[mythtv-users] New system coming: next Choosing an OS!

[Jonathan Rogers]

On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 3:02 PM, DaveD <mythtv at guiplot.com> wrote:
> When I was running my Athlon 3200+ as my main FE/BE, I got frustrated
>  with the lack of support for x86_64 and ran both for a while, switching
>  between the x86_64 version of FC6 and i386 version (dual boot config)
>  while I tried to get things working in the x86_64 version.  The reason I
>  gave it as much effort as I did is because I noticed a distinct (but not
>  gigantic) improvement in overall speed in the x86_64 version over the
>  i386.  Since then there has been much improvement in support for x86_64
>  (thanks to Axel and Livna!) and I find there to be no problems with FC7
>  x86_64 as long as I run the 32-bit version of Firefox for the Java and
>  Flash support.  It's too bad, too, because Firefox is one place I
>  noticed the improvement.  I have not tried FC8 yet.

I first got an x86_64 system a couple of years ago and I've never run
a 32-bit Linux-based on it except for rescue a couple of times. First,
I was running Gentoo, but now I use Ubuntu. Java runtime and flash
plugin can be problematic, but those aren't generally needed for a
MythTV system anyway.
>
>  I have tried Ubuntu x86_64 and it all worked.  It's a long story why I'm
>  not running it now, but I think that will be my next distro.  There is a
>  little learning curve, getting used to the lack of runlevels and no root
>  account, but it's still Linux and there is excellent functionality out
>  of the box (I think they even install 32-bit Firefox under x86_64 by
>  default with java and flash) and lots of support in the forums.  I
>  really liked not having to mix 3rd party repos that sometimes conflict
>  to get all the apps I like (and a few I never knew about before!).

Logging in as root on Ubuntu is usually as simple as "sudo su -". You
can also set the password for root with "sudo passwd". Then it'll be
like any traditional *nix system as far as logging in as root.

>
>  So, I guess I would recommend going with x86_64 if you want to get a
>  couple percent more power.  It would be interesting (but probably not
>  worth the effort) to set up a dual boot system and do a commflag on a
>  2-hour high def show with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions to benchmark
>  the difference.  Overall, though, the newer machines are so fast it
>  probably wont make much difference in speed as the disk I/O becomes the
>  bottleneck.  Let us know what you end up using and how it turns out.

I definitely think it's worth it to have a native x86_64 system for a
dedicated MythTV machine, since MythTV doesn't depend on any
problematic proprietary packages and it can take advantage of improved
performance, especially when using binary packages from a
distribution. In the several years I've been using MythTV on a native
x86_64 system, I've never had a problem related to that.

I'm also running a native x86_64 system as a desktop system, where
there've been plenty of annoyances and the benefits aren't as clear. I
consider it useful because I can help test 64-bit builds; I've already
contributed a fix to nautilus-python, which was broken on 64-bit
systems with Python 2.5 and newer. Though native x86_64 distributions
have improved a lot over the last few years, if you want a minimum of
hassle, it's still better to use a 32-bit desktop system.
-- 
Jonathan Rogers