[mythtvnz] Zotac ION ATOM boot device recommendation / opinions

[Paul Kendall]

On Wednesday 22 July 2009 04:07:56 pm Steve V wrote:
> Now that I have a HD frontend working with VDPAU I'm looking at building a
> new frontend using a Zotac Ion board.
>
> It seems that there are at least 4 options for a boot device:
>
> Network booting  - but this seems too complicated for my simple mind
>
> Using a standard hard drive
>
> Using a laptop drive and appropriate adapter.
>
> Using a CF card and appropriate adapter
>
> I would like to minimise power and noise, so I lean toward the CF card,
> however, I read that you can wear out the flash with too many writes, so
> this may not be the best long term solution.
>
> I'd appreciate any thoughts / opinions on the subject.
>
>
>
I have two of these now and I network boot them. It was really very easy to
set up using the MythControlCenter in mythbuntu! The only problem I have 
with it is that after it boots, the first time you enter something like LiveTV
or Media Library, it is *really* slow. Do it again and it's fast. Just kind of
annoying for the wife & kids.

Benefits are that updates are really easy to do. Just "sudo chroot" to the
directory with the image and do an update. Then use ltsp-update-image
and ltsp-update-kernels, and reboot the frontends!

You also get a NFS mount for each front end so it can have it's own config
files. Nice if you have different remotes etc.

I tried setting up a front end with minimyth on a USB stick as well but havn't
really persevered with it. I was wanting to see if this would help with the
slow down mentioned above.

Hope this helps.

Paul