Tvheadend

For my pains I have decided to build a new HTPC box from scratch using a new AMD Kabini mobo and one of my existing TBS T2 cards. I will want to use XBMC and probably TVH but have not decided whether to go openELEC or whatever linux distro. I definitely want a PVR function recording to a NAS but I don't need any other computer functions other than maybe a browser for iPlayer type services not supported in XBMC.
My existing HTPC (actually to be truthful one of 3!) is based upon an AMD E350 and took AGES to get to play decent HD. It never did get sorted in terms of the internal recordings so it never worked as a PVR. The integration of the TBS drivers was always a pain for an old fart like me who is definitely in the cut & paste territory with a console!
Anyways - I've started to look at where we've come since I last tinkered (say a year ago) and I am very hopeful that the Kabini side will work well. I see lots of hints in various forums that support for TBS cards is now built-in to some distros but somewhat frustrated to not find this stated categorically anywhere that I can find. In the past I have used the line by line driver install code that kind souls (like Adam) have published but I have not seen a recent version for the latest developments.
So could some kind soul make a suggested 'hit list' of where I should be thinking of starting the project OS etc. I don't mind using betas and suffering a few bugs, but I don't want to be into 'daily build' type needs.
Thanks for your understanding