Moving from Mediaportal DVR to a Linux based solution (After suggestions)

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kiwijunglist

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#243735 29-Dec-2018 10:55

I have built a new home server for hosting all my media storage. i3-2100 (I have a spare i7-3770 that I will probably swap into the machine) / 16 gb ram / 500 GB system SSD / ~50 TB HDD. It will run ubuntu or debian and use either open media vault or something else. I will have a lot of programs running in docker eg. Sonarr / Radarr / Home Assistant / Torrent / etc ... I have previously used Mediaportal TV Server, but I want to change to something I can run in a docker. I have read that running windows in docker doesn't work very well for TV tuners and I'm not keen to run a seperate machine just for MP TV Server (Even though I do love Mediaportal).

My TV Card is HVR2200.

My HTPC will probably still run windows, so I guess I could run the TV tuner in the HTPC rather than the server, but I'm just wondering how good the linux docker options are. I'm happy to pay for plex lifetime sub, but I guess emby is an option, and are there other options out there? What would people recommend? I'm especially interested in people who used to run MediaPortal and have switched to linux, and what their experience was like.

My linux ability is pretty bad, so I require a lot of guides to set things up.

Thanks

Kiwi

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

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#2151798 29-Dec-2018 11:28

Similar to you, I had a MP set up that I've moved away from (more from lack of use, TBH) and am learning linux.

My home server now runs Unraid, which sounds like it might be perfect for you. Obvious file sharing etc., but also has Docker pre-baked in with a great set of Community Apps that allow for very easy install and configurations of Docker containers. I don't use them myself, but I know it has Sonarr, Radarr, SageTV and TVheadend all available with a few clicks. I'm also using PiHole and NextCloud containers, as well as auto backing up to BackBlaze B2.

To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't have Home Assistant / HASS containers ready to go. It does have Domoticz and MQTT.

If you need tutorials for Unraid, SpaceInvaderOne's youtube channel is a must view.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2151799 29-Dec-2018 11:30

Is there any particular reason you want to use Docker?

I was never satisfied with Mediaportal, so never ran it in a 'production' environment. I switched to tvheadend, running on FreeBSD, using HDHomeRun tuners, and never looked back. Within weeks it was providing live TV and Sky to every TV in the house, almost flawlessly. I'm expecting once Kodi 18 arrives, along with a version of the tvheadend Add-On that isn't labelled as unstable, it will be even better.

I run FreeBSD because that's what I'm most familiar with, but setup on Linux should be even easier. Most of the tvheadend setup is via a Web interface, so the platform is largely irrelevant (except Linux would have better tuner support if you wanted to use tuner cards).

So my recommendation - tvheadend, on your favourite Linux/BSD distribution.

michaelmurfy

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#2151816 29-Dec-2018 11:39

I personally use UnRaid on a HP Microserver. TV is provided by Plex DVR + a HDHomerun. All running within Docker containers:

Works extremely well.

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kiwijunglist

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#2151817 29-Dec-2018 11:42

is there a disadvantage with unraid becausethe underlying OS doesn't run a more standard version of linux?

do you run home assistant or hass.io on unraid?

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michaelmurfy

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#2151823 29-Dec-2018 11:55

@kiwijunglist UnRaid is Slackware Linux based. It is a NAS distribution. I personally run hass.io in Docker but sounds like I'm doing what you're wanting to do (especially with Sonarr / Radarr).

kiwijunglist

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#2151830 29-Dec-2018 12:18

have you run into any issues where slackware OS didn't have features or made things more difficult because it wasn't ubuntu or debian ?

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ANglEAUT

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#2151834 29-Dec-2018 12:32

interested in all comments due to my interest.

Sorry, nothing of value to add.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

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PANiCnz

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#2151839 29-Dec-2018 13:02

Tvheadend is pretty bullet proof, never tried installing it in Docker but assume its possible.

michaelmurfy

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#2151871 29-Dec-2018 14:01

kiwijunglist:
have you run into any issues where slackware OS didn't have features or made things more difficult because it wasn't ubuntu or debian ?

Well I have 3 Debian VM’s running for other stuff. Just use UnRaid for Docker and a VM host mostly. It is however very powerful and have no intention to change to another OS. The WebUI is feature packed and powerful and I think it is well worth it if you have a tonne of storage.

I’ve got 3x 3tb NAS drives, 1x 4tb drive for Parity (Raid) and a 1tb NVME SSD cache.

HOWEVER you’ll need to format your drives to add them into the ZFS Raid. Well worth it though.

kiwijunglist

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#2151881 29-Dec-2018 14:19

i just converted most of my already full drives from ntfs to ext4 , it was a painful experience.

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PANiCnz

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#2151883 29-Dec-2018 14:27

If you're going to use Unraid then you shouldn't need to convert your drives to ZFS. Nevertheless pretty sure Unraid wont preserve the data when it builds it's array.

If you need a server OS i'd suggest taking a look at OpenMediaVault, its lightweight OS based on Debain with a webgui. Can also be used to mange Docker just like Unraid. With existing EXT4 disks it should just be a matter of mounting the disks and creating the shares.

kiwijunglist

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#2151899 29-Dec-2018 14:54

yes that was the idea of moving from ntfs to ext4 was for OMV.

I didn't actually realise docker works for windows, so i might of been able to stick with windows, but no going back now!

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PANiCnz

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#2151901 29-Dec-2018 15:00

These guys provide some of the best Docker containers, couple them with OMV or Unraid and you're off to the races. Looks like they do a Tvheadend container too.

How much free space do you have on the 58TB? Unraid allows you to add new drives one by one, so if you can free up two drives you could theoretically migrate to Unraid fairly easily. The only gotcha is the parity drives needs to the largest drive available, so you'd need to be able to free up your largest drive easily.

I personally think Unraid is a cult, can't understand why its so popular. Read and write performance is abysmal (the cult members never point this out when recommending it). It can be improved with an SSD cache, but that's an added cost that should be unnecessary. Comfortably get 300-400MB/s off my mdadm RAID-5 array without an SSD cache.

michaelmurfy

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#2151955 29-Dec-2018 17:52

I actually disagree with UnRaid being a cult as you call it. It is a good distro and I do get good read / write speeds however as you state it, it is a different raid and write performance is hindered by your parity drive.

I’m still very happy with it - much happier than when I was using OMV or FreeNAS as it works very well for everything I do, and is lightweight. I used to run Debian with ZFS back in the day (manually managed) and wouldn’t ever go back.

Really comes down to personal preference much like iOS vs Android.

kiwijunglist

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#2151963 29-Dec-2018 18:00

What does unraid do that OMV doesn't?

My plan was to keep the files in a native file system (so if I bugger things up or move to a different server i can just pull all the drives).

I want to run a single parity drive, and if I go with OMV I will use snapshot.

I currently have 4x 3TB + 1x 4TB + 1x 6TB + 4x 8TB (5400 rpm archive styles) + 256 GB SSD

The parity drive will probably be an archive 8tb drive, so it will be very slow. (I could potentially use 3x3TB to parity instead).

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

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