[mythtv-users] MythTV Secondary FE/BE Setup Advice

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Tue Sep 2 15:30:28 UTC 2008


On 09/02/2008 10:48 AM, Allen Edwards wrote:
> I have a frontend only machine and, while it has a button to import DVD, it
> won't do it.  It is missing the transcode engine, which is part of the
> backend.

Another reason why Myth only supports installing MythTV as a whole.  
You'll notice there are no "mythtv-frontend" and "mythtv-backend" source 
packages--it's all or nothing, and, really, should be in all the 
packages out there.  And, if you look at the configure script you'll 
notice things like:

  # Don't print disable frontend/backend options, these
  # cause breakage and people use them inappropriately. -- dtk

and

# disabled due to abuse in <names removed to protect the guilty>
  --disable-frontend)
  ;;
# disabled due to abuse in <names removed to protect the guilty>
  --disable-backend)

After all, to install /all/ of MythTV compared to just the frontend or 
just the backend components takes much less than 100MB extra space.  
And, 100MB is tiny on any HDD that's reasonably sized to allow 
installation of a modern *nix OS--IMHO, reasonably sized would mean 
13.6GB or greater (how long has it been since you could even buy a HDD 
that size), though, even on an 8GB HDD, 100MB is only 1.25% of the total 
space.

However, once you install Myth properly, there is no requirement that 
you run all the programs, so on a frontend-only machine, you simply 
don't run mythbackend.  On a backend-only machine, you simply don't run 
mythfrontend.  On some machines, you may choose to not run mythfrontend 
or mythbackend and run only mythjobqueue.

Mike, who doesn't understand people's obsession to "install only the 
minimum required software" (after all, *nix is /not/ Windows, so using 
Windows optimization techniques is really misplaced)


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