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Replacing Mobo, requesting insight to minimize reconfig.
http://forums.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18387		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  blak3r [ Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Replacing Mobo, requesting insight to minimize reconfig.
The motherboard in my mythtv master box went bad. I've spent considerable amount of time getting it configured properly. I'd like some advise for replacing it with minimal disruption. I haven't had very much luck using the backup and restore scripts.

I wanted to find a drop in replacement and use a Chaintech 7KDD (AMD 762 + 768). But, was unable to find one.

I'm not too familiar with exactly how much of the hardware is auto detected on bootup in a knoppmyth setup. So, i'm wondering if i need to get a mobo with a different chipset, is it important to also maintain the same processor type (athlon xp) or is it not going to matter too much if i get an intel based system.

I can imagine if i got a 64 bit system obviously things would need to be recompiled...

Any insight would be appreciated.
Author:  thornsoft [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 6:02 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
I can imagine if i got a 64 bit system obviously things would need to be recompiled...

No. 99% of us with 64-bit hardware are running 32-bit KnoppMyth.
I think the biggest issues will be to have the same video chip and sound. Unlike Windows, you shouldn't get a blue-screen freak-out if the disk controller chipset doesn't match. I expect it'll be pretty smooth.
Author:  spideyk21 [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 6:38 am ]
Post subject: 
From what I understand. Install the new motherboard then do an Upgrade to the same version of Knoppmyth that is on the hard drives. That should setup the new board and keep your old setting also.

-Hopefully you have been still making backups.
Author:  tjc [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:34 am ]
Post subject: 
If you have a current backup the easiest solution is to use auto-upgrade as already indicated. If not, you may be able to follow the disaster recovery directions on the wiki and make one, by booting from the appropriate KM CD, chrooting, mounting the myth partition, and running the usual script. Then you can proceed with an auto-upgrade.

I used this, or closely related technique(*), when upgrading from my original KM box to the current production box. There are a few areas you'll have to be careful of (sound settings in KM, and what (if anything) you have in your supplemental restore list are the fist things that occur to me) but it should be that easy. See the R5F27 Hints for more things to pay attention to with any install/upgrade.

(* What I actually did given the extra disks in the new machine was do a minimal install which let me copy my backups over from the old machine and then auto-upgraded.)
Author:  cliffsjunk [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 7:36 am ]
Post subject: 
If you haven't made a backup (like 99% of us) then here is
what I would do.

0 - Plug in the new motherboard
1 - Boot using a Knoppix disk and do whatever is necessary on
your DHCP server (router, etc.) to make sure that the IP
address of your KnoppMyth box is what it used to be.
2 - If you have extra hard drives back up the whole hard drive
system using Clonezilla or Ghost or the like. If your data
is precious to you, buy some hard drives and don't skip this
step as it is your fall-back if things go wrong. This might
be a good time to buy that larger hard drive
3 - Boot the Knoppmyth system without doing any changes.
If you bought a larger hard drive you should actually just
boot from the new hard drive(s).
4 - If you were able to set your IP address to what it was
before then you can skip these #4's, else:
4a- Stop the frontend by pressing ESC from the home menu.
4a- Right click the desktop and click xshells->xterm to get a
text console and:
Code:
su
to get a root prompt.
4c- Stop the backend with:
Code:
/etc/init.d/mythtv-backend stop
4d- Determine what your ip address is now with:
Code:
ifconfig
Look for "inet addr:", probably in the eth0 section.
4e- Run:
Code:
mythtv-setup
Put your new ip address in those two fields on the first
page. Exit/save.
4f- Restart backend and frontend with:
Code:
/etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start
pkill xinit

5 - You should/might be able to run it from a keyboard just
well enough to run the backup from home->knoppmyth->
backup->yes
6 - Now that you have a backup, shutdown and reboot from
the KM CD. Choose upgrade.
7 - You should have all your old recordings. You must tweak
the system however you did before (e.g.LIRC).

Cliff
Author:  blak3r [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:40 am ]
Post subject: 
hey thanks for your detailed reply.

I have had mixed experiences with the backup utils.
I tried upgrading a R5D7 to R5F27 to get schedules direct working b/c the auto upgrade didn't work well.

R5F27 for some reason was glitchy with my tv tuner and i ended up just upgrading the schedule direct stuff.

Any insight on what hardware changes would require a new upgrade.
Author:  tjc [ Fri Jun 06, 2008 6:32 pm ]
Post subject: 
blak3r wrote:
I have had mixed experiences with the backup utils.
I tried upgrading a R5D7 to R5F27 to get schedules direct working b/c the auto upgrade didn't work well.

I'll admit to being a biased observer but the backup/restore stuff is _very_ reliable if you follow the directions in the current Hints and pay attention to the warnings in the "How to get the most out of ..." write up they point you to. As far as anecdotal evidence goes I've been upgrading using these scripts and their ancestors since well before they made their public debut in R5C7. Over the course of more than 2 years we're talking _hundreds_ of upgrades, sometime a half a dozen in one evening if I'm testing something.

The scripts are intentionally as simple as possible to minimize the number of places something can go wrong, use the most robust techniques possible, and have plenty of diagnostics so that if something isn't right you'll know it before you get into trouble. Beyond that, unless people tell us about issues and provide good detailed problem reports it's nearly impossible to find and solve any remaining issues.
Author:  benotto [ Tue Jul 08, 2008 2:23 am ]
Post subject: 
In my particular case, I have been able to swap the mainboard (from Via KM880 to Nforce3) without reconfiguration. I swapped the hardware and it recognized the new peripherals, just working from the first minute.

I was probably helped by the fact I was not using many integrated peripherals, as I maintained a NIC Gigabit pci adapter, a sound card and a video card. In particular I have the impression that using a separate NIC adapter (disabling the internal ethernet) helped a big deal.

Being a planned change, I actually had a backup available; I was expecting to "Auto-update", but it was not needed.

Cecil and the other contributors are doing an outstanding job. Definately.

Good luck for your upgrade!
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