[mythtvnz] Zotac ION ATOM boot device recommendation / opinions

[Robin Gilks]

>
> 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've always run my frontend diskless and when I get an HD frontend I'll do
the same with that. I net boot using pxegrub so the setup is pretty much
the same as using normal grub.

I run enough RAM that I don't have to worry about swap space and the
server has more than enough space for log files and other stuff being
generated by the frontend.

I have a directory on the server called /diskless which is exported in the
/etc/exports file with the line
=========================================
/diskless       media(rw,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check)
=========================================

and the /diskless/boot directory contains the kernel, pxegrub executable
and grub.conf which contains:

=========================================
default 0
timeout 2
tftpserver 192.168.1.10

title=MythTV
kernel (nd)/linux-2.6.25-gentoo-r7 ip=dhcp root=/dev/nfs
nfsroot=192.168.1.10:/diskless
=========================================

I run dnsmasq on the server to give the frontend its IP address and to
make sure it knows where to boot from. These are the options I use in the
dnsmasq.conf file:

=========================================
# Add local-only domains here, queries in these domains are answered
# from /etc/hosts or DHCP only.
local=/localdomain/
# Override the default route supplied by dnsmasq, which assumes the
# router is the same machine as the one running dnsmasq. Point
# directly at the adsl router instead
dhcp-option=3,192.168.1.100

# Send the Encapsulated-vendor-class ID needed by some configurations of
# Etherboot to allow is to recognise the DHCP server.
dhcp-option=vendor:Etherboot,60,"Etherboot"

# Set the boot filename for BOOTP. This gets the network version of grub
# pxegrub) sent to the frontend after it gets its IP address
dhcp-boot=net:media,pxegrub
# a very badly documented option that tells pxegrub what its config file is
dhcp-option-force=150,/grub.conf

# Enable dnsmasq's built-in TFTP server
enable-tftp

# Set the root directory for files available via FTP.
tftp-root=/diskless/boot

# Always give the host with ethernet address 00:40:63:de:5b:53
# the name media and IP address 192.168.1.33 and infinite lease time
dhcp-host=00:40:63:de:5b:53,media,192.168.1.33,infinite,net:media
=========================================

My /etc/hosts file on the server has an entry for the frontend (called
media - very original!!)

=========================================
192.168.1.33    media.localdomain       media
=========================================


Thats pretty much it - the /diskless directory is the complete frontend
filesystem - if I make a major change I usually make a copy of it to
/diskless.backup and if the new stuff doesn't work I can either rename the
backup or export the backup and change the dnsmasq config to point to
/diskless.backup/boot and it all works - great for good WAF.



-- 
Robin Gilks