[mythtv-users] Fedora Myth(TV)ology turns 3

[Franco]

Hi Jarod,

> Give it a go, see what I missed... :-)
> http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php

while I'm happy you continue keeping your on-line guide
up-to-date (many people, like me, would NOT have a working
mythbox without your guide), I have some doubts and a general
question.

I see that you are going to discontinue your FC2 guide, the same
way as you did with your FC1 guide. This means that first or later
we will all need to switch to FC3. (see below)

So my question is: was it really necessary to switch to FC3 ?
And then to FC4, etc etc?

We all know that each subsequent release of the software
has higher hardware requirements and makes things slower
unless you have a faster CPU. Linux isn't anymore an OS
that runs with a 386, 4 MB of RAM and a 20 MB HD (though some 
READMEs still floating around say this). The recommended
partitioning scheme always changes (e.g. the /boot partition
was 4 MB, then 24 MB, now FC1/2 complain at installation
if you don't have at least a 100 MB /boot part.)
I you try to install a release by upgrading it may fail 
if you don't have "enough" free space on the disk ("enough"
was 20 MB, 150 MB, now is 800 MB or so) and a failed upgrade
often leaves you with a dead box.

In a few words: a mythbox which was designed with certain 
hardware specifications, won't be able to be upgraded FOREVER
with new versions of the OS.

If you try to do so, the upgrade will be every time trickier than 
previous time, the machine slower, etc, till the point 
it will be phisically impossible to further upgrade the OS
(unless changing the hardware) while the machine being unusably
slow.

We all know this process and usually change the machine or deeply
renew the hardware when this point comes.

However, when I designed/buyed the hardware for my mythbox,
it seems the guidelines (on this list, on myth site, etc.)
were to use the minimum hardware that was sufficient to have 
myth running. Every time a new guy posts his design of his
perspective box on the list, the answers are always like:
"NO! Use less RAM, use less CPU power!" etc. etc.

Which is correct, if we want to build boxes that are 
low power / low heat / low noise / low cost.

But then, most of the myth boxes which were built by following
the guidelines are already way under the specifications of the
average entry level PC you can buy in a shop today.

(Ehmmm... I would not like to be flamed for this, but I also
think that the approach of constantly installing software
which is always bigger & heavier till the point you have to
change the hardware and then install new software etc. etc.,
is a bit Microsoftish, and if we are all on this mailing list
is because we don't want this, otherwise we could use 
the PVR350 & stuff under windows without suffering for driver
implementation etc.)

So, back to the point:

If you abandon FC2 (as well as FC1) users on their own,
first or later they will fall in one or more of these:

- their mythbox will die during an upgrade  (*)
- they will have to stop upgrading and renounce to
  subsequent versions of myth
- they will have to switch to FC3, FC4, etc., to be helped by
  your guide
- they will need to change the hardware

Of course I'm not asking you to maintain multiple HOWTOs,
one for each OS version. What I'm saying is that, in a perspective view,
we should fix an OS version which is suitable even for the 
lower-end mythboxes (according to the initial hw guidelines on myth site
and on the mailing list) and work on that. No more OS upgrades.
We should not reach the point where people is forced to change
the hardware to follow your guide or left on their own if they don't.

Of course, your guide users are mostly people like me who would
not have a working mythbox without your guide. People who can manage
a mythbox on their own, are not users of your guide, right? :-)

There are "thousand & thousand" :-) of myth boxes out there which,
like mine, were built using the list guidelines and rely on your
guide to survive :-)

Cheers,
Franco

(*) It is already happening that one time out of two I issue
the apt-get dist-upgrade command, my box stop working and I
have to re-do all the procedure on your guide, from scratch, to
get it working again.
But, if the reason it stops working is due to some required changes
to modprobe.conf (or whatever) undocumented in your guide,
my box will just be lost.
I already see postings of people on the list, who ask how to
revert their box to a previous known-to-work version of the software....
which is not that simple if you use the recommended apt-get mechanism.