[mythtv-users] Back-end Virtualization

[Simon Hobson]

Raymond Wagner wrote:

>>And for those things that don't come packaged like that ? Do an install
>>onto <something else> then copy the whole filesystem into the chroot
>>jail, and then faff about to make it work with a "foreign" kernel - or
>>just install it into a VM with no faffing ?
>
>Do installers for other distros offer no way to configure what path 
>they install do?  Do they not offer an "advanced" mode that lets you 
>skip partitioning and formatting?

It would be great if you actually read what people were writing, not 
what your zealotry tells you they wrote. I'm not talking about "a 
distro", I am talking about "an appliance" - where a 'single 
installer' will go from blank drive to working system with all the 
requisite bits of software installed and configured to work together.
And no, as far as I know, it doesn't have too many options. Would the 
installer run if I mounted the contents of the disk image and ran it 
in a chroot ? I don't know - it might, it might barf at so many 
things.

>Who cares about a "foreign" kernel.  You're not using the kernel. 
>You're just using the applications, and all you need is the 
>necessary shared libraries.

So, instead of "install system", it's "install system, spend ages 
figuring out what it needs". I don't have that level of knowledge - 
for example, if something was built to run with (say) a 2.6.32 i686 
kernel on Centos, and the host has a 3.0 AMD64 kernel from Debian, do 
I need old libraries from Debian, the libraries from the Centos disk, 
or something else ?
And having got it working, can you 100% guarantee it won't break if 
the host kernel gets upgraded to support some other requirement on 
the machine ?

No, this isn't about MythTV - but then neither were your blanket assertions.

>>Will you please accept that for some things a full VM is simply "less
>>hassle" than the other techniques ? Your religious crusades are irksome
>>to people who "just want to get on with it" rather than have the most
>>perfect system possible if you are prepared to put (potentially) lots of
>>time into it.
>
>If a full VM was "less hassle" than other techniques, and you could 
>"just get on with it", we wouldn't have these threads every month or 
>two about people wanting to do hardware passthrough.  There wouldn't 
>need to be threads, as it would "just work".

Shifting of goalposts again. That may be true for MythTV - but you 
made a very bold blanket statement that "only X and Y are valid 
reasons<period>". I'm pointing out that there are in fact other valid 
reasons - some of them non-technical, but they are valid non the less.


James Linder wrote:

><misquote>When an elderly and distinguished mythtv user says that 
>running your backend as a VM is stupid then he is usually right.
>You ofcourse may do as you please, but if you don't like the advice 
>why on earth did you ask?
>You want every one to be amazed at your dashing boldness? Moi runs 
>VMs on my mythtv backend machine, but I would never run my backend 
>on a VM

He didn't say that - he said that there are only two reasons for 
using full virtualisation - and he did not qualify that as "for 
MythTV backends". He won't accept that some people may have other 
reasons.
His attitude seems to be that because he doesn't consider something 
reasonable, then no-one should be doing it.
Fine, recommend/advise against running a MythTV backend as a VM (mine 
worked fine BTW given the constraints of the hardware I had at the 
time) - but don't go overboard with what looks like religious 
zealotry.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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