tv tunner and Linux

[Gregory Nowak]

Hi folks,

I just got a hand me down bt878 tv tuner from
a friend. Since the driver names on the cd for it
begin with "bt848" and since I saw an option
for that device right after
the sound card options in make config, I did something probably dumb
and thoughtless by choosing that option.
The dmesg output says that mixer support for bt848 is registered.
However, I'm not sure where to go from there,
as I'm new to tv tuners in general.
I guess my first question is do I need
x to watch tv in Linux, or is there
console software for that?
If I don't need x, did I do the right  thing by choosing the bt848 option
during make config?
Does anyone know if there are drivers for bti78 under Linux 
(there weren't any on the cd that came with the tunner)?
Hope somebody can provide some answers
and excuse my ignorance (grin).
Thanks for any help.
Greg