[mythtv-users] Mythbuntu 9.04, Boot On LAN, DHCP c\o pfSense

[Tortise]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Perkins" <mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 5:44 AM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Mythbuntu 9.04, Boot On LAN, DHCP c\o pfSense


Tortise wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Perkins"
> <mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk> To: "Discussion about mythtv"
> <mythtv-users at mythtv.org> Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 1:24 AM Subject: Re:
>  [mythtv-users] Mythbuntu 9.04, Boot On LAN, DHCP c\o pfSense
>
>
> Tortise wrote:
>> Finally got this booting

My thin clients go from power-switch to logon screen in ~35 seconds. If your
system takes much longer, it's probably not a thin client.

=================
Mine takes about 55 seconds to just do the initial BIOS boot up, (could be trimmed turning off some checks like IDE configs not 
there) another 53 seconds to do the DHCP stuff and a mere 4 seconds to load the image including display the mythbuntu GUI that is 
ready to go!


One of my thin clients is an ancient K6-2/366 laptop with 32M, works fine.

===============================
Thats pretty cool of course, is this displaying SD or HD (720p and/or 1080i)?


> (ii) You probably couldn't get vdpau running on the server unless the server had
a vdpau-capable graphics chipset in it.

==============
For the record I do.



>If you are, actually, running vdpau on your front ends,

=====
yes


I would suggest that you
aren't running a true ltsp client, but just remote-booting a fat client.
=============
Seems to be the case

If you're doing that, I still suggest you have a look at minimyth, since all the
hard work will have been done for you, vdpau included (thanks, Paul!).
=====================
The same could be said of the images that are run in the standard mythbuntu diskless setups.  If mythbuntu provides for it and is 
close to working 100% I'd prefer to contribute bugs to smooth this package out.


> (iii) As I have a mixed system of servers, ltsp thin clients, myth front ends
and occasional guest laptops, I felt I needed to have a little more control over
dhcp configuration than pfSense provides as a default. For example, I have
groups defined so that I don't have to repeat lines for boot files, next-server
and such for every host.

It's possible that recent pfSense versions offer more flexibility than I
realised, I haven't looked for a while. My dhcp setup has been running on my
master server since about 1998, so I haven't seen a need to change.

(iv) If you're using pfSense for dhcp, and running tftpboot (or whatever) on
another host, your configuration files are *not* on the same system, you have to
co-ordinate between the two (or more), and this can be where errors creep in.

================================

pfSense is working fine for one boot server address.  Two booting servers would lose simplicity as the GUI does not provide for it. 
Direct editing the XML (and thus the relevant files in the master XML config) may be possible, the dhcp would probably need 
customisation in that order of complexity.  I reported it working as there seemed few posts on this and I was also interested in 
other people experiences and to leave a bit of a documentary trail as the documentation on diskless seems scant, and as this thread 
has shown there is not a consistent understanding how it actually works.

One other thing less experienced installers (such as myself) might note is that when running up a new server that is intended to be 
diskless it would be prudent to enlarge /dev/sda1/ to allow for the extra file systems space that will live there.