[mythtv-users] Trimslice ARM PC

[Mark Small]

> The main thing I was looking for tho was experiences from people who have
> done such a job, and what they'd discovered, and big thanks to "Tyler T"
> for his reply on that front.
> 
> Anyone else using ARM based Backends with good/bad reports?
> Muchly appreciated and any warnings of Gotchas!
> 
> Bon

As I posted earlier, my master backend is an Arm based NAS box.  Its a QNAP 
TS219P runninng Debian stable with myth packages from debian-multimedia.org.  
The NAS has the same CPU as the sheevaplug, but has 2 SATA drive bays, two 
esata ports, and three USB ports.  I have 1 Hauppauge USB-PVR2 tuner hooked up 
to it.  

Aside from myth usage, the backend box is my home/office file server (NFS and 
SAMBA), web server, net router, dhcp server. mail server, print server, time 
server, and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting

My slave backend has a PVR-500. and is a conventional x86 box that wakes on 
demand for recording.

I do find that database operations are a little slow on the ARM box.  When I 
schedule a recording in a frontend, it takes 20-50 seconds to show up in the 
interface.  I have a little over 70 SD channels on digital cable.

I don't transcode, and I've temporarily given up on commercial flagging.  I 
plan to set the slave to do the comm flagging.

The hardest part of getting the ARM setup to work was the lirc ir blaster.  
The lirc drivers included on debian stable are truly ancient (0.8.3), and the 
mceusb2 drivers for that version don't compile on ARM.  I used 0.8.7, and 
things worked much better.

Other than that, the biggest problem is that my home office is noticeably 
colder in the winter than it used to be.  I guess a x86 box on 24/7 did help 
to heat the room.

Mark