Plea for a trial key for the Linux product.

[kbyrd]

I know, I know. It doesn't exist. I'm not asking for a trial key itself from the forum, but for the SageTV team to add this feature to the Linux version. I don't quite get why it's hard to do even with the complete OS as part of the package. I'm familiar with other commercial software on Linux that does this. Key-based systems are always a subject to some keygen exploit, but I believe that with even a basic licensing scheme, people will do the right thing and most will pay for a great application. If you put even a little barrier in front of most people they'll pay for the software. If you can make the barrier higher, then all the better.

Ok, so why do I want this? I love SageTV. I bought the Windows version as my all-in-one. But, I have a 64-bit Linux box as a NAS and I really want to try it as a SageTV server. Given the problems I've had getting everything setup the way I want it and getting everything tweaked to work reliably, I would like the option of trying out the Linux Server with my paid for Windows client and letting it shake out for a couple of weeks before I pay for the Linux license. I'm already a customer. I want to give Sage more money, if I can get the setup working in my environment.

I know I can read up on the forums and be pretty sure things will work, but nothing beats having it actually run on my hardware in my environment, and seeing it actually be stable recording and playing the things I record and play.

[cenwesi]

I know how you feel... I had the windows version and sagetv worked wonderful and i had the *WAF*. Anyway i wanted something were the server/pc will do more than just recording. I bought a new Server and installed 32bit ubuntu...installed sage and it asked for key...ended up paying for the linux key since the windows one will NOT work. Got sage up and running and all my hardware worked. Had sagetv server running for weeks at a time without rebooting or what not. To make a long story short, 1) make sure your hardware (tuner cards) all work fine with what ever distro you decided to use. keep in mind that 32bit and 64bit OS will do things different and you might have issues with your some tuner cards like is experienced with my pvr 500mce and got it working correctly on 64bit Intrepid just yesterday with the help of bcjenkins.

[bastafidli]

I felt the same way as you. Since I am not using Sage for any recording or livetv only as a media server I figured the probability of something going bad is very low and just purchased the key and it all workes just fine. I do believe though that it would be nice to have the trial feature even if the server for example has to have access to the internet to perform check with Sage if it can run as trial (e.g. IP/machine fingerpring based)

[kbyrd]

Originally Posted by cenwesi

I know how you feel... I had the windows version and sagetv worked wonderful and i had the *WAF*. Anyway i wanted something were the server/pc will do more than just recording. I bought a new Server and installed 32bit ubuntu...installed sage and it asked for key...ended up paying for the linux key since the windows one will NOT work. Got sage up and running and all my hardware worked. Had sagetv server running for weeks at a time without rebooting or what not. To make a long story short, 1) make sure your hardware (tuner cards) all work fine with what ever distro you decided to use. keep in mind that 32bit and 64bit OS will do things different and you might have issues with your some tuner cards like is experienced with my pvr 500mce and got it working correctly on 64bit Intrepid just yesterday with the help of bcjenkins.

I'm 99% sure the recording will work. I'm using the HDHR, so there isn't likely to be a driver problem right? How does the current HDHR firmware work on Linux? On Windows, it's using BDA. My concern is just around stability of the Sage server/client connection, playing streams across the network (I've had problems with my recordings directory on my NAS), and such. With the other pieces like encoder cards and HDHR, I bought them locally so I could return them if it didn't work out in my system.

[bastafidli]

I am using extender with the headless linux server in the closet and the connection was rock/solid. In a year I never had an issues that the extender would not be able to connect or the server would go down unless I did something stupid to it.