Remote MythTV Frontend on Ubuntu 8.04

Ok, I'm writing this up to give back to the community somewhat. I had a HECK of a time getting MythTV frontend setup and working on my Ubuntu 8.04 laptop. I'd been trying, half-heartedly, for months to get this going and finally got it last night. The funny thing is that I actually had a remote frontend working a few years ago with Mandrake Linux. Guess I accidentally did the right things that time. Anyway, here's what I'd recommend checking/doing if you have trouble getting it going:

• I'm assuming you've already installed your backend and that it generally works. Here's the thing though - if you go through the backend's setup screens, even after it's working, make sure that in EVERY place that you can provide a machine address or hostname, you use that machine's IP address - NOT A HOSTNAME! I'm writing this from memory as I'm not on the network at this moment, but as I recall, there's a place to specify the address of your MySQL database and then I think there's a separate place (maybe) to specify the address of the backend server too. I think typically, they'll be the same machine. Just make sure you specify IP address (you know, like 192.168.0.X or 10.1.1.3 or whatever - and if you don't know what that is, on command line, type 'ifconfig' and look for addresses that don't say 127.0.0.1) EVERYWHERE! I think what happens is the backend server's IP address gets stored into the MySQL mythtv database. Then, when you configure your frontend, it asks only for the address of that same database. From the database, it learns the address of the backend too. So if you specified in the backend setup, that the backend server's address is some hostname like "mythtv", then if the frontend client is able to connect to the database successfully, it'll pickup "mythtv" as the server address and if you have the bad luck I did, it'll never find the server. YOU MUST USE IP ADDRESSES as far as I can tell.
• Also, on the backend server's setup screens, when it asks for a PIN number, enter "0000" (those are zeroes). I don't know to what extent this matters but I picked that up from elsewhere and my config works with it. I don't feel like experimenting anymore by taking it out or changing it to see if it matters.
  
• Install the frontend on your remote client machine with 'sudo apt-get install mythtv-frontend' or 'sudo apt-get install mythbuntu-desktop'. Mythbuntu-desktop appears to be a slightly more elegant package of what's needed to get things going (I guess). In the end, I ended up going with mythbuntu-desktop.
• Startup mythfrontend either via Ubuntu "Applications/Sound & Video/MythTV Frontend" or via commandline by typing: 'mythfrontend'. If this is a really fresh install, it may startup with a series of settings like "Pick your language" or words to that effect. The key thing is that when it gets to the screen asking for your backend server hostname or address, be SURE to provide the IP address of the backend server, NOT A HOSTNAME. I had so much bad luck with hostnames.

Save everything, and when you start up it should finally work. At least, this is what it took for me to get it all going. In summary, for me, I think the big issue was that I had a hostname rather than IP address specified in the backend server's configuration/setup screens. That backend hostname was being stored to database and getting picked up by my remote frontend which was unable to connect to the host via the hostname. I guess the frontend can only use IP addresses (yes, the hostname is generally resolvable on the command line by typing "ping {hostname}"). Hopefully, this'll save some people a lot of heartache.

P.S. - I almost forgot to address an issue that may affect 3 people in North America... If you happen to run SCIM (multi-lingual input method support app for Linux), you may not be able to control Mythfrontend via keyboard. You need to follow these instructions.