Why hath thou forsaken me oh Vista?

Vista works great when it works, and really sucks ass when it doesn't. If you have read any of my blog, you may have noticed my mood swings to and from Vista. I understand nothing is perfect- but if it is a piece of software that Microsoft wants $200 - $300 for (Vista Premium or Ultimate) it should be pretty damn close!

Current problems with Vista:
1. TV freezes and skips if MCE has been on for more than an hour or if the system resumes from standby. This affects both live and recorded TV (probable driver issue, but returns after format and full re-install).
2. Sound goes to crap after system has been up for a few days. This only happens in the MCE interface (sounds fine in WinAmp)- and sounds like everything is going through a distortion interface. The sound can range from voice like a cylon to complete screech and beep sounds.
3. HDMI signal loss when TV is turned off or switched to another device- requiring a reboot or a standby/wake cycle and taking about 2-3 minutes each time (sometimes several times a day). I think this is a HDMI issue, but I will blame Vista for this as well.

I really cannot record or watch TV, so this system is a little less useful to me than my xBox running xBox Media Center (XBMC). The shortcoming in XBMC is that it cannot handle HiDef recordings (The CPU is a P3-733 and it has a hard-soldered 64MB of RAM)- but it can play any codec or image you could hope to throw at it! (even DVDs in ISO or BIN/CUE format).

I have looked towards MythTV as I have seen an add-on for the xBox to allow it to run as a MythTV frontend (or even run MythTV on the xBox under Linux?).

My first attempt at this was LinuxMCE; basically an 'easy load' version of MythTV with Lirc installed and some other neat features (like security monitoring, notification, etc). The LinuxMCE CD is a colleciton of libraries; when the CD is inserted and click a link on the download page while in Ubuntu, it kicks off an automated install.

1st try (on a laptop). System installed and rebooted; went through setup and got 1/2 way done with 'setting up screens' and then froze. I rebooted and the system was usuabale.

2nd try (on a P4 2.4Ghz system). System came to a 'cannot connect to web site' during install and after a few hours I rebooted. After that, all networking was screwed in Ubuntu.

3rd try (on an Athlon XP 2800+ system). Similar to the prior install, but failed with a 'cannot continue' message. System reboot returned a useless Ubuntu install. (this system involved a few hours of scrounging parts from my attic and building a new system to run in parallel with my MCE system- which will not even take an install of Ubuntu!)

At this point, I about to give up on LinuxMCE. The only difference I can think of in the last two (save for the different hardware) is that I told LinucMCE NOT to be my DHCP server.

My next test will be the KnoppMyth installation. I am downloading the ISO and I will try when I get home!