History

LinHES R8 new features and changes.

With this release of LinHES several things have changed. Some things you may see, others will probably go unnoticed.
The main thing to note is that with this release, LinHES will support 64 bit processors only. This change along with a partition layout change means that an inplace upgrade of an existing system is not possible. All installs of R8 should be treated as new installs, with the option to import the old recordings if desired.
R8 uses the same version of mythtv as R7, so importing the old recordings should be very straightforward.
To make things even easier step-by-step instructions have been provided: Upgrading_LinHES R7X_to_R8

Special notes

  • Depending on the model mce blaster support may not work. For many people including those not using LinHES mce blaster/transmitting does not work.
  • The master backend must have either working DNS or remote systems defined in /etc/hosts for full functionality of supplemental web.

Changes

  • i686 has been dropped, all packages are compiled for x86_64.
  • Old nVidia drivers have been dropped. The current nVidia drivers support the 8xxxx series, gt2xx and later.
  • xconfig.sh will no longer generate full xorg.conf files, instead it places snippets in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
  • Fbsplash was removed and replaced with plymouth
  • rrdstats was removed and replaced with xymon, which is part of supplemental web (installed by default)
  • grub2 replaced grub
  • tightvnc replaced by tigervnc
  • Fluxbox has been replaced by enlightenment as the default window manager. set_windowmanager.sh may be used to restore fluxbox
  • Remote selection was reorganized. Now there are 4 major types of classifications, which should make it easier to find more common remotes.
  • Partition change, instead of 3 partitions there are now 7 for the main disk. Home and /data/srv/mysql are separate partitions. This will make updates even easier and help prevent system corruption due to a filled disk.
  • The mount point for myth data has moved to /data/storage/disk0/media /myth is provided as a symlink for legacy purposes.
  • Package cache has moved from the main drive to /data/storage/disk0/pacman/pkg
  • Standalone system type has been dropped, because of network changes within MythTV it's no longer feasible.
  • rc.conf was dropped, as it's no longer used for system configuration
  • mythbackup/mythrestore have been replaced by lh_system_backup/lh_system_restore.
  • Zoneminder/mythzoneminder are no longer half-implemented in the service menu.

New stuff

  • Language selection screen during install
  • Overall a better system integration, both as a standalone system and with remote frontends.
  • Added a new OSD message subsystem. This stops messages from overlapping and should keep things looking more consistent.
  • Added an option that will cause slave and frontend systems to wait for the masterbackend to become available. This is enabled by default.
  • New version of add_storage. This is a program to make adding both new and old storage very simple. It asks a couple questions and takes care of the dirty work. Storage will be added to /data/storage/$drive_serialnumber
  • NFS and Samba share definitions are auto generated. The share information is provided by add_storage.
  • For first time setups autocard.py will detect tuner cards, create static dev nodes, and add them to mythtv. Cards detected include pvr-xxx, dvb cards, hdhomerun, ceton infinitv, hdpvr. For the ceton infinitv it's expected that the cards network is running at it's default values.
  • Frontend system, will run /etc/X11/autostart when starting up regardless of the windowmanger selected. If you need to start custom things for X, this is the place to put it.
  • vnc support was added for both the main display and running a seperate session. If enabled via the service menu the seperate session will be located at $ip:1 and the mirror of the main display will be $ip:2
  • New website on the masterbackend. Things such as system health checks, backup/restore, updates, logs and much more can be found on the local website.
  • Automated and install of a a self-signed SSL certificate
  • Integrated channel change script for set top boxes. This script matches the transmitter # with the transmitter number in /etc/systemconfig. To use the new script with the first transmitter, enter "change_channel_wrapper.sh -n1 -c" as the tuner change channel script in mythtv-setup. Previous LinHES releases left all of this up to the end user.
  • patched version of mythutils to save/restore/clone settings between systems.
  • Options to mythbackend/mythfrontend can be added in /etc/conf.d/mythbackend or /etc/conf.d/mythfrontend. The startup scripts reference the MYTH_ARGS variable which is sourced from their respective file.
  • Many more behind the scenes changes.