[Lancaster] Re: n00b!

[Darren Poulson]

On Thursday 24 March 2005 10:56 am, David Smith wrote:
> > If you want to share out file systems, use samba for
> >windows machines but NFS
> > for *nix (including Mac OS X). Personally I've no samba
> >shares (no windows
> > machines!) and use NFS for mounting my home directories
> >on my linux
> > workstations and my iBook.
>
> Excellent. Thanks. I will most likely have interractions
> with Windoze systems only when people are round for LANs
> and the like, but just to have the support option would be
> good.
> Hopefully they'll crack the Airport Extreme Driver soon so
> I can convert my Mac completely across...but NFS could be
> useful as well - will have to see when I get back.

I actually managed to get my iBook to automount my NFS home directory when I 
request it. This means it doesn't cause problems when I'm not on my home 
wireless network, but when I am its seamless! There's automount options for 
linux too to get the same effect.

> Are there any conflicts in assigning the same shares for
> Samba/NFS? I can't imagine there would be but, given
> relative inexperience, figured I could check now whilst I
> google for ebooks!

I'm quite liking Mac OS X! Works well and all that. You can quite happily use 
the same shares for both NFS and Samba. They shouldn't cause any conflicts at 
all. For basic sharing of public folders samba is very easy to set up. All 
the docs you could ever want are on www.samba.org! The trouble with buying 
books on linux (or computing in general) is that they're out of date by the 
time they're printed! Not that I'm one to talk <looks at his collection of 
o'reilly books on his shelf!>

>
> > As for spec, I'm running a large file server, ldap
> >server, web server, email
> > server, mythtv backend (have a look at this project...
> >really nice!) and
> > slimserver for streaming mp3's all on a 2 gig AMD, with
> >3/4 gig of memory!
>
> Sounds good - MythTV looks excellent! I had heard it
> mentioned before but never really looked closely at it.
> So, out of curiosity, how do you use it? My thoughts (as
> I'll probably have some more 'spare' equipment lying
> around soon) was to run it on a dedicated Media Box and
> probably looking at the Knoppix/MythTV installation thats
> out there.

Currently I have two freeview cards sat in my fileserver, with the fileserver 
running as a mythbackend, and two remote frontends. All the configs for the 
frontends are stored in a mysql database on this server. This just sits there 
and streams the contents of one or both of the cards out to whichever 
frontend I want. Also, you can set up all the recording schedules from a web 
frontend (or a mythfrontend) and the server sits there quite happily and 
records them to the hard drive for later viewing. You can also pause or 
rewind live action just like a sky+ box!

> With not having much time to read the site yet - how
> exactly does it work? You boot the OS of choice and run
> MythTV inside it I presume?

Yup, just install whatever flavour of linux you want (or Mac OS X more 
recently) and just start mythfrontend. For dedicated boxes you can mess 
around with various startup scripts to make it all automatic.

> Will d/l what I can of the docs later today if I get
> chance to have a more thorough look but figured I could
> ask that now! How is its support for interfacing with a
> server machine?
> ie, if I had a dedicated 'MediaBox' running MythTV
> somewhere accessible and able to watch/record TV through
> (record to another machine?); access my streamed MP3s (on
> a home file server); access other media files (picture
> galleries and movie files mainly); and perhaps access the
> internet? Sorry, I should really read more on the docs but
> I haven't got the opportunity quite yet!

Any recorded or live TV is streamed over the network. I think it should work 
fine with wireless (54Mb) but I haven't tried it personally. Any other type 
of media is read from shared storage (eg, NFS). Recorded videos (AVI, MPG, 
etc), pictures and MP3's are not streamed. 

You can also get a games plugin that uses mame, a phone plugin for VoIP calls, 
a weather plugin (that actually includes Lancaster as a choice!) and a web 
browser. Probably a few others that I've forgotten!

> Also, are there any issues I should watch out for if I
> wanted to run my PS2 into the same TV? I'm trying to run
> through my head how the setup would go cable-wise and
> can't see a problem, but not sure if I missed something!
>

If you had an Xbox, you can use that as a mythfrontend! ;) As for the cabling, 
it depends on the TV and scart sockets and such like.

> If running the designated MediaBox etc, is there remote
> control support I could use? I've seen about various
> products aimed at the Doze market, just curious if there
> are alternatives. Either way I'll probably be using
> wireless mouse and keyboard for it most of the time.

At the moment, I'm using a keyboard for mine (no mouse needed!) but I am 
making some IR hardware that will hopefully work fine. Plenty of off the 
shelf remotes are supported under linux and work fine with MythTV.

>
> > Bombard away, thats what we're here for!
>
> You asked for it!!!
>
> Like I said a few different ideas flying around!!
>
> Thanks again
>
> Dave
>
>
> PS - Does there exist anywhere a website similar to
> linux-laptop.net but for DESKTOP hardware
> compatability/issues? I searched the other day and found a
> few that looked remotely promising for some aspects, but
> none quite as useful as linux-laptop.
> I understand the list would be HUGE so I'm probably more
> looking for sites dedicated to specific areas. Or just
> manufacturers that release linux drivers/are compatible.
> Just thinking in terms of a decent soundcard primarily,
> but will be looking into other areas later.

There's a HOWTO on www.tldp.org for linux hardware compatibility, but thats 
over a year old. There's linuxhardware.net, linuxhardware.org, and lots of 
others! I've found the best way is to find the hardware that you want, then 
search the net for linux drivers. Its getting less common to find an 
incompatible device that it used to be. 

>
> PPS - Anybody any useful hints for me installing Gentoo
> 2004.3 on a Powerbook G4, dual-booting OS X? I ran into
> what could be classed as a few 'issues' when I've tried to
> run the install so far...
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-313305.html
> http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/post-189153.html#189153

Not even had a look at linux on macs... Only got one iBook, so don't want to 
break it! *8-)

>
> Not that I'm trying to be too demanding though!! :-)
>
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-- 
Darren Poulson - Unix Admin
PGP Key at: http://www.22balmoralroad.net/~daz/pgp.key
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
  -- Blaise Pascal