugin set the following
values in /etc/sysconfig/vdr:
VDR_PLUGINS="xine" VDR_PLUGIN_ARGS_xine="-r"
When vdr is running press the "VDR" button in
xine (package xine-ui)
to get the live TV picture. You may need to install the
xine-mad package to be able to view mpeg
streams like the one from the dvb card.
Normally, vdr plugins expect to be compiled inside the vdr source directory. This is of course not possible with a prebuilt package. Fortunately, most plugins can still be easily compiled using the following command:
make VDRDIR=/usr/include/vdr LIBDIR=/usr/lib/vdr all
If you add the plugin name to VDR_PLUGINS in
/etc/sysconfig/vdr, it will be loaded automatically
when vdr starts. Please read the associated comment in that file for
details.
Some plugins require additional treatment because vdr is not running as
root. The osd-teletext plugin for example wants to put files into
/vtx. You have to create that
directory yourself and change it's owner to vdr. Other plugins like the
dvd plugin open device files, you need to adjust permissions for these as
well.