[POLL] Would you like to have the OPTION of running XBMC on unRAID?



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heh, though apparently not as serious as you take yourself I see.

 

Dude...

 

When you are going into detail about how you like raised push buttons on your remotes, how you control it with one hand, how looking down at a screen is beneath you, how you program all your Logitech remotes... is what I would consider serious business and particular about the type / kind of remote you require. Nothing wrong with that.

 

You still missed my humor and sarcasm in everything I said. I thought when I said to another user that he cannot have a remote and has to get up and turn the dial to the channel he wants on the first page... He replied to that with he throws cats at the TV / XBMC to change the channel (You do know he doesn't actually do that, right?) and that users might want to punch me in the face (a few posts up)... was a dead giveaway to the humor and sarcasm.

 

Would you like to talk about the Logitech One or the new Logitech Ultimate and how well they work together with the XBMC, Pivos and Onkyo Receivers or something? When you program your Logitechs do you use the program or the webGUI?

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heh, though apparently not as serious as you take yourself I see.

 

Dude...

 

When you are going into detail about how you like raised push buttons on your remotes, how you control it with one hand, how looking down at a screen is beneath you, how you program all your Logitech remotes... is what I would consider serious business and particular about the type / kind of remote you require. Nothing wrong with that.

 

You still missed my humor and sarcasm in everything I said. I thought when I said to another user that he cannot have a remote and has to get up and turn the dial to the channel he wants on the first page... He replied to that with he throws cats at the TV / XBMC to change the channel (You do know he doesn't actually do that, right?) and that users might want to punch me in the face (a few posts up)... was a dead giveaway to the humor and sarcasm.

 

Would you like to talk about the Logitech One or the new Logitech Ultimate and how well they work together with the XBMC, Pivos and Onkyo Receivers or something? When you program your Logitechs do you use the program or the webGUI?

 

Again, if read my reply to Fireball3 in the context of it being a reply to him and not your survey, you'd find it's a) relevant in this thread, b)hardly losing ones head and c)not in any way dissing an unRAID build with native XBMC.  Why you felt you needed to make an issue about remotes is beyond me

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Worth pointing out that shared centralised XBMC artwork has been deprecated and unsupported for a year (see Frodo release notes) and XBMC will certainly be dropping SQL in favour of a distributed model in the future (see DEVCON blog).

 

Specifically XBMC is redesigning itself to not need a central server to support multiple clients

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Specifically XBMC is redesigning itself to not need a central server to support multiple clients

 

Yeah, still not sure they've got it right.  But if anything that would make the requirement for a headless XBMC running on a server even more important.  I want my server to do all the heavy lifting of dragging down artwork etc, not my low powered appliances.  All media will be stored on the swerver regardless of how the xbmc devices talk to each other

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Worth pointing out that shared centralised XBMC artwork has been deprecated and unsupported for a year (see Frodo release notes) and XBMC will certainly be dropping SQL in favour of a distributed model in the future (see DEVCON blog).

 

Specifically XBMC is redesigning itself to not need a central server to support multiple clients

 

From what I've read they don't plan to drop mysql anytime soon.  They are moving away from it but not removing the ability to use it. 

 

I just read the blog (it's late so I could be misunderstanding) and from what I understand you will still need to server up  UPNP to clients somehow.  I see that they want all the clients to communicate with each other and all have local libraries but that sounds like you would need at least one primary box that is always on.  If it wasn't then the library/watched status will be fragmented.

 

So you can have one of you xbmc boxes always on and acting as the primary source for the upnp library.  Or hopefully in the future a server version of xbmc to server up content via upnp.  (something like a combo of xbmc sauld and Plex serve)

 

As far as I know Gotham actually already has upnp sharing and the ability to setup a master/primary box and all other xbmc boxes get there library from the primary via upnp.

 

Like mentioned,  personally I want everything happing on the server and my clients just playing the content.

 

So if anyone doesn't want to use mysql and wants a "central" database on their server they will need something like the headless version of XBMC running on their unraid box.  (or full XBMC version running under a VM but have basically no use for the gui)

 

Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk

 

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Mysql will be dropped ASAP as the XBMC devs hate it with a passion and would drop it now if they could. It will be in for Gotham but I suspect gone for next stable.

 

Devils advocate. For less than $30 you can already have a 1080p XBMC attached to a TV. There are more capable devices coming thick and fast.

 

Why would the average user want unRAID next to their TV when a fully capable XBMC box can/does cost less than a premium HDMI cable already and in the next few years they will be even better.

 

Personally I think XBMC as the driver here to be a flawed one. I believe the list of people wanting this will get smaller each month as kit gets more capable and cheaper. Throw in the fact that XBMC itself is breaking away from client/server in all respects other than where videos are stored and it add more weight against.

 

Sure someone will always want the kitchen sink and other physical scenario/limitations will also drive this but i think my gut is it is rare.

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Why would the average user want unRAID next to their TV when a fully capable XBMC box can/does cost less than a premium HDMI cable already and in the next few years they will be even better.

 

Here's some food for thought.

 

It actually depends on how large your machine is and how much you want to duplicate or protect.

I had a nice stereo HTPC unit that had space for 4 drives.

I would rsync (backup) specific music/TV/Picture drives to this XBMC machine.

 

It served as a backup and a local repository.

This way if I were working on my massive server, there was still music and a few movies on the local XBMC machine.

 

It would have been nice to have unRAID on that machine when one of the drives died.

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Why would the average user want unRAID next to their TV when a fully capable XBMC box can/does cost less than a premium HDMI cable already and in the next few years they will be even better.

 

you must buy some expensive cables. i just got 3 for $8.

 

anyway, i'm torn between "i dont care" and "no".  i really question why someone would want this. it seems like a step backwards and if it came down to a matter of preference i would vote "i dont care" but my concern is that adding the option would add unnecessary complexity and feature creep. just because we can add the option and it is easy to do doesnt mean it is a good idea. besides that no matter how simple it is to implement i really dont think there is enough users that would want this to merit the dilution of the brand.

 

on the other hand, it could essentially expand unraid's role from a data redundant storage appliance to a data redundant htpc. the real question is whether or not this is what we want. as someone mentioned earlier, the ability to add unraid to any linux htpc might be a better course of action.

 

as i have a massive, loud server with 14 hard drives and thin clients that feed from it, i really wouldnt want to turn it into an htpc. but if i were building a new unraid server today, i could get an equal amount of storage with far fewer drives using only 4tb ones, run them quietly in an htpc case, and i could see how that would make a compelling argument.

 

so, i think i will vote, "i dont care".

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it seems like a step backwards and if it came down to a matter of preference i would vote "i dont care" but my concern is that adding the option would add unnecessary complexity and feature creep. just because we can add the option and it is easy to do doesnt mean it is a good idea. besides that no matter how simple it is to implement i really dont think there is enough users that would want this to merit the dilution of the brand.

 

Why is your plugin (linux packages and configuring them) considered safe but XBMC (linux packages and configuring them) not safe?

 

Based on the this response and those of others in the thread...

 

Plugins (which is a custom and fragmented way of installing / customizing Linux Packages) = GOOD

 

OPTIONALLY Installing Linux Packages from the unRAID USB Flashdrive (XBMC) = BAD

 

There are MILLIONS of Enterprise Linux Severs that have Extabytes and even Petabytes of data and thousands of drives that run X Server (Linux Desktop). It doesn't make the server unstable or delete / corrupt data. If that was the case, Red Hat wouldn't install one by default.

 

You know XBMC is a Linux Application than runs on X Server (Linux Desktop), right?

 

95% of the users on here who use unRAID...

 

99% of the time their CPU Utilization is below 5%. The only time you would probably go over that is if are doing something like transcoding a video in Plex (Plugin that installs various Linux Packages) or running a bunch of VMs via VirtualBox (Plugin that installs various Linux Packages) that are processor intensive. If you OPTIONALLY installed XBMC and using Video Hardware Acceleration your CPU utilization goes up maybe 3% while watching a 1080p Movie with HD-Audio.

 

Based On The Feedback So Far

 

Linux Desktop = BAD

(Will mess up your RAID even though Billions of Servers that have 1,000 times the data / drives we do... It works fine)

 

OPTIONALLY installing XBMC & Xorg Packages from the unRAID USB Flash = BAD

(Which would be installed / configured like Slackware normally does)

 

All other Plugins = Good

(The custom / fragmented way it installs Linux Packages and configures them)

 

Side Note: I hope nobody is installing the MySQL Package that Tom put on their unRAID USB Flash Drive, that is BAD. Use the plugin that doesn't always work. That is a much better and makes your data safer.

 

Back to XBMC...

 

It would be easier if I gave Tom a list of the Xorg and XBMC Linux packeages and have those packages just reside in the bzroot along side the mysql Linux Package and if someone wanted XBMC they could install those and not have to write such a complex plugin... But it seems writing a plugin might be the way to go so people have piece of mind.

 

 

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I am looking for a solution that allows me to retire my HTPC (currently running MyMovies). All the BRD/DVD rips are on 2 uRaid boxes in office. The movie collection software (SQL & media center player) is on the HTPC. I'd love something that I could manage collection (covers, UNC paths etc) that ran on unRaid but that I could use a mini player (VidOn.me Android Blu-ray Box (AV200) soon to arrive here) to browse the collection and play the movies. The VidOn.me is supposed to work with XMBC.

 

Does what we are discussing here fit that bill?

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Why is your plugin (linux packages and configuring them) considered safe but XBMC (linux packages and configuring them) not safe?

 

That's a fair point, although I don't think "safe" is the words I'd use, I know what you mean. I re-read the OP and realized I may have somewhat missed the point of it. If the OP is meaning to just open up the system a little bit so to be able to run X Windows stuff, then I see no problem with that (along with installing unraid on another linux based OS), although I would still vote "I don't care". But I don't really think it should necessarily include XBMC as an option natively. The ability to run XBMC, fine, but explicitly including it can be a slippery slope and that is what I mean by feature creep. Because then you will have people clamoring to include program X as an "option" to install. I think it is still best left as a customization.

 

Unraid should remain at its core a storage appliance with the ability to add user customizations to extend its role. When it starts adding "options" to make it run natively as a seedbox, mysqlserver, htpc, I think that is going too far off course. That seems more like changing its role rather than extending it. But I have no problem with opening it up to allow any customizations that require X Windows.

 

As a side note the majority of people (42.5) so far said yes to this poll with an additional 27.5% not caring.

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I am looking for a solution that allows me to retire my HTPC (currently running MyMovies). All the BRD/DVD rips are on 2 uRaid boxes in office. The movie collection software (SQL & media center player) is on the HTPC. I'd love something that I could manage collection (covers, UNC paths etc) that ran on unRaid but that I could use a mini player (VidOn.me Android Blu-ray Box (AV200) soon to arrive here) to browse the collection and play the movies. The VidOn.me is supposed to work with XMBC.

 

Does what we are discussing here fit that bill?

 

i dont really think so. this is more about the future direction of unraid. probably best to start your own topic.

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I don't really think it should necessarily include XBMC as an option natively. The ability to run XBMC, fine, but explicitly including it can be a slippery slope and that is what I mean by feature creep. Because then you will have people clamoring to include program X as an "option" to install. I think it is still best left as a customization.

 

I came to the same conclusion.

 

I can't speak for Tom and his customer base but since he is running a Business and probably wants additional revenue... I would consider doing the following:

 

"unRAID 6.0" - Same as its always been. For those people who want a NAS and that is all it will every be they can continue as they always have and use the various plugins like we do now.

 

"unRAID 6.0 XBMC Edition" - Exact same as unRAID 6.0 above but with XBMC "baked in". Users would enable / manage it via a Plugin that configures where XBMC keeps it's config / files / etc. have it autostart or not, configure Xorg, etc.

 

I suspect 75% or more of the users in the last 3 or 4 years learned about unRAID due to XBMC (and forks of it) and sought out unRAID as an easy way to store Movies, TV Shows, etc. via a fault tolerant RAID setup. Plus, there A LOT of people who have 3 or 4 drives in a compact servers that sit in their living room / closet close to a TV.

 

Instead of running XBMCbutu or OpenELEC, Plex, etc. and have to get a 2 separate maches (unRAID or XBMC PC, Roku, Pi, Pvios, etc.) they can combine two functions / PCs (save money) into one or go down the Virtualization road.

 

Basically, it's XBMCbuntu, OpenELEC, Plex PLUS. A XBMC Appliance with an easy to use WebGUI for a ROCK SOLID NAS device / capability.

 

I believe there would be a market and additional revenues to be had should he decide to do this and market it. Not to mention, many of us were faced with a choice / options on whether to choose unRAID, FreeNAS, NAS4Free, WHS, etc. and if unRAID goes down the road I suggest... It would give unRAID ANOTHER function / feature / Selling Point that those other NAS solutions do not / cannot offer.

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Tom's not a big news guy, but we know he does listen and bust's his butt.

 

If there is enough demand and if Tom doesn't mind...

 

I will post a bzroot and bzimage with XBMC "backed in". You would enable install all the XBMC files (database, artwork, keymaps, etc.) and the xorg.conf (if they need to customize it), etc. ONCE on your cache drive via a couple of commands you would add in the go script

 

I can do that in minutes.

 

I'm not going to spend weeks writing a damn plugin that downloads all bunch of files off the internet each time you reset your unRAID and works half the time. When Gotham (XBMC 13) comes out, I simply provide a new bzimage and bzroot.

 

We can do that until someone is bored and decides to write a 1,500+ line plugin to do the same thing (but each time you reset your unRAID Server).

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I voted I don't care because I won't be putting a server in my living room until I can figure out how to make one with at most 1 single quiet fan and it's a pain to run cables remotely.

 

I maybe should have voted No because it just takes away from the core development and adds even more feature creep.

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