[mythtv-users] Thin client frontend

Tortise tortise at paradise.net.nz
Fri Sep 24 21:36:50 UTC 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Wood" <beww at beww.org>
To: "Discussion about MythTV" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2010 5:31 AM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Thin client frontend


>I'm not sure if there would be any advantage to running a Myth frontend centrally, since a FE doesn't need much in the way
of resources to run, unless you had a LOT of frontends and central administration would reduce the admin effort.

I run about six to ten FE's (depending how one defines these).  The admin load is a draggg so a central model has some advantages in 
reducing repeat updates downloads, which are significant volumes and in frequency terms as well, presuming one does these.  A 
firewall running a proxy server such as squid could be a part solution however that only reduces the Internet traffic cost and does 
not stop the update requirement.  (Although should make it somewhat faster for subsequent updates)

When mythbuntu had the thin client network setup interface it was easy to run and test, and I did, however the updates and new stuff 
meant that necessarily got dropped.  I gather its still easy enough to do, but haven't applied myself to that, in part because I 
also recall that the thin clients interfaces were much more security conscious and doing anything outside their own user rights was 
a real pain, so they were fine as a Myth FE, but if you wanted to start doing some stuff over the LAN then it rapidly became a 
pain.....   Send me the perfect solution....?  Another consideration is start up speed, I found the thin client FE's started much 
quicker than I was expecting over the LAN, I'm not exactly sure why that is, but perhaps its to do with serving the files is faster 
than reading the files?  The quickest FE start that I've found is Resume from suspend, in my case using CF myth FE installs.  These 
could run minimyth but I expect I'd have less FE flexibility than a full mythbuntu FE and I am not sure how behind minimyth tracking 
is, last I looked it was pretty current.....  I guess it depends on what you come to work out that you want / need.

On a slightly different tack, LAN networks running over fibre might add a new dimension of possibility here?

On a significantly off thread comment it would be nice to be able to access a central (that is same instance) FE from multiple 
machines to have coordinated FE's all doing the same thing, which is a variation of some previous discussions here about this mode 
of operation.  The LAN throughput would likely be a problem though for this and other models discussed would be more likely to work 
on lower LAN specs. 



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