[mythtv-users] How to avoid upgrade headaches

[Tom Lichti]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Steve Peters - Priority Electronics
<steve at priorityelectronics.com> wrote:
> Hello mythtv users,
>
> It seems that each time i upgrade ubuntu, something that did work great, now
> doesn't work so great. Going to mythtv 0.22 forced me to upgrade 2 versions.
> I had been pretty hesitant to upgrade ubuntu because of the issues.
>
> Vdpau doesn't work with this new upgrade even though i am running an nvidia
> 9500 and the 185 drivers mythbuntu installs, nor does half of mythweb, and
> the main kicker is that my sd recordings don't fill my 4:3 tv but are
> squished about 50 pixels on each side when you play them. You gotta love
> that.
>
> So I was wondering, what do you guys do to avoid this constant "upgrading"
> problem. I know I could go with slackware, but I'd really like something
> that is simpler. Debian seems good, but how would I go about upgrading myth
> to the new version when that comes out? Also, the mythbuntu control center
> is pretty sweet and really makes it easy to get things like remotes and
> transmitters going, so would I miss that by going to Debian?
>
> Is there a solution out there that is fairly simple to setup and will not
> need to be totally upgraded every time a new version of mythtv comes out? I
> have no problem updating the packages that mythtv requires, it's just the
> whole system that I don't want to upgrade. I'm fine with doing an upgrade
> every couple of years, but every six months is just too often. Why upgrade
> when the system works great anyways. Well, I was forced to this time to get
> the new mythtv features.
>
> The issues I have are very hard for me to diagnose and fix, so a clean
> install seems to be the best option. But to have to do that every 6 months
> when something breaks is just out of the question.
>
> Am I way off and this is only an Ubuntu issue and most other distros are
> fine?

I don't really have an answer for you, but I am curious what was
required by MythTV that you needed to upgrade base Ubuntu? My backend
is running Fedora Core 8 with current SVN manually compiled, and I
have not had any issues that have required an OS upgrade. Obviously I
haven't needed to upgrade the OS, since it is a few years old already,
and almost 4 versions behind current. My frontends run FC10 quite
happily. I was a big Ubuntu fan, but I've found that for MythTV,
Fedora (at least for my setup) seems to just 'work', whereas Ubuntu
always gave me problems. Again, only my experience, I know lots of
people use Ubuntu for MythTV without any issues.

Tom