I initially thought this comment was major flamebait, but as it turns out, it's the most insightful comment I've ever read on this matter. I'd have modded you up, but since you're AC, I thought I'd reply.
Good to know I'm not the only one having problems. I have tried 3 different distributions (some of them 2-3 times each!), sometimes following tutorials, sometimes not, with different results each time. The common thread between the results is that something doesn't work right when I'm done. You hit the nail on the head: the core documentation absolutely sucks.
I've spent a ton of time on it, and even if I get it to work, I still have to train my wife. She gets the TiVo interface just fine, but even I don't understand why Myth does things how it does sometimes.
I'm about ready to just eBay the hardware and get the cable company's HD PVR. Yeah, the interface sucks, but I don't have as much time for this crap anymore.
I assume you're running *nix of some kind on there, or is this a windows server?
Sorry, this was a major oversight on my part. While we do run Windows on these systems, my expertise is strictly Linux. From what I've heard, the native Windows RAID drivers are generally much more robust.
We have Dell systems as well: models 1850, 2850 (same as 1850, but bigger chassis), and 6850. Dell's Open Manage utility, while being slightly bloated for our use, performs the RAID monitoring as expected. I liked that they at least shipped something that would work. I'm having to beg Sun to sign off on something that I found on my own. To me, that is absolutely ridiculous.
I haven't had the kinds of problems you have had. I hope I don't, but if so, thankfully we have a great team dedicated to storage and backups.:-)
From my perspective, the Sun Opteron systems and Dell Xeon systems are neck and neck. You might feel different if you have a leaning towards a particular CPU, or maybe price.
My experience is specifically with the v40z. And your answer depends on what you mean by "hardware support".
We had an issue with the system controller's connectivity. They were useless and we had to figure out a solution ourselves.
We had an issue with monitoring the RAID controllers -- both on-board and PCI expansion. Their cards are LSI megaraid. I found the utility on LSI's site that did what I wanted, which is simply monitor the health of the array. I pointed their support engineers to the tool, and asked them so simply say, "Okay, use that", because it lets me bypass my company's software aquistion process. I pointed them at the tool a week ago, and they haven't responded.
On the simpler end, we had a drive go bad, and they were very quick to get us a replacement.
I hate to say it, but my experience with our Dell systems has been more positive.
We're this close to buying an opteron based Sun server for our needs.
If you decide to do this, and go with Red Hat, please, for the love of $DEITY, don't order the Red Hat support with the systems. Sun's Red Hat support is, in my experience, completely and utterly useless.
then you dont need all the fancy extra support packages with Linux
Little toy bridging firewalls aren't the only use for Linux, you know. It's also used for Real Stuff. You know, like business. They tend to make money with it. They also tend to feel better paying money for "fancy extra support". It's fine with me, because it lets me do my job instead of tracking patches manually. It's also nice to have someone to call when I have a tough problem that google can't solve.
But maybe I should learn something "about how a computer works", and support wouldn't be necessary.
pay more for being able to handle more processors, when OSes like linux just work to what you have.
Comparing a supported, paid OS like Windows is apples to oranges. If you want to be fair, compare Windows to a supported Linux vendor, like Red Hat. They do, in fact, have limitations on certain versions of the OS. And yes, one of those limitations is the number of CPUs.
Eh, it ain't that special. It's on the web, too. Go here: http://www.kfc.com/buffalosnacker/. Enter "buffalo" in the text box. You'll get a coupon for a free one, in case you might actually eat it.
So if those are the 10 worst, what are the ten best? The Logitech wireless PS/2 controller?
My top three:
3) The Epyx 500XJ for Commodore 64 or anything else that had that interface. Durable as hell, much more ergonomic, and quick reaction time on the button after the learning curve.
2) The Logitech wireless PS/2 that you mentioned. 50+ hours battery life, no lag, great distance.
1) The hulking NES Advantage. The only controller I've ever used that came close to simluating an arcade experience. It cost $40, which was like $1,000,000 at the time, but I loved it so much I bought another to replace the one my friend broke.
I would guess that people who own iPods have below-average income because they're young, or even students.
Okay, let me restate (i.e. pull a Steve Jobs): most people who are buying new cars, and care about iPod integration, have above-average incomes.
Oh, by the way: the 60% number is just what Steve Jobs said at Macworld last month. It's true, but it's true in a different way from how you interpreted it.
Here's one reference (of many) I can find to this:
12:18 PM - "And last, I want to give an update on Chrysler. For those of you that missed it at the Detroit Auto Show, Chrysler is the first American manufacture to offer iPod integration on their models. In 2006 over 40% of the cars sold in 2006 will offer iPod integration."
First off, the 60% number cited above is flat out wrong: that's not what he said.
Second, even at 40%, I still don't believe it. And your interpretation doesn't make sense, either. He didn't say, "40% of cars will be sold by manufacturers who offer iPod integration on some model", he said "over 40% of the cars sold in 2006 will offer iPod integration". I just plain don't believe this. The models that are not listed on the page linked above comprise more than 60% of new cars sold, easily.
FWIW, I have an iPod, and it's pretty decent. In-car integration would be bad ass, and I'm glad it's catching on. I just don't like the Jobs Media Machine or the people that blindly believe every word he spouts.
I switched. I bought into the hype, and I got a Dual G5 that was more crash-prone than any other POS PC I've ever built. I got an inflexible UI and over a dozen extensions necessary to make it do what I wanted. I got iPhoto, which utterly choked on my 10000+ digital camera pictures. I got iCal, which imported vCal files just fine, until I ran an update.
I switched again. I sold the G5 on eBay for nearly what I paid for it. I got two Shuttle SFF barebones systems -- one for SuSE Linux (for me), one for XP (for me and the wife), and loaded them up nicely. The total cost was just over half what I got back for the G5. They're both absolutely rock fucking solid. Not one crash.
I'm not a hater, really. Okay, it did piss me off that a $2k system can be so buggy. I'm talking known issues here, with hundreds of reports. Apart from that, OS X just wasn't for me. I'm way too picky about my desktop and applications being just so, and OS X wasn't designed for that.
I don't know about 60% of cars, but it does look like Apple maybe has 60% of car manufacturers set up.
Uh, yeah... that 60% number is a little off. Did you see how many models were actually listed? Most of those are upper-end models. Then again, I guess that people who own iPods have above-average income.
Notice though, not a single vehicle from Toyota, who has the best-selling car is the US. Or from Ford, who has the best-selling small SUV and truck. Or from Chevy, who doesn't deserve to have the best-selling anything, but still sells a lot of vehicles.
This isn't directed at you, but rather at the GGP. The 60% number is completely and utterly wrong.
Speak for yourself. The point for you may be to not use Windows. Note that to accomplish that, you could buy any commercially-available PVR.
Some of us just want to use the best solution available, taking into account one's technical ability, and desire to screw around to get stuff to work. MythTV is neat, but it sure isn't simple to set up. I'm wrestling with it right now, and will probably get it to work, but I have above-average competence with Linux. Lots of people don't, and I'd bet that with Sage, stuff comes much closer to Just Working.
You can go ahead and use your "real" currency. Go ahead and lose it, have it stolen, and not use it for internet transactions.
I'll use my credit card, use it on the internet, not worry about losing it, or someone else stealing it and using it. I'll let someone else handle pain in the ass merchants for me. And I'll pay my bill in full every month. And the credit card companies will give me free money for doing so.
When was the last time you saw "how to figure out if you're getting ripped a new one on your home mortgage" on a math teacher's curriculum?
Great example. A side story:
When I was in college, I took a couple of real estate classes as electives. They happened to be the same ones that you take to become a salesperson, but were open to regular students as well. One of the first things the instructor did was to quiz us on how many were going to become psychologists, or social workers, or foreign language experts, with varying numbers of raised hands. Then she asked how many were going to buy a house, and of course, almost every hand in the room went up. Yet it's not required material. Hm.
I wasn't surprised to see that they put this on the Raptor. The drive costs enough already that it seems like an extra nicety rather than paying for the window. Though, it will probably also draw in the modder crowd. I don't belong to that group, but I think it's still pretty damn cool.
Yeah! That's even better. You could plug it in to charge it while you were using it. That way, when you store it in the PC slot, you won't have the USB cable dangling around.
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I initially thought this comment was major flamebait, but as it turns out, it's the most insightful comment I've ever read on this matter. I'd have modded you up, but since you're AC, I thought I'd reply.
Great post.
Good to know I'm not the only one having problems. I have tried 3 different distributions (some of them 2-3 times each!), sometimes following tutorials, sometimes not, with different results each time. The common thread between the results is that something doesn't work right when I'm done. You hit the nail on the head: the core documentation absolutely sucks.
I've spent a ton of time on it, and even if I get it to work, I still have to train my wife. She gets the TiVo interface just fine, but even I don't understand why Myth does things how it does sometimes.
I'm about ready to just eBay the hardware and get the cable company's HD PVR. Yeah, the interface sucks, but I don't have as much time for this crap anymore.
I assume you're running *nix of some kind on there, or is this a windows server?
:-)
Sorry, this was a major oversight on my part. While we do run Windows on these systems, my expertise is strictly Linux. From what I've heard, the native Windows RAID drivers are generally much more robust.
We have Dell systems as well: models 1850, 2850 (same as 1850, but bigger chassis), and 6850. Dell's Open Manage utility, while being slightly bloated for our use, performs the RAID monitoring as expected. I liked that they at least shipped something that would work. I'm having to beg Sun to sign off on something that I found on my own. To me, that is absolutely ridiculous.
I haven't had the kinds of problems you have had. I hope I don't, but if so, thankfully we have a great team dedicated to storage and backups.
From my perspective, the Sun Opteron systems and Dell Xeon systems are neck and neck. You might feel different if you have a leaning towards a particular CPU, or maybe price.
My experience is specifically with the v40z. And your answer depends on what you mean by "hardware support".
We had an issue with the system controller's connectivity. They were useless and we had to figure out a solution ourselves.
We had an issue with monitoring the RAID controllers -- both on-board and PCI expansion. Their cards are LSI megaraid. I found the utility on LSI's site that did what I wanted, which is simply monitor the health of the array. I pointed their support engineers to the tool, and asked them so simply say, "Okay, use that", because it lets me bypass my company's software aquistion process. I pointed them at the tool a week ago, and they haven't responded.
On the simpler end, we had a drive go bad, and they were very quick to get us a replacement.
I hate to say it, but my experience with our Dell systems has been more positive.
We're this close to buying an opteron based Sun server for our needs.
If you decide to do this, and go with Red Hat, please, for the love of $DEITY, don't order the Red Hat support with the systems. Sun's Red Hat support is, in my experience, completely and utterly useless.
then you dont need all the fancy extra support packages with Linux
Little toy bridging firewalls aren't the only use for Linux, you know. It's also used for Real Stuff. You know, like business. They tend to make money with it. They also tend to feel better paying money for "fancy extra support". It's fine with me, because it lets me do my job instead of tracking patches manually. It's also nice to have someone to call when I have a tough problem that google can't solve.
But maybe I should learn something "about how a computer works", and support wouldn't be necessary.
Shush, you. Around these parts, choice is only good if it applies to Linux, and not to Windows.
pay more for being able to handle more processors, when OSes like linux just work to what you have.
Comparing a supported, paid OS like Windows is apples to oranges. If you want to be fair, compare Windows to a supported Linux vendor, like Red Hat. They do, in fact, have limitations on certain versions of the OS. And yes, one of those limitations is the number of CPUs.
Eh, it ain't that special. It's on the web, too. Go here: http://www.kfc.com/buffalosnacker/. Enter "buffalo" in the text box. You'll get a coupon for a free one, in case you might actually eat it.
Remember, Pamela Anderson is watching...
So if those are the 10 worst, what are the ten best? The Logitech wireless PS/2 controller?
My top three:
3) The Epyx 500XJ for Commodore 64 or anything else that had that interface. Durable as hell, much more ergonomic, and quick reaction time on the button after the learning curve.
2) The Logitech wireless PS/2 that you mentioned. 50+ hours battery life, no lag, great distance.
1) The hulking NES Advantage. The only controller I've ever used that came close to simluating an arcade experience. It cost $40, which was like $1,000,000 at the time, but I loved it so much I bought another to replace the one my friend broke.
Okay, let me restate (i.e. pull a Steve Jobs): most people who are buying new cars, and care about iPod integration, have above-average incomes.
Oh, by the way: the 60% number is just what Steve Jobs said at Macworld last month. It's true, but it's true in a different way from how you interpreted it.
Here's one reference (of many) I can find to this:
First off, the 60% number cited above is flat out wrong: that's not what he said.
Second, even at 40%, I still don't believe it. And your interpretation doesn't make sense, either. He didn't say, "40% of cars will be sold by manufacturers who offer iPod integration on some model", he said "over 40% of the cars sold in 2006 will offer iPod integration". I just plain don't believe this. The models that are not listed on the page linked above comprise more than 60% of new cars sold, easily.
FWIW, I have an iPod, and it's pretty decent. In-car integration would be bad ass, and I'm glad it's catching on. I just don't like the Jobs Media Machine or the people that blindly believe every word he spouts.
I switched. I bought into the hype, and I got a Dual G5 that was more crash-prone than any other POS PC I've ever built. I got an inflexible UI and over a dozen extensions necessary to make it do what I wanted. I got iPhoto, which utterly choked on my 10000+ digital camera pictures. I got iCal, which imported vCal files just fine, until I ran an update.
I switched again. I sold the G5 on eBay for nearly what I paid for it. I got two Shuttle SFF barebones systems -- one for SuSE Linux (for me), one for XP (for me and the wife), and loaded them up nicely. The total cost was just over half what I got back for the G5. They're both absolutely rock fucking solid. Not one crash.
I'm not a hater, really. Okay, it did piss me off that a $2k system can be so buggy. I'm talking known issues here, with hundreds of reports. Apart from that, OS X just wasn't for me. I'm way too picky about my desktop and applications being just so, and OS X wasn't designed for that.
I don't know about 60% of cars, but it does look like Apple maybe has 60% of car manufacturers set up.
Uh, yeah... that 60% number is a little off. Did you see how many models were actually listed? Most of those are upper-end models. Then again, I guess that people who own iPods have above-average income.
Notice though, not a single vehicle from Toyota, who has the best-selling car is the US. Or from Ford, who has the best-selling small SUV and truck. Or from Chevy, who doesn't deserve to have the best-selling anything, but still sells a lot of vehicles.
This isn't directed at you, but rather at the GGP. The 60% number is completely and utterly wrong.
Speak for yourself. The point for you may be to not use Windows. Note that to accomplish that, you could buy any commercially-available PVR.
Some of us just want to use the best solution available, taking into account one's technical ability, and desire to screw around to get stuff to work. MythTV is neat, but it sure isn't simple to set up. I'm wrestling with it right now, and will probably get it to work, but I have above-average competence with Linux. Lots of people don't, and I'd bet that with Sage, stuff comes much closer to Just Working.
I remember the old DVD-R+/- format mess.
Me too. It's not hard to remember, either, because it's still going on! It's not old at all, and is still a mess.
p0wned
Nice! Serious question: what if you wanted to use the word "STOP" in a telegram. Was there a way to "escape" it?
You can go ahead and use your "real" currency. Go ahead and lose it, have it stolen, and not use it for internet transactions.
I'll use my credit card, use it on the internet, not worry about losing it, or someone else stealing it and using it. I'll let someone else handle pain in the ass merchants for me. And I'll pay my bill in full every month. And the credit card companies will give me free money for doing so.
"Real solution" indeed.
When was the last time you saw "how to figure out if you're getting ripped a new one on your home mortgage" on a math teacher's curriculum?
Great example. A side story:
When I was in college, I took a couple of real estate classes as electives. They happened to be the same ones that you take to become a salesperson, but were open to regular students as well. One of the first things the instructor did was to quiz us on how many were going to become psychologists, or social workers, or foreign language experts, with varying numbers of raised hands. Then she asked how many were going to buy a house, and of course, almost every hand in the room went up. Yet it's not required material. Hm.
but if you give everyone a long list of all the places where you could get a new free screwdriver, you have.
Yeah, maybe if the free screwdriver didn't work properly when assembling complicated tables...
I know OS X may not have the geek factor, but I really want to use my computer, not compile the OS again, and again.
1) This might surprise you, but there is code other than Operating Systems which can be compiled.
2) For some people, building software is using the computer.
I wasn't surprised to see that they put this on the Raptor. The drive costs enough already that it seems like an extra nicety rather than paying for the window. Though, it will probably also draw in the modder crowd. I don't belong to that group, but I think it's still pretty damn cool.
Yeah! That's even better. You could plug it in to charge it while you were using it. That way, when you store it in the PC slot, you won't have the USB cable dangling around.
Hey, why didn't they think of this? A small USB cable would have made much more sense to charge the mouse than using the PC slot...
People have been known to sell off kidneys and spare eyes to make ends meat.
Best. Misspelling. Ever.