Linux curious, couple quick(?) questions

[SomeWhatLost]

A) Does Linux/Sage have any advantages (besides being free) over windows?

B) Does Linux/Sage have any disadvantages (besides being all Linuxy ie hacky, hands on, more work, etc) compared to windows?

C) Since Sage for Linux is OEM, are there any Manufactures creating Original Equipment with it?

D) is there a comskip type solution for Linux?

E) has anyone here considered creating some Original Equipment?
maybe a nice little custom embedded system?

• an atom would probably be enough...
• some built in ATSC tuners would be nice
• in addition to the built in tuners, maybe have a card cage type setup for additional tuners/capture devices in the back, maybe something like cPCI or mTCA or something... should have Hot-Swap capabilities for those mission critical recording jobs...
• 4 Hot Swap HDD bays in front for the recording 'pool' should be plenty...
• Since this would be an embedded system, and you know exactly what hardware you need to support, you could probably get the OS to fit on a single Flash chip... and than just use like a DoC or DoM for the sage stuff... maybe just the wiz.bin and image cache stuff? run the rest out of ram?
• maybe have dual redundant boot flashes? just in case one image gets hosed in an upgrade or something...

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

A) Does Linux/Sage have any advantages (besides being free) over windows?

I find it to be very stable. For instance, I think the HDPVR drivers are much better on Linux.

B) Does Linux/Sage have any disadvantages (besides being all Linuxy ie hacky, hands on, more work, etc) compared to windows?

Not all plugins will work on it. Although, I am noticing a trend where many plugin developers are also licensing the Linux version to ensure cross-platform interoperability.

C) Since Sage for Linux is OEM, are there any Manufactures creating Original Equipment with it?

There used to be on commercially available product that did.

D) is there a comskip type solution for Linux?

Comskip runs fine under WINE on Linux. In fact the commercial detection plugin installs this for you.

E) has anyone here considered creating some Original Equipment?
maybe a nice little custom embedded system?

• an atom would probably be enough...
• some built in ATSC tuners would be nice
• in addition to the built in tuners, maybe have a card cage type setup for additional tuners/capture devices in the back, maybe something like cPCI or mTCA or something... should have Hot-Swap capabilities for those mission critical recording jobs...
• 4 Hot Swap HDD bays in front for the recording 'pool' should be plenty...
• Since this would be an embedded system, and you know exactly what hardware you need to support, you could probably get the OS to fit on a single Flash chip... and than just use like a DoC or DoM for the sage stuff... maybe just the wiz.bin and image cache stuff? run the rest out of ram?
• maybe have dual redundant boot flashes? just in case one image gets hosed in an upgrade or something...

[SomeWhatLost]

cool... thanx for those answers...

so, just out of curiosity, has anyone actually considered this:

E) has anyone here considered creating some Original Equipment?
maybe a nice little custom embedded system?

• an atom would probably be enough...
• some built in ATSC tuners would be nice
• in addition to the built in tuners, maybe have a card cage type setup for additional tuners/capture devices in the back, maybe something like cPCI or mTCA or something... should have Hot-Swap capabilities for those mission critical recording jobs...
• 4 Hot Swap HDD bays in front for the recording 'pool' should be plenty...
• Since this would be an embedded system, and you know exactly what hardware you need to support, you could probably get the OS to fit on a single Flash chip... and than just use like a DoC or DoM for the sage stuff... maybe just the wiz.bin and image cache stuff? run the rest out of ram?
• maybe have dual redundant boot flashes? just in case one image gets hosed in an upgrade or something...

or any type of open source hardware/software Sage Server Appliance (SSA? makes a pretty good TLA...) type thing?

just sounds like it could be cool...

[kbyrd]

Sage itself doesn't have any advantages or disadvantages on Linux as far as I can tell. Whether the OS has advantages depends on you. If you're comfortable on Linux, many people like things like running software raid with the md driver. For me, I'm more comfortable on Linux, and my sage box does dobule/triple duty as a NAS, backup, and random stuff for the rest of the house.

What bcjenkins said about plugins is spot on. It used to be that several popular plugins didn't work well on Linux, now most do. One notable exception (to me) is the PlayOn plugin. You need PlayOn to run on a Windows install, but I could do that with VMware. The PlayOn plugin itself doesn't work on some versions of Linux because keeping a single set of binaries (especially Perl PARs) that run on all the various distributions is a nightmare.

About your last point, I'm not sure there is much money to be made building these. Who is your market? Is is the <$300 market that Roku, Western Digital, and the others compete in? That's really mass-market, your product has to be completely idiot proof and rock-solid stable. It's more like TiVo plus, and I'm not convinced they're making loads of cash now that cable companies rent out DVRs. If you're going for higher-priced market, do you support your customer? Can you afford to? Are your customers who want to shell out the cash just going to be the same people on this forum who are capable of building it (on Windows or Linux) themselves?

[ChePazzo]

disclaimer ... I am a linux fanboy.

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

A) Does Linux/Sage have any advantages (besides being free) over windows?

Well ... it's not Windows for one!
Honestly, though, I prefer linux mostly because
1. You can run it on a low-end machine. My Sage server runs on a 2.4GHz Pent4 with 2G RAM that I bought for $75!

2. Linux natively and easily supports NFS which is awesome if you need to store content on a separate server (easy to set up and run and don't have to deal with the windows file sharing or Samba or crap like that).

3. ssh! You can stick your linux server in the basement out of the way and never need a GUI. setting up ssh with most versions of Windows is a complete pain.

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

B) Does Linux/Sage have any disadvantages (besides being all Linuxy ie hacky, hands on, more work, etc) compared to windows?

Ubuntu is probably the least linuxy solution you can get and currently Sage's recommended flavor.

So, as already mentioned, the most annoying thing is that some stuff is only available for windows (playon, most notably).

Also, if you use Windows with Windows Media Server, there are a number of devices that, while not Sage compatible, will let you stream. That is nice because as long as you have some sort of set-top box on your TV, you can at least access your media.

You *can* set that up on linux (mediatomb), but the management web gui sucks, so it's a pain to manage.

That being said, you can always run Sage on linux and keep it really simple and then stand up a Windows Media Server elsewhere on your network and stream from there.

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

D) is there a comskip type solution for Linux?

Yes. It works awesomely! Installing it with Sage7 even has a simple-to-use setup that automatically scans recordings as they come in!

Before Sage7, I used to run comskip on a windows box that "mounted" the sage linux media folders. Ran just fine over the network.