Moving from Windows to Linux

[rickgillyon]

We have a problem with Sage Server on Windows. The memory issues sometimes go away for weeks, then the server hangs up again when it runs out of memory. It's just not worth the hassle, so I'm thinking of setting up a 64-bit Linux server to replace my Win10 server.

I see threads about setting up Sage on Ubuntu using scripts. Is that the best way?

What spec server should I be looking at?

What's the best way to move over and retain, or at least shortcut the setup of, my lineups, favourites, data, SD EPG etc.?

Thanks!

[wayner]

I asked this exact same question close to a year ago. The best option for Linux is to use unRAID Linux and run SageTV in a container. unRAID is a version of Linux built to run as a headless NAS machine. unRAID also works very well as a host for virtual machines. Check out some of the threads in the unRAID subforum.

[KarylFStein]

Yeah, there are plenty of posts about migration. I made my switchover last weekend and have now re-purposed my Windows server. The SageTV stuff was pretty easy. The hard part was moving my mail server, (it's been a long time since I've used Postfix/Dovecot), web server, Hyper-X VMs, etc.

I had a spare MB, pulled an SSD out of my Windows server, (I had two in a RAID-1 array), bought a couple 4T drives and a thumb drive (the latter is what unRAID uses to boot). My recording devices used to be a Hauppauge 2250 and an InfiniTV6 PCIe. While you can use an unRAID plugin to enable the 2250 there was nothing for the InfiniTV6. My original plan was to use a Windows VM and pass the PCIe card to it. But I ended up getting a used HDHR Prime and a new Connect. I'm not sure I like the Prime/Connect combination over PCIe cards, so might still ditch them. The Connect is unusable at this point, but the Prime is working well as long as you don't reboot. (There's a thread I remember seeing and need to find about making sure the OpenDCT docker starts up first.)

There are several options for moving data over. Look for posts about unassigned devices. I personally took a longer "network copy" route as I did not want to shut down my main SageTV server. I then installed the SageTV docker, copied over my wiz.bin file and installed the plugins I use. The only hiccup I had is getting the new install to properly recognize the TV files and remap them to the new locations. I ended up setting the property to rebuild things, (it's in the SageTV FAQ thread about moving data files around). That worked except for a few cases where it insisted that the recording was a movie. I did not figure out how to fix that as BMT did not seem to help, (there's a post about that too). So I just watched those recordings and deleted them .

Look for threads about the lineup backup/restore plugin. I personally didn't use that because I had all my channels documented and it was just as easy for me to manually enable things.

For the final switchover I just plugged the thumb drive into the Windows server, plugged in my new drives and it booted up unRAID fine. Then I added my old Windows data drives to unRAID. Up to that point I had two SageTV instances running, so it was easy to compare settings between the two. I also keep detailed install notes which really helps remember those little things I've done long since forgotten. Documentation is your friend .

As for specs, if you're happy with your current performance then probably no need to invest in hardware, (other than one or two HDDs--I went with two because I wanted a parity drive from the start, but it's something that can be added later reusing one of your existing drives). The SSD cache drive I also didn't need at the start, but since I had a spare I used it. The Linux version seems more friendly on resource requirements.

Now my backup MB/CPU that I used as a temporary installation platform did not support VMs. Dockers don't need special hardware support, though. But if you do want VMs in the future make sure your CPU has the necessary features. After moving unRAID to the re-purposed hardware I had the ability to create VMs again.

[rickgillyon]

Thanks for all that, very helpful. Struggling on...