[mythtv-users] Virtualisation in the home network – ready for mainstream?

[Kevin Kuphal]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 12:51 AM, Jon Whitear<jon at whitear.org> wrote:
> With the upcoming release of .22, I’m looking at upgrading my backend box
> (P4, 1GB RAM) which also serves as web server, mail server, media storage,
> Asterisk box etc., all currently running under Gentoo.
>
>
>
> Ideally, I would like to use VM appliances such as Mythbuntu, Zimbra and
> TrixBox with the aim of minimising maintenance and maximising functionality
> (e.g. move from plain postfix to Zimbra, have working IMAP voicemail.)

Virtualization is ready but MythTV might not be.  I've had great
success with virtual machines for Monowall, MySQL, OpenFiler, and many
other services that Myth relies on, but if you're using PCI/PCIe based
tuners, forget it.  There isn't, IMO, a reliable way to get those
tuners to perform in a virtual environment.  Now if you're using a
HDHomeRun, that's a whole different story and you may have great
success because it is network based.

Normally in virtualized environments, memory is king.  MythTV is a
slightly different beast with high I/O requirements as well as CPU
usage (commflagging).  Don't underestimate your I/O.  SATA, while
great for a single system recording information, is often miserable in
a virtualized environment because of the serial nature.  SAS works
much better overall.

My best recommendation is, if you have HDHomeRun tuners, try it, but
be prepared to fall back to a physical backend with a variety of
virtualized services around it.

Kevin