I've updated my page on how to boot MiniMyth from compact flash if you want to go the MiniMyth route but don't want to mess with the network boot.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/distribution/minimyth/compact-flash-install.html">http://www.mythpvr.com/mythtv/distribution/minimyth/compact-flash-install.html</a><br><br>I'm happy with my ME6000 based system.
<br><br>-Pete<br><a href="http://www.mythpvr.com">http://www.mythpvr.com</a><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/2/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Johan Braeken</b> <<a href="mailto:list.mythtv.users@centerpoint.be">
list.mythtv.users@centerpoint.be</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Quoting Richard Stanaford <<a href="mailto:rstanaford@gmail.com">
rstanaford@gmail.com</a>>:<br><br>> --- Original Message ---<br>><br>> I came across the diskless how-to on the Wiki and, while I have the<br>> entire infrastructure in place (I build both windows and Linux boxes via
<br>> PXE booting), I immediately thought "hey, that would definitely be QUIET".<br>><br>> However, the question that goes unanswered in the wiki is about<br>> performance. Since the entire system is loading and running off of the
<br>> network (I've got cat-5 wired) *and* mythtv is also going over that same<br>> network, doesn't that beat up on the performance? Especially since swap<br>> would also be on an NFS mounted volume...<br>
><br>> I'd be interested to hear about people's experiences with MythTV and a<br>> diskless frontend to see if it would be a viable configuration or if it<br>> is just a pipe dream..<br><br>I have a MiniMyth frontend.
<br>It is booting with PXE and running entirely in RAM (512Mb, no swap)<br>Videos and Music are accessed via NFS.<br><br>Working perfectly!<br>I even have all my DVDs in iso format on the server so I can watch them.<br><br>
I also run LTSP on the same network and network speed is not an issue for me.<br>Even when doing massive filetransfers, close to the maximum<br>theoretical network speed, Mythtv keeps running smoothly.<br><br><br>I have to say I have a Cisco switch, which will probably perform
<br>better than a "entry-level" model. But, even then, I would not expect<br>problems due to the slow network speeds actually required as explained<br>below by another poster.<br><br>So I would say, running MythTV, even with multiple clients, over the
<br>network is not a problem at all.<br><br><br>Cheers,<br><br>Johan.<br><br><br>> --- End Original ---<br>><br>> Hi Rich,<br>><br>> If your network is 100 Megabit-switched, you should have nothing to worry
<br>> about, even if you want to stream HDTV. Consider that under most<br>> configurations, HDTV encoding will commit up to 9GB per hour of video. Nine<br>> gigabytes (or approx 9000MB) per hour is approx 150MB/min or
2.5MB/sec of<br>> data. Well, we measure data (disk size) in Bytes (big B), but network speed<br>> is usually measured in bits (or bits per second, little b). So, in order to<br>> smoothly stream HDTV to your frontend, you would need to be able to sustain
<br>> 20Mb/sec (2.5 * 8, where there are 8 bits in a Byte), which is a cinch for<br>> 100Mb-switched, assuming everything is running at full duplex. When<br>> transferring file between my machines, my network routinely sustains
<br>> 80Mb/s. And since it's full duplex, that means 80Mb/s transmit and 80Mb/s<br>> receive at the same time.<br>><br>> So, the bandwidth is there. Since the worst you can likely do is stream an<br>> HDTV from each frontend, the only consideration is the common network
<br>> segment, which is your backend to the network switch. Say, for example, you<br>> wished to stream three HDTV streams to three different frontends. Each<br>> frontend would put 20Mb/s on its own link to the switch which would
<br>> aggregate to about 60Mb/s throughput for your server. You're not likely to<br>> ever do that, but I wanted to use that as an extreme example.<br>><br>> With a sufficient amount of RAM, you are not likely to have to NFS swap from
<br>> the frontends, even with 256MB of memory, especially if you are doing<br>> hardware decoding. The output from come through the network interface,<br>> across the bus to the decode hardware of your video card (or chipset), so
<br>> there's really nothing to buffer. Unless you have stuff running on the<br>> frontend box other than just MythTV, there should be nothing to swap<br>> either. But even if it had to, your network would have to be taxed
<br>> virtually to its "knees" for you to notice it.<br>><br>> I hope this helps a little.<br>> -Rich.<br><br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>mythtv-users mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:mythtv-users@mythtv.org">mythtv-users@mythtv.org</a><br><a href="http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users">http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users</a><br></blockquote></div><br>