[mythtv-users] Recommended Linux Distro post CentOS

[Jeremy D. Eiden]

On 12/15/20 9:47 PM, David King wrote:
> On 12/15/20 10:11 PM, Jeremy D. Eiden wrote:
>>
>> On 12/15/20 8:05 PM, James Linder wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 16 Dec 2020, at 7:07 am, Mike Perkins 
>>>> <mikep at randomtraveller.org.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ben <bkamen at benjammin.net> wrote:
>>>>>> I'm wondering who is using what for their home servers for MythTV 
>>>>>> (and Plex) on the same box.
>>>>> Can't speak for the non-Myth stuff, but my backend and frontends 
>>>>> all run Devuan now - what Debian would be if they'd not succumbed 
>>>>> to the dark side of systemd.
>>>> I have tried Devuan and it would indeed, be suitable for myth front 
>>>> and backends.
>>>>
>>>> However...
>>>>
>>>> Despite telling you during installation that "everything is your 
>>>> choice" the default install desktop is effectively forced to be 
>>>> xfce, whereas I prefer LXDE.
>>>>
>>>> The "debootstrap" code was seriously borked when I tried it, and 
>>>> you could not install the same version in, for example, a VM as the 
>>>> version you were running, only the 'next' version. WTF? That killed 
>>>> using it for a KVM server stone dead.
>>>>
>>>> As I also run LTSP here, and debootstrap is used for the clients, 
>>>> that was a no-no too. I understand that the 'new' version of LTSP 
>>>> will work properly, haven't tried that on Devuan lately.
>>> I am not trolling, or standing in a copper vase full of water on a 
>>> mountain top during a thunderstorm saying all gods are bastards 
>>> (Terry Pratchette) but why the angst about systemd?
>>> I find it to be different
>>> Not particually hard to learn
>>> Quite nice in principal, being all-in-one-place and consistant
>>> (My RockPi 4 does xxx on boot, ah systemd stuff)
>>> James
>>> PS well 2 places, /etc/systemd /usr/lib/systemd
>>> PPS and yup in context of mythtv
>>
>> Here is my issue with it - when it fails, it fails in really stupid 
>> ways that can be hard to figure out and fix.
>>
>> For example, say you have a second non-system disk that you store 
>> recordings or random things on (to keep the MythTV link). Nothing on 
>> the OS or even the users truly depend on, and it's mounted under /mnt 
>> or /media.
>>
>> Disk fail?  You remove it to copy the data onto another computer? 
>> Systemd will prevent the whole system from booting. It'll just hang 
>> forever.  You need to boot a usb stick or figure out how to you 
>> systemrescue to comment out the offending disk in fstab and reboot 
>> the system.  Assuming you figure out that the disk failed.
>>
>> Systemrescue (or whatever it's called) isn't as intuitive as one 
>> might think - and if you don't have a computer to search the right 
>> commands on, you are toast.
>
> Google finds this at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/fstab. This 
> article is also cited as a solution on multiple other web sites:
>
> External devices that are to be mounted when present but ignored if 
> absent may require the|nofail|option. This prevents errors being 
> reported at boot. For example:
>
> /etc/fstab
>
> /dev/sdg1        /media/backup    jfs 
> nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=1ms    0  2
>
> The|nofail|option is best combined with 
> the|x-systemd.device-timeout|option. This is because the default 
> device timeout is 90 seconds, so a disconnected external device with 
> only|nofail|will make your boot take 90 seconds longer, unless you 
> reconfigure the timeout as shown. Make sure not to set the timeout to 
> 0, as this translates to infinite timeout.

Whelp, looks like I'll be doing some fstab editing tonight. :)

I honestly did not know about this option. My apologies.

Thank you David and James.