AZOpen - Open source tools for the AZBox

The AZOpen EPG program is now stable and works rather well, even if I say so myself. There have been a number of comments indicating that some people are confused about how to install and run it, despite the detailed instructions in the README file. If you get stuck you can get support here, and you can let me know there's a bug at the same place. This document is an attempt at providing simple instructions for technophobes, so here goes ...

Installation (v1.9.2)

First, you'll need to get the EPG program from Click on the big green button, and it'll download a compressed tar (.tgz) file to your machine. If you're using Windows, do not extract the file on your PC because it will corrupt the scripts.

Next, you need to copy the tgz file to the AZBox: how to do this depends on whether you have a hard disk in the box or you're using a USB memory stick (USB key).

1. USB Key:

• Copy the tgz file to the key and unmount it from your PC.
• Plug the key into the box.
• Telnet to the box and change to the USB directory

2. Hard disk

• Connect to your AZBox using FTP and copy the tgz file to the hard disk, i.e. to /DATA/hdb1. You can do this using the ftp command-line tool, or using one of the available tools , e.g. MaZ.
• Telnet to the box, and change to /DATA/hdb1

Now, the next part is the same for both USB and hard disk - create a new folder to contain the files, extract the files into this and change to the bin folder:
The program has now been installed.

Note that this has only been completely tested on a new folder. If you exract into an existing folder, you may get some warning messages, and it probably won't automatically update your EPG until it reboots at night. This is because it will detect exising XMLTV data in the directory and will assume that it shouldn't interfere with anything until you're asleep.

Running the program

There are a number of possible settings you can use for the program. However, for the sake of simplicity, this will only explain the most important options. The full description is in the README file that's in the tgz. Every few days, you'll need to download the latest XMLTV data, i.e. the information for the EPG, but the program should look after that for you. Because of problems with RYTEC sources, the current settings of the channels and sources should be fine - if they don't provide updated EPG information, simply run to grab the latest values from RYTEC. Probably the simplest way to run the program is to use its automatic updating feature: This will automatically download the EPG data if required, and will load the EPG events into memory.

README

The folder into which you installed this has a README file. This contains late-breaking information, so you should read it carefully.