I solved the voltage issues by cutting a USB cable to 3 inches, then connecting a 2.5 mm coax connector to it, so that the 5 volts had to run through a minimum of thin wiring. (My power supply itself has wiring as thick as a lamp cord, as it's able to output 3.5 amps.) It's stupid that I had to do that, but it solved the problem.
I eventually figured out that the filesystem problems were due to the Pi not liking my SD card. The manufacturers of these things like to say that it's the card's fault, but I now have two cards that don't work in two of my devices, but swap them around and each is happy with the card that the other doesn't like. I think it's just a problem with device makers not testing their devices with very many cards. I noticed during my brief period of playing with them in Z80 computers that even among the very similar set of cards I had, they each had slightly different behaviors, so it took some time to develop a robust piece of code that was able to work with all of them. I think a lot of device manufacturers just write their code using just one kind of card, then declare any card that isn't compatible with their code to be broken.
I also found that the problem with MythTV is that, despite the fact that I obtained a version compiled specifically for the Pi, its default video output method (buried somewhere in its many menus) wasn't one that can work on the Pi. So I changed it to something else and it was finally able to play video without stuttering. None of the how-to guides I found mentioned this, though they all mentioned buying the MPEG hardware decoding license, which is something I didn't have to do.
So my mother has been using it to watch MythTV for the last six weeks.
It seems to lock up once every few days. The screen goes black and it won't respond to pings. After trying various things to help it out (adding a low ESR 1800 uF 6.3v capacitor, adding heat sinks despite no over-temperature indicator) it continued to do so, so I just told her to unplug it and plug it back in when that happens, which is stupid, but I don't know what else to do.
I bought some infrared sensors to try to use with MythTV. After six hours I gave up and told my mother she'd just have to keep using the keyboard. Again, my efforts were hindered by a lack of documentation, e.g.:
> Everything i was looking for it's on forums and blogs on internet.
There's not one iota of official documentation for seemingly anything Pi-related. All of it is written by people who just fucked with it for a while, happened upon something that worked, and then documented how they think they made it happen. It's a complete mess.
My first problem with LIRC was that LIRC wants a pin number, but nothing says whether it wants the header pin number or a GPIO pin number, which is important since they're completely different. After figuring out that it wanted GPIO pin numbers, I chose a pin and put the sensor on it. After getting absolutely nothing out of it for a while, I began to wonder whether there were any restrictions about which GPIO pins could be used with LIRC. I searched for official documentation, or anything at all, that gave any indication of what pins were usable or whether it was even the case that only some pins were usable. I found absolutely nothing. So I just guessed that was the problem, tried a different pin, and what do you know: It now half-ass worked.
However, after hours more, I found it constantly telling me "sorry, something went wrong," which is an error message so useless that it makes me want to beat someone's head into a brick wall. I tried searching the internet for what the message means, but no one ever says what it means, and seemingly I'm the only person to ever wonder what it means.
Worse, it seemed to be stateful. LIRC would half-ass work until I was about half-way through the process of recording codes for a new remote, then it would spit out that message, and if I restarted it, it wouldn't work right anymore. I had to restart the Pi before it would return to normal.
In the end, I gave up and told my mother she'd just have to continue using the keyboard attached to a USB extension cord, which runs across the living room floor creating a trip hazard. I might try again in the future, but for now, I'm so pissed off that I think I need a month to cool down before I try again.
> This is the first complain i've ever read about Raspberry and OSMC.
I know. I've read no complaints either, which is why I felt the need to get my experience out there.
I suspect that much of the reason for the lack of complaints is that the Pi is largely targeted for beginners, who are likely to assume that any difficulties they have are just the pain of learning. So if it takes an inordinate amount of time to make something happen, they're just more proud of themselves when it finally works, and if it doesn't, they just assume they're too dumb to make it work. So there's nothing for them to complain about.
Another factor is that most people like me probably just don't ever buy one. I've known about the thing for years, but always thought the thing seemed a tad stupid. For electronics projects, people seemed to do little more with it than make LEDs blink, and over the years it has had multiple stupid design issues, e.g. the original one lacking any screw holes, then I think another one had major overheating issues, etc. Then they can't seem to come up with any use to advertise it for other than "education," and they can't even explain how it's useful for that. So there's warning signs all over this thing telling people to stay the fuck away from it.
However, I needed something to connect to my mother's T.V. so that she could use MythTV with OTA television, so she could dump her expensive cable, and at the time this seemed like the only way to make it happen short of spending $300 to put together a cheap computer. Had I known I had the option of obtaining a used computer from Microcenter for only $100, I definitely would have went that route instead, and so no one would have ever seen my complaints either.