Windows 10 and firewire STB channel changing

[Striker:WG]

I don't have a lot of Linux experience, but I have setup an Unraid box. Unraid is based on Linux so I know just enough to navigate the command line and edit in VI when I have to.

Setting up Unraid was super easy and they have a great community over on their forums. Between them and the folks here on the Sage forums I got my Unraid system up and running with Sage with minimal headaches. I would certainly recommend it! One of the great benefits being 64bit based Linux with support for Firewire based channel changing in Sage

I run my server on an old i7 3820 /w 36GB DDR3. I went on ebay and picked up some used 2TB data center SAS drives, a SAS controller, and a Firewire card for under $300 CAD. Threw another ~$100 at the UNRAID license and I was up and running. I now have a 14TB data array for all my media and other assorted files and a collection of docker containers that serve all the various needs on my network.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Cool. Your four years have been productive. So let's say I wanted to do what you've done - what's your advice? aka what version of Ubuntu does one install to run a SageTV server? How much horsepower, boot drive space etc.
Seems like a plan.

The most supported Linux distro for SageTV would be unRAID, running SageTV in a docker. And this is very useful for other things as unRAID was created to be a file server. Plus you can run other useful dockers like Plex, AirVideo, OpenVPN server, Bittorrent software, etc.

If you still want a regular Linux distro you can run Ubuntu in a VM. You can also run Windows 10, or other Linux distros in VMs as well.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

The most supported Linux distro for SageTV would be unRAID, running SageTV in a docker. And this is very useful for other things as unRAID was created to be a file server. Plus you can run other useful dockers like Plex, AirVideo, OpenVPN server, Bittorrent software, etc.

If you still want a regular Linux distro you can run Ubuntu in a VM. You can also run Windows 10, or other Linux distros in VMs as well.

Sounds complicated. What is the main OS in what you just said, the one which the others piggyback on, or does it not work like that?

[Striker:WG]

Unraid is Linux based.

Unraid can run full virtual machines with other operating systems on top of Unraid. This is very useful if you want to test something out in a controlled environment, but it is not necessary for running Sage.

Unraid also runs docker containers, if you aren't familiar with what a docker container is, they're worth reading up on. The basic idea is that they are a mini virtual machine with just enough infrastructure to run a specific application. The advantage to this is a separation of concerns. Each application has its own infrastructure of supporting programs (eg. Java) so an update to the Sage docker will not impact a Plex docker or a Bittorrent docker. The downside to a docker is that you are reliant upon someone else to maintain the docker container. They are made available through an interface kind of like the Sage plugins. You can create your own dockers and you can make modifications to existing ones, but that's not for beginners.

Unraid has a free 30 day trial (and I think you can get them to extend it once or twice before you need to pay). If you want 64bit and Firewire channel changing, it's definitely worth trying out.

I did have to buy a PCI Firewire card to get proper driver support, so depending on your hardware, it may take some investment to get it going (see my previous post).

[gdippel]

I'm running sage in a Ubuntu server vm on an unRaid box. I have two stbs connected to two HD PVRs and a quad tuner for ota. And, of course, firewire channel changing for the stbs. I know many are running Sage in an unRaid docker but for me setting it up in the vm was easier.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by gdippel

I'm running sage in a Ubuntu server vm on an unRaid box. I have two stbs connected to two HD PVRs and a quad tuner for ota. And, of course, firewire channel changing for the stbs. I know many are running Sage in an unRaid docker but for me setting it up in the vm was easier.

The VM? Sorry, I know nearly nothing about Linux and it’s subsideries. On the Ubuntu website there are various versions available. Which would work for a Sage server?

[gdippel]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

The VM? Sorry, I know nearly nothing about Linux and it’s subsideries. On the Ubuntu website there are various versions available. Which would work for a Sage server?

I'm running Ubuntu Server 18.04.5 LTS as a virtual machine (vm) in unRaid. I'm also running Windows 10 as a vm in unRaid. I imagine the desktop version of Ubuntu on a stand alone machine (bare metal) would work just as well.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by gdippel

I'm running Ubuntu Server 18.04.5 LTS as a virtual machine (vm) in unRaid. I'm also running Windows 10 as a vm in unRaid. I imagine the desktop version of Ubuntu on a stand alone machine (bare metal) would work just as well.

I assume Hauppauge devices (HDPVR / Colossus) have Linux drivers/support? All I could find on their site was this, which referenced the HDPVR 2 and Colossus 2, neither of which I use - version 1 in both cases for me:
https://hauppauge.com/pages/support/...html#colossus2

[wayner]

Yes, I have two HD-PVRs running with unRAID. You do have to get a specific version with the correct drivers.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

Yes, I have two HD-PVRs running with unRAID. You do have to get a specific version with the correct drivers.

A odd question: where is the Linux version of Sage downloaded from. Haven't found it yet. Anything tricky to installing it to a USB bootable Ubuntu flash drive?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Sounds complicated. What is the main OS in what you just said, the one which the others piggyback on, or does it not work like that?

It does sound complicated but it isn't too bad. gdippel gave a great explanation. Striker:WG gave a great explanation. Adding onto what he said - unRAID is a version of Linux specially designed to run as a NAS. It uses an additional hard drive as a parity drive which gives you redundancy. The parity drive has to be the largest (or equal largest) hard drive in your array. And you can keep adding additional hard drives as needed. You can also use SSDs as cache drives to cache data in the short term and as a place to store applications/dockers like SageTV

There is no graphical UI for unRAID, you use a web page to control everything but you can SSH into it and run a command line interface, but you pretty much never need to do this. Each docker is completely independent but they can all access the file storage. I have media hard drive partition will all of my data. SageTV can access this, as can Plex and AirVideoHD (which I use for streaming media files to iOS devices). And there are unRAID docker versions for lots of other applications - I also run the Ubiquiti Unifi controller to control my networking, and PiHole which is a really good adblocker. It is great for "server" types of applications like that.

I also run an Ubuntu virtual machine so that I can play around in a "normal" Linux distro. You can also run pretty much any OS in a virtual machine, Win 10, Win7, WinXP, other Linux distros, etc.

unRAID also seems to be the platform used by many of the SageTV developers, like Narflex and Stuckless, although many of them are dropping SageTV altogether.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

A odd question: where is the Linux version of Sage downloaded from. Haven't found it yet. Anything tricky to installing it to a USB bootable Ubuntu flash drive?

I haven't installed it on Ubuntu but on unRAID you just search for SageTV in the list of Dockers and it takes care of most things, although you do have to do a bit of config. It is similar to installing an app on your phone.

[Zogg]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I assume Hauppauge devices (HDPVR / Colossus) have Linux drivers/support? All I could find on their site was this, which referenced the HDPVR 2 and Colossus 2, neither of which I use - version 1 in both cases for me:
https://hauppauge.com/pages/support/...html#colossus2

The HDPVR (and Colossus I guess) are supported in Linux and you can use them in SageTV just like in Windows. I have two HDPVR2's that I prefer because the HDMI capture is a bit better in quality, but as you found they don't have native support. It might be possible to use the app that you found and get SageTV to work with it but I didn't try.

I wound up using a Windows VM with a PCIe USB card passed through and using the HDPVR2's as network tuners back to the Linux SageTV instance, or Unraid docker in my case. I needed a Windows VM anyway so this works well.

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

The VM? Sorry, I know nearly nothing about Linux and it’s subsideries. On the Ubuntu website there are various versions available. Which would work for a Sage server?

If you are installing direct on Ubuntu (and not on Unraid), any of the recent versions should work. I've run Sage under 12.04, 14.04, 16.04, and am now working on getting a new machine built with 20.04.

--John

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I assume Hauppauge devices (HDPVR / Colossus) have Linux drivers/support? All I could find on their site was this, which referenced the HDPVR 2 and Colossus 2, neither of which I use - version 1 in both cases for me:
https://hauppauge.com/pages/support/...html#colossus2

Most Linux distros should have HDPVR1 support build into the kernel and Sage should just detect the device.

There is no direct kernel support for the HDPVR2s in the Linux kernel, but there is a modified version of the Hauppauge capture program that works fine. See: https://github.com/jpoet/HauppaugeUSB

In fact, I just noticed that Hauppauge now links to jpoet's modifications of the Hauppauge code.

I recommend NOT following the directions on the Hauppauge page itself, they don't work. You need jpoet's modification to get it working.

I've been using this for several years with my two HDPVR2s and it's pretty solid.

--John

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

Most Linux distros should have HDPVR1 support build into the kernel and Sage should just detect the device.

There is no direct kernel support for the HDPVR2s in the Linux kernel, but there is a modified version of the Hauppauge capture program that works fine. See: https://github.com/jpoet/HauppaugeUSB

In fact, I just noticed that Hauppauge now simply links to jpoet's modifications of the Hauppauge code instead of publishing their own.

I've been using this for several years with my two HDPVR2s and it's pretty solid.

--John

thanks!

[jpwegas]

I can post a copy of the executable if you want to test it without having to set up a build environment.

--John

Edit: Nevermind, it looks like you are using HDPVR1s only.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

I can post a copy of the executable if you want to test it without having to set up a build environment.

--John

Edit: Nevermind, it looks like you are using HDPVR1s only.

yup, but thanks for the offer

[Zogg]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

I can post a copy of the executable if you want to test it without having to set up a build environment.

--John

Edit: Nevermind, it looks like you are using HDPVR1s only.

Would this need to be recompiled to run on unraid?

I was initially thinking that I wouldn't mess with my working setup (two HDPVR2s running on a Win8.1 VM) but it would actually let me simplify my setup to use this method.

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by Zogg

Would this need to be recompiled to run on unraid?

I was initially thinking that I wouldn't mess with my working setup (two HDPVR2s running on a Win8.1 VM) but it would actually let me simplify my setup to use this method.

I don't think it would need to be recompiled, but I can't verify as I'm not using unRaid. Let me get a write up together on using it with OpenDCT.

--John