[mythtv-users] CentOS vs Fedora, RAID vs LVM

[Jean-Yves Avenard]

Hi

2009/3/29 Ben Curtis <mythtv at nosolutions.com>:
>
> 1) CentOS vs. Fedora
> I've used Fedora forever, however I'm tired of how often a new version
> comes out.  It's great for systems I play with, not for my main server.  Is
> CentOS supported pretty well for Myth?  I'll be running two HD5500's and a
> PVR-250 in it as a backend only.  Also, I can find a release history, but
> does it always coincide with RedHat Enterprise?  And can the RPMs from
> atrpms.net be used with it?


I went the same way a while back, after my nth upgrade to Fedora, I
switched to CentOS 5 which stayed that way for a long time (switched
to Ubuntu last year but that's another story)

Most (all?) of the ATrpms packages for Fedora are available for CentOS/RHEL.
You don't use the same fedora packages , CentOS have its own set.

CentOS is pretty much similar to Fedora 5 .



>
> 2) RAID vs LVM
> Do the new kernels that are shipped with Fedora and CentOS have the ability
> to use the mdadm --grow command?  If I'm just going to use one giant
> partition, is there any advantage to continuing to use LVM?  Just seems
> like one more translation that I don't need if I can grow the raid array.
> Also, what partition do you guys recommend on either?  I've used ext3
> forever, but the wiki said I may want to try something else.


Personally I like LVM.. It's so convenient.. Yes, you can do the same
with RAID now but it's nowhere as easy as with LVM.
There's support for LVM out of the box in CentOS.

I added a 1TB disk to my system a few month ago (not in RAID, never
cared much about the data my backend contains) it took 5 minutes all
up to add the drive and extend the partition.

I also use JFS , every study/report show how much more suitable it is
for big files compare to ext3.
The biggest issue when using JFS, is that CentOS 5 doesn't have
support for JFS out of the box, you have to use the centosplus
repository, then install the linux kernel from centosplus which has
JFS support.

Last month I installed a full backend for a friend, and I reconsider
my choice of filesystem. Again, the choice came down between JFS and
XFS.

I chose JFS again for the following reasons:
1-You still hear report of people who got a corrupted partition and
lost data. You don't read this about JFS.
2-There's no automatic fsck for XFS, this was the main reason for me
for not choosing xfs...

JFS has been so reliable for me and others for so long ; it's ideal
IMO for mythtv partition data. Still use ext3 for the root partition
for convenience.

LVM does add a small layer of complexity, and it probably won't look
necessary when you install linux/mythtv, but a few years from now and
you need to change your partition layout, you'll be glad you did...

Jean-Yves