[mythtv-users] Mythbackend - Ubuntu vs Fedora Core 5

[Josh Burks]

On 5/17/06, Todd Ferris <tferris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Let me start with - I am not trying to start a distro debate.
>
> That said, I am looking for some advice.
>
> I currently have a fedora core 3 machine running my mythbackend (0.18) on a
> headless machine tucked away in the garage.  It is in need of rebuilding
> (for reasons described below and to generally clean up things)  I am trying
> to decide between moving it to core 5 vs going to Ubuntu Dapper.
>
> As some background: I have a lot of experience with Red Hat, having run a
> variety of systems since Red Hat 8.  So, I am very comfortable with managing
> a Red Hat/Fedora system.
>
> I am relatively new Ubuntu and debian in general -- just running dapper beta
> on several laptops and having played with some live CD systems. As far as my
> experience with Ubuntu Dapper -  I have been very impressed with its rich
> repositories and very active development.  It seems like Dapper with its
> long term support would be a good choice for a stable mythbackend server.
>
> Why am I thinking of switching?  Well, since I started with mythtv I have
> run into more package issues than I care for.  I have been having to do
> manual yum updates recently, because of some broken dependencies (the most
> recent of which, I haven't been able to fix).  I believe most have been
> issues between Atrpms (The best myth repo source) and standard fedora repos
> (fedora update and extras).  I have tried to limit my yum repo lists to only
> myth related (using includepkgs directive) but haven't been very successful.
>  While I want my system secure and up to date, I really want the system to
> be very stable and require minimal fiddling, and therefore only want to be
> updating packages to well tested releases in an reliable automated manner (
> e.g. yum nightly) without breaking things.   The Atrpms repo is very active
> and when my yum config had it enabled, it was updating something (not myth
> related) at least nightly.
>
> So, my question is for those that have been using Ubuntu. Is it a good
> environment for running a headless myth-backend?  Have you had problems with
> dpkg problems when using the main repos (universe & multi-verse)?
>
> For those that have switched from Red Hat/Fedora to debian based distros
> like Ubuntu - how hard was the transition?
>

I recently switched from FC3/0.18.1 to Ubuntu Breezy/0.19. There was a
few trying moments, but overall I have a box that works better than I
ever hoped for. For some reason 0.19 was using all my CPU while
recording SD content on FC3. I was ready to tinker with it anyways, so
I went for it.

A few resources helped : http://www.abarbaccia.com/ and
http://hyams.webhop.net/mythtv/myth_ubuntu.html
and the ubuntu forums (search them using google, unless you have a
account already; their search feature requires an account [why??]).

You'll have to compile ivtv and lirc from scratch, but both are well
documented on the sites above. Also, remember that the /etc/defaults
deirectory is your friend. I had many headaches trying to get atftpd
and dhcpd working (for my mediamvp) because of "defaults" that are set
from config files in this directory.

Also, note that you have to add another repo to get 0.19:
http://deb.thehunter.ws/dists/breezy/mythtv-stable/
He claims that he can no longer maintain the packages, so maybe you
might want to consider compiling from source. I'm using the packages
from this repo, and they work great.

All in all, I think my switch was successful. My box was only down for
1 day, and I was able to reschedule some of the recordings I missed.

Good luck,

Josh