[mythtv-users] Help me choose a Redhat based OS for MythBackend

[Douglas Wagner]

On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 10:35 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Nick Morrott <knowledgejunkie at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On 24 April 2010 01:58, Mike Andy <beatbreaker82 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>
> >> As per subject title, Help me choose a Redhat based OS for MythBackend.
> >
> > If it were me, and I was using well supported hardware, I'd seriously
> > think about waiting for the RHEL6 clones to be released, install one
> > of them, and then stop worrying. atrpms.net has supported MythTV on
> > CentOS for years, and would make for an easy installation route. Plus
> > you get to learn on a RHEL-based system which or may not be useful to
> > you career-wise.
>
> I think its pretty likely I'm going to switch from Fedora to Red Hat
> Enterprise Linux (there, now I can say RHEL from here on forward...)
> on my own MythTV system. But for my taste, RHEL5 is already way too
> out of date -- more of a userspace issue than a kernelspace issue, as
> the kernel, while it has an "old" base is actually quite capable even
> on very new hardware[*], though there are quite a few drivers not in
> the RHEL5 kernel that one needs for many MythTV systems (primarily
> capture card drivers and lirc). My most productive RHEL5 boxes at work
> have a ton of userspace bits much newer than what ships in RHEL5. So
> that brings us to RHEL6, for which the public beta was just released.
> The userspace is fairly current (though 4 years down the road, it'll
> be just as stale as RHEL5 is now), lots of capture card drivers are
> built as part of the shipping kernel, xfs and ext4 are available out
> of the box, etc.
>
> [*] c'mon, someone ask me how I know this... :)
>
> --
> Jarod Wilson
> jarod at wilsonet.com
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

*LOL* I'll bite (didn't I read somewhere you were working for RedHat these
days Jarod?) How do you know this? :)

I suppose you get this a lot but thanks a TON for your Myth on RH/Fedora
docs, those got me started with MythTV back before I realized I really
DIDN'T want to go through the agony of upgrading the box every 4 months. :)

Re: Mike:

I suppose it wouldn't be the internet if someone DIDN'T question your
motives right?  :)

Are you SURE this is the box you want to be doing this with?  I understand
by your posts you're new to the list (and I'll assume new to MythTV as well)
but I think I would be remiss if I didn't note that in general the less you
touch a MythTV box the better it works, and from my experience this
PARTICULARLY applies to RedHat/Fedora variants of the Myth Setup.

I've got to say a cold chill went up my back when I read that you were
looking to use your Myth box as a "learning" box for RHEL/Fedora.  Sounds
like a good thing to do till you actually start USING MythTV a lot and come
to realize what it brings to your TV watching and recording experience.  All
of a sudden you start asking yourself if you REALLY do want to do that
upgrade to the box in case something goes wrong with it.

The more you treat this as an appliance and the less you treat it as a
computer, the better your Myth experience really is.  There's nothing wrong
with the RHEL/Cent/Fedora route to setup a Myth Box, nothing AT ALL (ran one
for the better part of 2 years before switching to Mythbuntu for the
package/upgrade ease)...what I worry about is the use of the box for
learning purposes.

Pick a distro you know and are comfortable with for setting up Myth
(something with REALLY GOOD packaging support), then pull out an old PII
from your basement to setup your test/play box with...I suspect you'll be
glad you did.

(And to give a short answer to your question, I HIGHLY recommend going with
a Cent/RHEL installation instead of a Fedora Installation.  There's NOTHING
wrong with Fedora, but the upgrade cycle mixed with Fedora's less than
stellar upgrade ability and typical package control problems leads many
times to a broken Myth Installation you either have to fix or reinstall.  At
least with RHEL/Cent you're looking at a fairly stable operating system that
you don't have to upgrade install every 4 months.)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20100425/49ce016e/attachment.htm>