Suggestions to improve SageTv on Linux

[bastafidli]

Hi,

I have sent this to SageTV as suggestion for improvement but I am reposting it here to get input of other Linux users as well.

I have been playing with Sage on Linux for about a month and I have two suggestions how to improve the setup

1. Use the path from where SageTV is launched in the property values rather than the path where it is installed.

Similar to how other applications, e.g. Java is installed on Linux I keep multiple versions of Sage installed at the same time for example in
/opt/sagetv/server_6.3.6
/opt/sagetv/server_6.3.7
I have symbolic link
/opt/sagetv/server
which points to the version I am currently running. This allows me safely experiment with new versions without disturbing the working installation. The issue I have encountered is that the property file contains properties with the actual install path, so the properties contains /opt/sagetv/server_6.3.7 even though I start it as /opt/sagetv/server. I would suggest to use the install path which makes reusing the properties amongst various versions easier. If the actual path is hard to find out from Java you can pass it from the startup script, since when I am starting the server from /opt/sagetv/server the startup script correctly prints, that it is changing directory to /opt/sagetv/server.

2. Separate the configuration and data from the actual program. I do not use Sage to watch or record TV but when using it as media center I have found out the following files are used or created by Sage and should be copied when upgrading to new version

/opt/sagetv/server/activkey
/opt/sagetv/server/key
/opt/sagetv/server/SageTV.private.key
/opt/sagetv/server/SageTV.public.key
/opt/sagetv/server/SageTVLocator.private.key
/opt/sagetv/server/SageTVLocator.public.key
/opt/sagetv/server/weather_cache.properties

/opt/sagetv/server/Wiz.bak
/opt/sagetv/server/Wiz.bin
/opt/sagetv/server/Sage.properties
/opt/sagetv/server/Sage.properties.autobackup

Linux suggest separating configuration and data from the actual program. I believe XP & Vista follows this as well. I would like to move these away from the installation directory so a more failure resistant location and then just point Sage to it. It would also make upgraded easier since it would eliminate risk of accidentally erasing of overwriting some files. It is possible using symlinks with all the mentioned files that Win.* and Sage.properties* since these are being deleted and renamed and are placed directly in the root directory. See
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...76&postcount=4
for more details.

I would suggest creating new directory structure and placing these files into this structure to make installation, upgraded and maintenance easier. For example

config/
---clients
---activkey
---key
---SageTV.private.key
---SageTV.public.key
---SageTVLocator.private.key
---SageTVLocator.public.key
---weather_cache.properties
---Sage.properties
---Sage.properties.autobackup

data/
---ChannelLogos
---GeneratedThumbnails
---Wiz.bak
---Wiz.bin

By rearranging Sage files in this manner it would be possible to move the config and data directory somewhere else (e.g. the standard etc and var locations in Linux) and just create symlinks within Sage installation directory.

Thank you

[cenwesi]

Good idea, i hope they are listening...