[mythtv-users] Recommended Linux Distro post CentOS

Stephen Worthington stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz
Tue Dec 15 08:26:39 UTC 2020


On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:57:04 -0500, you wrote:

>On Tue, Dec 15, 2020, at 00:24, James Linder wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > On 15 Dec 2020, at 1:03 pm, Ryan Novosielski <ryan at novosielski.com> wrote:
>> > 
>> > On Mon, Dec 14, 2020, at 03:24, Ben wrote:
>> >> Hey all,
>> >> 
>> >> I figured I'd ask here because the main goals of updating my server 
>> >> from CentOS 6 to --- well, no longer CentOS 8 since it's no longer 
>> >> going to be what CentOS was...
>> >> 
>> >> I'm wondering who is using what for their home servers for MythTV (and 
>> >> Plex) on the same box.
>> >> 
>> >> I also use desktop apps on this same system as well as run some 
>> >> VirtualBox VMs (Windows and Raspbian)
>> >> 
>> >> So with that -- I'd like to hear from the group what people have been 
>> >> happy with that's LTS-ish like CentOS was.
>> > 
>> > To be honest, I'm a little surprised CentOS wasn't a huge pain in the neck for a MythTV server, given the age of the components.
>> > 
>> > I'd use (and do) Ubuntu LTS. I'll admit that I'm currently on a still-supported MythBuntu 16.04 (support ends next year), and I'm somewhat dreading going jumping to Ubuntu proper, but just because of the work involved, not because I don't think it will work.
>> 
>> Actually Ryan I install LTS xubuntu, use ansible to build fixes/31 and 
>> have a working system within the hour. I admit to using m2-ssd (that 
>> makes a huge speed difference) and that I've done this before but your 
>> dread is not warranted.
>
>Yeah, I'm not really that worried about it, but it's always something. The last time I upgraded, my video card was dropped from all of the easily-available NVIDIA drivers (was probably time to upgrade anyway, and I bought a reasonably-priced GT710). The time before that, the LIRC I2C driver went away and the way to get that back was to either figure out the devinput method or patch LIRC. I did the latter the first time, and the former this time. This time, (I'm on 0.29) it appears as if something is wrong with my install where input groups don't work, and my PVR-350 records at a very low volume (I have sort of a kludgey sometimes works/sometimes not fix for that).  Probably the perils of using relatively old (free) hardware, like the Dell OptiPlex 745 I have for a backend.

The PVR-350 is probably like my PVR-500 cards.  Later versions of the
PVR-500 drivers made it default to having lots of different inputs
turned on so I had to make a script to set the card up that was run
from the event that happens at the start of a recording:

root at mypvr:/usr/local/bin# cat ivtv_audio_fix.sh
#!/bin/sh

# Workaround for bug which causes audio distortion on some recordings.
# From http://urlgrey.net/?p=231

sleep 3

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    device=/dev/video0
else
    device=$1
fi

# First, set the audio input in turn to each of the unwanted audio
inputs.
# This only became necessary as of Mythbuntu 12.04.
v4l2-ctl -d$device --set-audio-input=2
v4l2-ctl -d$device --set-audio-input=0

# Next, also set the tuner frequency.  This also seems to be necessary
# since Mythbuntu 12.04 to suppress a slightly different audio
distortion.
# The frequency should be for an unused part of the spectrum, as the
unwanted
# audio is coming from whatever the TV tuner is tuned to.
v4l2-ctl -d$device -f 420

# Reset the audio input to source 1 (the wanted input).
v4l2-ctl -d$device --set-audio-input=1

That script is downloadable from my web server:

http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/ivtv_audio_fix.sh

That was a while ago now, and I have not been using my PVR-500s for
several years - they are living in their boxes now, not a PC.

If you are on 18.04, then when you upgrade to 20.04 you will find that
the LIRC package still installs it wrongly - you need to run my fix
script:

http://www.jsw.gen.nz/mythtv/lirc-ubuntu-20.04-install.sh

and probably check the configuration to make sure nothing was
overwritten.


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