It seems Roku and Kodi are not really friends.
For the sake of conversation, we should consider them as completely separate things, not links in a chain.
Ideally it would be nice to watch anything from any source using a single interface. Right now we have our PS3 which we use for Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and DLNA from Win10.
If I got a Roku, then it would seem Kodi is not the best bet, Plex is where it's at.
I should also mention we have one TV in the house and this box would sit right next to it with a direct HDMI connection most likely.
I would also find it nifty if I could use it with a wireless keyboard and do some other stuff like browse websites or play Youtube playlists or live events.
In the future, it would be cool to also have it run a 2nd TV if I put one in the bedroom.
@dafyre said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
This post will likely turn into a Plex vs Kodi vs other stuff debate, lol.
Consider this my vote for Plex.
Also, Playstation Media Server is also quite nice (and does work with other stuff, lol)
I'm aware of the "top of Google results" choices.
Just didn't know if anything new and amazing has come out in the last few years. I've used Plex and PS3 so I'm comfortable with them. I have an account at Plex.
I am curious to try running Kodi on Linux though, just for funsies.
I have a few old towers to play with and I wanted to turn one into a media server.
I currently just happen to serve using built-in Windows 10 DLNA but of course that leaves much to be desired.
I also used to run Plex but that was off my workstation too.
Now I want a standalone box that is simple enough to use but has better features. Things like faster transcoding and opening more file types. A better media browser and organization of movies/files. Easy access to copy new stuff onto the system and not use any resources of my main workstation.
I've pretty much boiled it down to either installing Plex again on top of Win7 or 10. Or going 'Nix with Kodi.
I'll mention I also ran PS3 media server from my workstation but always had network issues with it. Lots of disconnects.
I'd rather take advantage of the new hotness.
The thing is, the installer for 7.1 actually DID do something. I mean, it installed somewhere! I'm guessing that's why my SR is offline, it must have installed to the drive, but my system is booting to the SD still.
errrrrg
Would have helped if that were mentioned somewhere in the 42 tutorials I read before trying to update.
I found it curious that the install did not ask me where to install to. I don't know if it ignored the SD or automatically chose it, but it didn't ask.
Nor did it ask what partition type I wanted, this wasn't a question.
Guess I'm off to buy a couple 64GB SDs.....
Ok so the time came to upgrade XS from 6.5 to 7.1. My setup is simple enough, I have the Dell SD card thingy where XS 6.5 is installed, and then I have one big RAID for storage of everything else.
I don't remember the initial install of XS being anything complicated. But anyway, I've now installed XS 7 three times trying to get it to work but it's not.
The first time I used the "upgrade" option, this ended with an error "the new partition table could not be written but was reverted successfully: Could not create partition 1 from 46139392 to 83888127
Error encountered; not saving changes."
After system reboot, I still had functional 6.5 but the storage repository was now "unplugged" and "not usable by this host." swell
So I said screw it and just did the clean install instead. This went through no problem. I created my password, setup static IP stuff, set time etc etc, then it kicked out my install DVD and wanted a reboot.
The system reboots, and loads up a nice old XS 6.5! Ok that's weird.
I did the install a 2nd time, also clean install, making sure to carefully check each screen. The only screen that has anything to do with storage is when it asks me where I want to store VMs, and I choose the big RAID.
Once again, I reboot, and up comes 6.5.
I have no idea where XS 7.1 is supposedly installing to, it doesn't ask me where to install to, it just does it on its own I guess. But there is my 6.5 still untouched.
Obvious question here, why isn't it installing to the SD or upgrading on the SD? It's not even asking where to install too. It must have installed somewhere right? And now my SR is offline.
I must be missing a step here.
@ChrisL said in US Lawmaker States that Privacy Doesn't Matter Because No One Has to Use the Internet:
So I assume that this guy still uses a paper filing system, a full filing cabinet, communicates ONLY via letter or telephone, has never bought anything online, and still drives a covered wagon...
It occurs to me that none of those things are actually secure at all.
I just don't know why the backup that is 8GB was done in a number of minutes but the one that is 17GB took 9 hours. That's like an exponential increase!
I plan on upgrading XS which is why I'm exporting the VMs in the first place. I hope the new file system layout of XS helps fix this.
Privacy online makes more sense now than ever before. Even something like identity theft is a real threat. Collect a handful of public data on someone, do a little social engineering, and start taking over accounts.
Or what about identity as it relates to a person's business, hobbies, and other passions? If I'm a politician, chances are good some people love me and some hate me. But if I also have a passion for RC car racing, I don't really need my political world crashing in on my RC world.
If I'm trying to run a business and want my "name" to be known for that business, then my other passions for woodworking or gocart racing should not affect that.
Even within the milieu of advertising this makes sense. My "technology" persona doesn't mind advertising from tech companies and I don't mind being introduced to new companies and products. But that's not the same as my woodworking persona, where my advertising experience would be geared for woodworking tools and tech.
My "identity" on the internet is connected more to my email addresses then it is to my real self. My gmail address is more for my multimedia life. I have a Yahoo address that acts more for my real self. My old Hotmail address servers better in my technology persona. I have my business domain email that serves to represent myself as a company. I've got a throwaway address that servers as a personal account for selling stuff on Craigslist or Ebay or other local event stuff.
To me, the idea of online privacy means "don't spy on me" and it also means "don't share my info", and to a degree means "don't build some huge database profile on me that spans my entire online life". And it also means "let me do different, unrelated things online, and don't connect my different interests together!"
I could be into something really hard for a year but then be done with it the rest of my life. But if I'm being profiled, monitored, tracked, spied on, that little stint is going to stick with me forever.
That's not to mention the nuances between what is "private" versus what is "anonymous" versus what is "secret". What I do in the bathroom is not a secret, but it is private, and only in a public restroom do I like it to be anonymous too!
I wanted to backup 4 VMs using XenCenter. The VMs were suspended, then I selected them and went to the menu "VM" and then "Export".
I exported them as vhd/ovf and sent them over the network to a Synology DS216+.
The 4 VMs total are about 32GBs as backed up, but to break that down they are 1.8GB, 8.7GB, 6.2GB, and 17.6GB after backup.
I know for a fact the 1.8GB VM backed up in only a minute or two. And I'm pretty sure the 8 and 6 gig VMs backed up relatively quickly as well. I think it hung up on the larger 17gb one for reasons I can't explain.
I opened the backup folder shortly after starting the backup process and the 6 and 8 were already done. I then kept an eye on the folder for the rest of the day as the 17gb slowly grew in size for hours on end.
What could be the reason for this?
All the VMs use just one VD with a single partition. The only thing I can think of is that the 17GB backup happens to be a VM with the largest VD of about 2TB. It's not using all that space by any means, but that must be part of the issue somehow?
@scottalanmiller said in Thinking about moving...:
@guyinpv said in Thinking about moving...:
Just haven't looked deeper at Austin or San Antonio yet. Dallas is a little too far north, can't see the ocean from there!
Houston proper to the ocean can be two hours in traffic.
Our drive to the beach now is about 6.5 hours.
If it were two hours, the wife would be making us go every night after dinner!
@scottalanmiller said in Thinking about moving...:
Houston is not my choice in Texas. I prefer Austin, San Antonio and Dallas.
It must be asked....why?
I prefer the politics of Houston over the others, which are often labeled as very liberal. Perhaps not as much as, say, LA or Seattle, but I don't prefer the drama of it.
Houston, from what I read anyway, has a lot in terms of food life, parks and rec, big malls and shopping centers, and many of the surrounding towns housing is affordable.
Just haven't looked deeper at Austin or San Antonio yet. Dallas is a little too far north, can't see the ocean from there!
I was looking at Portland a lot. Not sure the politics are what we're after. Plus ain't the waters just this side of glacier? The point is we want warm sand and fun waters we can actually go in!
For me (not the wife so much), I was definitely looking at some places in Utah and Colorado. Plenty of mountains and decent cities.
If you had a fight between Portland, Houston, Salt Lake City, and Colorado Springs, who would win?
I'm most worried about humidity.
I've always lived in nose-bleed dryness. I'm afraid if I lived there I would turn into a walking ball of sweat like that politician from the early X-Men movie.
Dang it.
XenServer is 6.5.
XenCenter is 7.1 as of today.
The VM is headless Ubuntu 14.04 running Seafile.
I happen to also run a VM for XO but I don't know how that plays into this. Is XO better at extending partitions?
I eventually gave up trying to extend the partition anyway. The docs I found said I had to blast away the partition so I needed to move data around to do it. Just a pain in the butt. It was only a test install of Seafile anyway. I intend to build it up properly this round.
The only question is now, I really don't want to go through this again, or I need to set it up so changing drive size isn't as big a deal.
We've used up our 10GB of Box space so I could easily just throw, say, 50GB at the new setup and it would probably last us a half decade. But still, it would be nice to do this in a way where I can more easily adjust available space if the time comes.
I was born and raised in the Arizona sun, same as my wife. We both live up a little north and are used to the desert brush, surrounding mountain ranges, and some forest lands.
It's great country, but small towns. The biggest city around would be Phoenix, but neither of us want to touch Phx with a 20 foot burning cactus arm.
My desire would be to live near the woods and stay in a mountain region, but near a big city. Her desire is to be closer to the ocean, and near a big city.
There are so many things to think about when considering moving somewhere you've never been, and have no family there. You have to think about politics and city/country life balance and raising kids and so many other views and stuff to see if it matches our desires.
The entire west coast is out for us, we have no attraction to the lower California big cities, and up north the water is just too cold. Washington and Oregon are not for us either.
Neither of us have ever been to the east states or touched the Atlantic waters. Florida has some perks but we aren't leaning that way with the humidity and hurricanes and stuff. I don't know.
Without blabbing on forever, we've essentially landed on Houston as a potential home. It is, of course, one of the largest cities in the US, right near the gulf, and lots of trees and grass (what my wife really wants).
I've done some initial research. On paper it seems to work out pretty good as far as affordability and cost of living and big city amenities and family life, etc etc. Plus as a tech guy there should be plenty of work there, or at least ability to run my freelance biz there no problem.
I would miss my mountains and forests terribly, but it could also be fun having the ocean near by and some different scenery and city life.
So then, does anybody here live in Houston? What's it like? What's the gulf really like? Is it a good city to raise a family? Benefits to running a home business there are far as freedoms and politics? Good stuff to do and adventures to find?
Any other near-coastal cities to think about?
Easy button.....blast the VM out of existence. Who has time to fight this crap?
I'll rebuild my Seafile system from the start but I just want to set it up better. Probably run on CentOS7 instead of Ubuntu, especially Ubuntu 14.
Since this is a file store, some other arrangement of VDs would probably be appropriate to make sure I have a backup of our data. That is, instead of running everything off a single large disk.
@travisdh1
So here is the output of those commands:
Physical volume "/dev/xvda5" changed
1 physical volue(s) resized / 0 physical volume(s) not resized
...
resize2fs 1.42.9 (4-Feb-2014)
The filesystem is already 3832832 blocks long. Nothing to do!
But if I type df -h those 35GB or so aren't appearing anywhere.