V9, linux, getting the band back together

[cat6man]

First of all, it is so cool that the band is getting back together after all these years. I've run my SageTV system since it just plain worked and nothing better or more interesting came in the meantime. Now with open source and V9, my inner geek (actually, not very well hidden internally) is rejoicing and I'm checking the forum almost daily once again! Deja vu all over again.

I've updated my system to V9 with absolutely no issues.
However, I'm running XP and that just has to go. My next step is to set up ubuntu on virtual box and do a clean linux install of V9 as well as openDCT.
If that works fine for me as a VM, I'll (probably) blow away XP and do a straight linux installation.

Glad to be back

[cat6man]

i put a VM on my XP system, but a 32bit ubuntu.
is the 32bit ubuntu sufficient for sage v9 AND for openDCT?
i see installation instructions that reference 64bit ubuntu but little or no mention of 32bit ubuntu...........will this work or do i need to upgrade my system to a 64 bit windows OS before i can install a 64bit VM and 64 bit ubuntu for sage v9 and openDCT?

[Narflex]

32 bit works fine as well...there was lots of discussion around 64 bit because prior to being open source; you couldn't run SageTV in pure 64 bit mode...but now you can. The main advantage of that is for people that have lots of extenders so they can set the memory size for the JVM to something larger than 2GB.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by cat6man

i put a VM on my XP system, but a 32bit ubuntu.
is the 32bit ubuntu sufficient for sage v9 AND for openDCT?
i see installation instructions that reference 64bit ubuntu but little or no mention of 32bit ubuntu...........will this work or do i need to upgrade my system to a 64 bit windows OS before i can install a 64bit VM and 64 bit ubuntu for sage v9 and openDCT?

You may want to check the OpenDCT thread. I think I saw a post there in the last couple days where the author mentioned that he would like to drop support for 32-bit Linux and was looking for input from users.

[SageWizdom]

The reason I used the 64-bit version in the walk through is that I was looking to use the LTS release, and to make it as small as possible using the Ubuntu Server version. Ubuntu Server 14.04 is only 64 bit, and that is what drove my choice.

That said, everything should work under 32 bit. All of the instructions should work, with the only maybe off thing being where the architecture is set as an environment variable (which was suggested to maybe not be needed).

You will also be limited in how much ram you can access to ~3GB or so on your host. As I'm intending to run transcoding and other things that I *think* will chew up ram, I was just planning ahead.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Tiki

You may want to check the OpenDCT thread. I think I saw a post there in the last couple days where the author mentioned that he would like to drop support for 32-bit Linux and was looking for input from users.

These days I think it really only makes sense to run 32-bit if somehow your application actually runs faster on it or if your CPU doesn't support 64-bit. Most CPU's that don't support 64-bit are so slow and inefficient you wouldn't even think about running a 24/7 SageTV server on them anyway.

[cat6man]

thanks folks.

i'll try 32bit and see what happens.

my other option, since this is an old pc, is to buy a small, low power box and install ubuntu directly (no VM). no need for transcoding or comskip here, just up to 6 tuners and 2 or 3 hd200/hd300 devices.

[wayner]

The other reason to run 32 bit, at least on Windows, was so tha you could use FireWire for channel changing.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by wayner

The other reason to run 32 bit, at least on Windows, was so tha you could use FireWire for channel changing.

Not sure if that applies on Linux though.

[cat6man]

this is outstanding!
i got an intel NUC running ubuntu 15 and SageWizdom's script seems to have installed the linux server for V9 flawlessly.

later tonight i'll connect a hd300 client and do some configuration, as well as move my wiz.bin file over.

does anyone have installation instructions for the linux client? (or a pointer, maybe i missed it)

[SageWizdom]

Originally Posted by cat6man

does anyone have installation instructions for the linux client? (or a pointer, maybe i missed it)

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...76&postcount=1

Start at step 12. This was my first pass set of install instructions. If you are running 15, then I'm assuming you've got workstation, so I think all the pre-requisites are installed. The biggest places you will run into trouble are with mplayer and possible ffmpeg. I know folks (including myself) were having trouble with no audio on playback. This is part of why I ultimately went with just using the HD300 and the headless server. Holler if you get stuck.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by SageWizdom

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...76&postcount=1

Start at step 12. This was my first pass set of install instructions. If you are running 15, then I'm assuming you've got workstation, so I think all the pre-requisites are installed. The biggest places you will run into trouble are with mplayer and possible ffmpeg. I know folks (including myself) were having trouble with no audio on playback. This is part of why I ultimately went with just using the HD300 and the headless server. Holler if you get stuck.

thanks. i'm not worried at all about audio or any playback, i also plan to run headless, just sometimes i want to configure things on the same machine and not run around to the hd300

i was able to do basic setup last night with the hd300, so everything is looking great here. next step is to install/configure openDCT, setup tuners and once that is done, move wiz.bin over as well as physically move the 2 hard drives i use for recording directories..........oh, also need to get my plugins!
GOT to have SRE for opening day!

ordered a 4 bay Mediasonic usb3.0/eSATA box to consolidate my hard drives.........will connect to NUC/SageTV server via usb3.0, arrives monday

[SageWizdom]

Originally Posted by cat6man

ordered a 4 bay Mediasonic usb3.0/eSATA box to consolidate my hard drives.........will connect to NUC/SageTV server via usb3.0, arrives monday

That sounds awesome

[cat6man]

well, i knew windows ==> linux couldn't go completely smoothly.

i see two problems right now

1. with my old windows server, the system info screen on the hd200 shows the server name and IP address. with my new linux server, the system info screen shows the server name but 0.0.0.0 as IP address. probably a reason i can't set up channel lineups and get the message that it can't connect to sagetv server.

2. with my new linux server, the system info screen shows my import directories (which are on two old NAS) but says they are ext3, when they are ntfs. when i browse through via hd200, there directories are empty. what do i need to do to import NTFS directories with the linux server? Note that I can browse them fine from the ubuntu desktop, so they are mounting properly on the PC.

3. what is the procedure for re-running openDCT?

by the way, i'm running ubuntu 15 desktop so i can use desktop or command line solutions.

thanks in advance

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by cat6man

well, i knew windows ==> linux couldn't go completely smoothly.

i see two problems right now

1. with my old windows server, the system info screen on the hd200 shows the server name and IP address. with my new linux server, the system info screen shows the server name but 0.0.0.0 as IP address. probably a reason i can't set up channel lineups and get the message that it can't connect to sagetv server.

I saw that when I installed ubuntu 14.04. I saw the name when I installed Linux Mint 17.3. So if you install a newer linux version or Mint it may show the name. But I'm no linux expert someone else may be able to tell you exactly what to do.

2. with my new linux server, the system info screen shows my import directories (which are on two old NAS) but says they are ext3, when they are ntfs. when i browse through via hd200, there directories are empty. what do i need to do to import NTFS directories with the linux server? Note that I can browse them fine from the ubuntu desktop, so they are mounting properly on the PC.

There is an error in IOUtils.java that uses a depreciated command "smbmount' that is causing samba directories (shares on Windows boxes) not to connect correctly. I forked and fixed it to use mount.cifs but it hasn't been merged into the main source yet. You can recompile this version https://github.com/BobPhoenix/sagetv and get the mounting to work or wait until it is merged.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by cat6man

3. what is the procedure for re-running openDCT?

by the way, i'm running ubuntu 15 desktop so i can use desktop or command line solutions.

thanks in advance

If you just want to restart OpenDCT type this:

sudo service opendct restart

If you want to uninstall it, type this:

sudo apt-get remove opendct

There is also a change from upstart to systemd in the latest Ubuntu versions. From what I've been reading, it looks like they currently coexist. CentOS and Fedora use systemd, so I already have the correct files to make it work; it's just not a part of the package because I just took a look at it for the first time tonight since we are nearing the next LTS. OpenDCT was not tested to work on anything newer than Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 32-bit and 64-bit. It looks like 16.04 will drop upstart completely which means SageTV needs an upgrade to use systemd for its service too. So if you're having problems that might be one reason.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

If you just want to restart OpenDCT type this:

sudo service opendct restart

If you want to uninstall it, type this:

sudo apt-get remove opendct

There is also a change from upstart to systemd in the latest Ubuntu versions. From what I've been reading, it looks like they currently coexist. CentOS and Fedora use systemd, so I already have the correct files to make it work; it's just not a part of the package because I just took a look at it for the first time tonight since we are nearing the next LTS. OpenDCT was not tested to work on anything newer than Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 32-bit and 64-bit. It looks like 16.04 will drop upstart completely which means SageTV needs an upgrade to use systemd for its service too. So if you're having problems that might be one reason.

i think i found a problem on my end. my existing windows sagetv server is locking out opendct if i read the log file correctly...........guess i have to shut down the working system tomorrow morning when nothing is being recorded!

then i'll restart opendct

thanks

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

There is an error in IOUtils.java that uses a depreciated command "smbmount' that is causing samba directories (shares on Windows boxes) not to connect correctly. I forked and fixed it to use mount.cifs but it hasn't been merged into the main source yet. You can recompile this version https://github.com/BobPhoenix/sagetv and get the mounting to work or wait until it is merged.

how about if i just modify /etc/fstab to mount the NAS drives? (never done that for a network drive before)

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I saw that when I installed ubuntu 14.04. I saw the name when I installed Linux Mint 17.3. So if you install a newer linux version or Mint it may show the name. But I'm no linux expert someone else may be able to tell you exactly what to do.

i see the name of the sage server both times, but with the linux server the hd200 does not seem to have an ip address.

could there be a firewall port that needs to be opened?
on the other hand, the clients do find the linux server and connect.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by cat6man

how about if i just modify /etc/fstab to mount the NAS drives? (never done that for a network drive before)

That's what I would do. Just mount whatever you need on some folders under /mnt. I don't have a lot of faith in "smart" automated mounting solutions, so I always use fstab.

Originally Posted by cat6man

i see the name of the sage server both times, but with the linux server the hd200 does not seem to have an ip address.

could there be a firewall port that needs to be opened?
on the other hand, the clients do find the linux server and connect.

Ubuntu from my experience comes without the firewall enabled, but if I want to make sure it's not running, you can run:

sudo systemctl disable ufw
sudo systemctl stop ufw

If you were running 14.04, it would be:

sudo service ufw stop

So if the commands above don't work out, try this.