PVR-Add-Ons - cmyth - Mythtv plugin

[Karen Pollard]

Hi all

I am on Beta2 of Xbian and it's great, but I'm trying to get the latest cmyth plugin as the one that seems to ship is 1.6.7, and I think it's upto 1.8.x now.

Can anyone advise me how I can get this ?

I've tried adding SuperRepo, but it doesn't seem to have a later version in there. I'm happy to compile it, but am unsure how to go about it. There seems to be instructions on opdenkamp's github page, but they don't include how to do it for xbian, only openelec (+ubuntu, windows etc...)

Ideally I wouldn't want to compile on the raspberry pi itself due to its speed, but would if that's the only way it can be done.

If someone could give me some pointers, it would be much appreciated, and also, if I'm being a total dumbass and it's already been built, if someone could point me in the right direction, that'd be great

Thanks

kp

[Karen Pollard]

I may have partly answered my own question here.....

I have found these instructions, but does anyone know if it MUST be done on a xbian pi, or can it be done in ubuntu on a ubuntu x64 box ?

thx

kp

[IriDium]

@Karen Pollard Due to the way Xbian is on the cutting edge, it uses the latest releases and does a mix and match to achieve the best performance. Attempting to install libraries over Xbian could have "interesting" problems. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but it's not advised.

If the add-on in Xbian has not got an update and you have "Automatically update addons" flagged, then there is not a suitable update available.

Is there a particular reason you want to upgrade to the latest release?

I assume you have read XBMC MythTV

If you really want the latest release try and find a ZIP of it and install it that way but I have a feeling it may error with "Unmet dependencies"

[Karen Pollard]

(24th Oct, 2013 04:40 AM)IriDium Wrote:  Is there a particular reason you want to upgrade to the latest release?

Yes, I have a problem with the EPG stalling at bootup (and refresh). Some of the latest changes in the change release notes hint at resolving this

(24th Oct, 2013 04:40 AM)IriDium Wrote:  I assume you have read XBMC MythTV

Indeed.

Thanks for your advice - it is appreciated !

kp

[IriDium]

I don't use Mythtv, so I'm not an expert. However looking at the "coding" this seems to be for the backend as the latest is 0.24 not 1.8 as you suggest, so I think it is the frontend that is the issue, so no compiling should be needed.

Running root@xbian:~# mythtv-status should show the release of the backend. (It may need to be installed first)

I was going to suggest trying Mythbox but that has also disappeared.

I'd suggest creating a thread in the XBMC MythTV forum as it's not really a Xbian problem.

If you do solve it, can you report back so other users can benefit.

[Karen Pollard]

(25th Oct, 2013 04:50 AM)IriDium Wrote:  I don't use Mythtv, so I'm not an expert. However looking at the "coding" this seems to be for the backend as the latest is 0.24 not 1.8 as you suggest, so I think it is the frontend that is the issue, so no compiling should be needed.

Hi Iridum

Thanks for the reply. The xbmc plugin for mythtv (libcmyth) is up to version 1.8.1 I think, but the one included is 1.6.7. The v0.24 you refer to sounds more like the mythtv backend, but that is stable at 0.25 now, and possibly even 0.26 (or that could be devel).

v1.6.7 has lots of issues for me and the latest one fixes pretty much all of them :-)

(25th Oct, 2013 04:50 AM)IriDium Wrote:  If you do solve it, can you report back so other users can benefit.

I have now solved it. I have compiled gotham xbmc on top of xbian with v1.8.1 of xbmc-pvr-addons and all my issues have gone - yay. Plus, things I didn't expect to be fixed (eg fast forward and rewind) now work.

Now, to share with others, I need to understand btrfs a bit more.

All of my work was done on a 16GB sdcard, so if I take a clone of the card using dd, it's a 16gb image - When probably less than 1GB has been used.

Does anyone know how I can shrink a 16GB sdcard image containing 2 partitions (1 x fat, 1 x btrfs), the btrfs one being the one that needs most shrinkage !

I have found a "btrfs filesystem show" command but it doesn't appear to work when I mount the image as loopback device on an ubuntu system. The loopback device points to the disk image and not the specific btrfs partition.

Any ideas anyone ?

Thanks

Once I can shrink it, I can share it. But it would need to come with warnings that xbian updates will more than likely overwrite this new compiled version and break it.

kp

[IriDium]

You can shrink the image with 7zip but alas once uncompressed it will be back to 16Gb.

As you're on Beta 2, there is an option in ssh xbian-config to create an img file - however, the last time I tested it, it failed. It might be worth a look.

As to btrfs - @mk01 is our Dark Wizard in these matters, he might have an answer.

[mk01]

(31st Oct, 2013 01:44 AM)Karen Pollard Wrote:  Once I can shrink it, I can share it. But it would need to come with warnings that xbian updates will more than likely overwrite this new compiled version and break it.

@Karen

there is tool called btrfs-auto-snapshot available with package 'xbian-package-config-shell'. it allows you to create .img of size you specify. xbian-config -> xbian copier is using it for backups / cloning / usb installation creation. additional options (which it offers via command line) are not yet available in GUI, but are available if you run it via ssh:

Code:

sudo -i
btrfs-auto-snapshot xbiancopy --img --size 2G /dev/root /path/to/my/file.img

this will create /dev/root /path/to/my/file.img as Image suitable for flashing directly to SD card including /boot partition and modifying /boot/cmdline.txt accordingly so you don't have to edit anything after flashing. just put it RPI and you backup copy should boot.

for size 'human readable' numbers are accepted with suffixes as M, G, K etc (1500M, 1G, 2000000K … )

for your question if updates will rewrite your xbmc (compiled by you) - by default yes, of course. if you update xbian-package-xbmc and your compiled version is using the same paths (/usr/local/lib/xbmc and /usr/local/share/xbmc). there are more ways how to avoid this, but the most standard would be to mark xbian-package-xbmc as hold with apt-mark

Code:

sudo -i
apt-mark hold xbian-package-xbmc

if you are using XBian's auto update feature, create file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99unattended-upgrades file with this content:

Code:

Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist {
//      "xbian-package-kernel";
//      "xbian-update";
        "xbian-package-xbmc";
};

you can add/remove/uncomment according to your needs.

btw: was something missing / not working with the XBian's provided XBMC Gotham package for you? or what was the reason to use custom compiled version?

[Karen Pollard]

(31st Oct, 2013 12:19 PM)mk01 Wrote:  btw: was something missing / not working with the XBian's provided XBMC Gotham package for you? or what was the reason to use custom compiled version?

Thanks for all your help mk01 !!

OMG!!!!

I didn't realise there was an xbian-provided gotham package, I thought it was v12.2 with beta2.

How do you get the gotham version with the latest mythtv pvr-add-on (v1.8.1) ?

If you can answer that, I'm going to be kicking myself !!! BIG TIME !!

The important thing for me is that it is the latest v1.8.1 of mythtv pvr-add-on and not 1.6.7 that seems to come with xbmc v12.2

?

Thank you !

kp

[mk01]

gotham is on apt devel repo available (current Beta2 repo) as xbian-package-xbmc-gotham-nightly.

just install over frodo with

Code:

apt-get install xbian-package-xbmc-gotham-nightly

[Karen Pollard]

(1st Nov, 2013 02:55 AM)mk01 Wrote:  gotham is on apt devel repo available (current Beta2 repo) as xbian-package-xbmc-gotham-nightly.

just install over frodo with

Code:

apt-get install xbian-package-xbmc-gotham-nightly

I DON'T BELIEVE IT !!!

Thank you so much !!!

How stupid am I ?!

DON'T answer that !

:-)

Thanks

kp

[mk01]

you can always revert to Frodo by

Code:

apt-get install xbian-package-xbmc

if there are some XBian specific bugs with Gotham - feel free to open clean thread. IriDium was also asking for it. But as Gotham is far from ready still, Beta2 will be released with 12.2 Frodo + backports from Gotham - so there is not much attention from devels going to it. The compiling and bundling is done regardless to this - at least once a week. But all the testing / reviews is now on the users.

[Karen Pollard]

Thanks MK01

1 more question if I may......

Could you please give an overview of using the raspberry pi mounting the filesystem off a NFS server? I read somewhere that that's how you run xbmc, ie the Pi boots off the SDCard but then mounts the root filesystem off the NAS box.

How many Xbian Pi's do you run ? I'm hoping to run 2 xbian frontends and like the idea of a shared root.

Do you use xbian-config xbiancopy to mirror the filesystem to the NFS share ?

How does the SDCard need to be changed ?

Any pointers greatly appreciated, thanks !

kp

[mk01]

@Karen

You can grab any howto google will show you. XBian is pack of extra programs on top of Raspbian which is Debian which is linux. There are no custom mods / special roots as with RaspBMC or OpenELEC so the NFS root is straight forward.

You take image or your current setup. Copy all files with rsync to NFS exported directory (on server side "no_root_squash" parameter is needed. on the other hand, export can't be "insecure" - as uid=0 needs to be effectively transmitted over the mount. for client side mounting "nolock" is normally needed for NFS below ver 4). In general:

1) prepare export on NAS
2) boot XBian, mount this export and copy files
a) rsync -avx --delete --progress / /mnt/export/from/NAS/
b) rsync -avx --delete --progress /home/ /mnt/export/from/NAS/home/
c) rsync -avx --delete --progress /lib/modules/ /mnt/export/from/NAS/lib/modules/
3) XBian can without mods boot from NFS directly from loaded kernel. The modifications in cmdline.txt are:
a) root=/dev/nfs
b) remove "rootfsopts=.*" and add "nfsroot=IP:/export/dir,mountoption1,mountoption2,…" - with Beta2 omit the nolock "nolock" there - it is needed but kernel will use it when NFS root is specified and somehow with 3.10.x kernel it takes "nolock" as wrong mount option specified (no idea if bug or specs changed, but ok). usually the mountoptions are specifying if it UDP or TCP mount and wsize/rsize for buffer size specs.
c) change rootfstype=btrfs to rootfstype=nfs
4) remove /home and /lib/modules from /etc/fstab
5) turn snapshot on APT operations off as this would make all APT operations to fail

reboot.

if server part would be standard NFSd implementation as with linux, it will boot. I bet 10usd. with NAS systems there are sometimes issues - not supporting no_root_squash, not supporting secure link etc. or supporting them, but with different syntax (probably those with OpenBSD core).

if you face issues, gain any howto forum for general linux will do, there is no difference.

there are some XBian specifics related to it's functions which will fail, generate failed upstart events etc (restore-home service, auto snapshots, APT snapshots). they are tight to btrfs filesystem functions / properties which will not be available but this will not affect XBian's main function as media player. As I had zero reports of using NFS, there was no priority to fix them. But probably will do it for Beta3 together with cloning functionality similar to the one already present but for NFS (current xbiancopy won't work as this is using internal btrfs functions to allow atomic freeze and transfer of rw mounted filesystem). Also during updates (specially xbian-update) you will get some minor errors reported - but they won't fail updating,

There was a guy already trying this with Beta2, but he failed - most likely due to NAS issues. I don't use NFS root either anymore because the development but when he was asking about it, I checked it as well and it worked. the discussion starts somewhere here http://forum.xbian.org/thread-1312-post-15733.html#pid15733

If you would like to use ONE export for more RPIs, this is in general supported and reason why NFS exists, but you have to consider few points:
1) as there will be no server side locking available with NFS2/3, mounted rootfs must not be accessed with RW privileges (as with logging as root from CLIENTS)
2) for doing updates probably easiest strategy would be to define RPI which will be used for this by logging as root. Leaving the others to just use the rootfs for reading
3) you would need to create extra xbian like user for each RPI to avoid conflicts with .db files present (sqlite3 is not providing sharing feature) - second option is to share xbian home dir, but move libraries to central MySQL.
4) one day if we deploy 100 RPIs to our homes, we will do it as it should be with rootfs on NFS really mounted RO, and local /var, maybe /usr (to allow local programs installation) etc. but makes no sense for two thin clients. ;-)

report back if you managed it.

[Karen Pollard]

(2nd Nov, 2013 01:23 AM)mk01 Wrote:  report back if you managed it.

Hi MK01

Yes, it works.

My cmdline.txt ended up being :-

sdhci-bcm2708.sync_after_dma=0 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 ip=dhcp root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.55:/piroot,tcp,vers=3 nfs-options=hard,intr,rw rootfstype=nfs smsc95xx.turbo_mode=Y elevator=cfq logo.nologo quiet noswap loglevel=0 mod_scsi.scan=sync partswap startevent=mountall splash nohdparm --startup-event mountall

My mount points end up looking like this (on the pi) after it's booted :-

rootfs 44G 20G 22G 49% /
192.168.1.55:/piroot 44G 20G 22G 49% /
devtmpfs 125M 4.0K 125M 1% /dev
none 25M 180K 25M 1% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p1 34M 19M 16M 56% /boot

My Setup (to better understand my views) :-
I run a 1Gb/s network, but of course, the pi is limited to 100Mb/s I think.
The export is from an ubuntu server and I chose to rsync the filesystem to the SSD disk on it to increase the speed. Also, important to note, is that I use pvr-add-ons (for mythtv (libcmyth)). The Pi is a Model B with Class 10 8GB SDCard.

First impressions :-
Bootup over NFS took 40 seconds to load xbmc and be useable, but then a further additional 4 MINUTES to load the EPG for mythtv.

Compare that to WITHOUT NFS, the times were :-

Boot into XBMC - 28 seconds (12 seconds faster)
Until EPG fully loaded - an additional 2mins 45 seconds (overall 2 minutes faster!!)

That said, once it is booted, it is presumably all in ram, and I couldn't tell the difference between NFS-booted or SDCard-booted, UNLESS I did something relating to the EPG for mythtv !!!

Presumably the EPG is a local database and it doesn't work efficiently over NFS (understandable).

But, the big plus is that SDCard corruption should NEVER be an issue. And with a bit of work, I can maintain ONE instance of xbian and not worry about keeping them all upto date individually.

Perhaps a way forward (thinking out loud here) is to run the root filesystem off NFS, and find where mythtv pvr-add-on stores its local database and use that off the SDCard ?

It's been an interesting exercise, but for now, I think I'll stick with SDCard versions and when time permits explore further

Thank you again for your EXCELLENT help MK01 !!

kp