Hi all,

First a disclaimer that I am rather newbish when it comes to Linux, hence I am looking for a little advice. I am running a self-built Dragon 2 box on R5F27 and was thinking about upgrading to one of the newer releases before the new tv season starts.

Anyone have any thoughts on whether I should make the jump to R6, or just stay with a smaller jump to R5.5?

I am leaning towards trying to do a fresh install and somehow managing to copy over the databases that include previous recordings and recording schedules and the like, but have not looked into that in depth yet.

The other thing I am thinking of doing is a full drive copy onto a different hard drive before doing anything so that I could hopefully just copy back if the new install gives me fits. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

-Chris

If you have an extra drive and don't care about the database, load up R6 on the new drive and let her rip! R6 is an easy install and has all the latest drivers and fixes.

If you want to preserve database, look up a "dd" copy solution, search this forum. Then backup and upgrade to R6.

Or just go fast and loose and just backup and upgrade to R6. R6 is really great.

Another thing. R6 has uses a slightly different file/archive/directory structure. If you never learned debian, you won't have to relearn arch. Another reason to jump to R6.

Since you have another drive I'd recommend the fresh install followed by database copy regardless of version. You can still keep the old drive untouched. Reason being is that as a general rule fresh installs are always cleaner and less error-prone than upgrades, for any software. The main potential disadvantage would be having to add back all the non-standard features and customizations if you have lots of them.

The process for the R5.5 fresh install followed by database migration from R5F27 is well-documented here in the forums. I did it in conjunction with adding a new larger HD and it was very smooth. The only tweaks involved changing the tuner and channel IDs on existing schedules.

As to which version, that's a matter of personal preference and free time. Though I think it's quite stable now, remember R6 is still a beta, so it might need more of a time commitment. R5.5 probably has fewer surprises, and also the upgrade path from R5F27 to R5.5 is more well-defined. But like I said it depends on how much time you have and how adventurous you are willing to be.

Lastly, be sure you have a good reason to upgrade. I believe there are still a number of users using R5F27 or even earlier versions who are perfectly happy, so don't expend the effort if you don't need to.

Good luck!

You can always use gparted (via the Live CD) to copy your "old" system to your new drive assigning the partition sizes to your liking. Once you have done that, you can retain your old drive as a backup for your R5X system and attempt an upgrade to R6.

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

You can always use gparted (via the Live CD) to copy your "old" system to your new drive assigning the partition sizes to your liking. Once you have done that, you can retain your old drive as a backup for your R5X system and attempt an upgrade to R6.

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

Thanks for the thoughts. I just took a look at the gparted home page - that looks cool - the screenshots remind me of partition magic (but I'm guessing this is much more powerful).

I currently have a 500GB SATA drive that was auto-installed/auto-upgraded from an earlier R5 to R5F27 that I am currently on. I do occasionally get frontend and even backend crashes - on average I'd say about once every 2-3 weeks. So I figure that moving up to newer versions of the software shouldn't hurt. I think I will give R6 a shot first - move to the latest and greatest if possible.

I do have a spare 200GB PATA drive (I think it is just sitting unhooked up in the myth box right now). So, what I am thinking is to watch enough tv to get my used space from the 500 giger down to 150ish (not too far away), then use gparted to replicate the partitions and copy over the data to the 200 giger.

I might try booting from the PATA hard drive to see if I have a functioning backup at that point. Would I need to edit some configuration files or do something with LILO to get my SATA image to boot from a PATA disk? Is that even a good idea to try? I suppose I could just keep the imaging as a backup and copy back to the SATA drive if a new install is having trouble.

So back to the original train of thought - once I am settled with my backup, I would try a fresh install of R6 on my SATA drive, do basic setup and make sure I can watch tv and record just a sample show or two. Then at that point, try to copy over the database and hopefullly be back in business.

I know the myth system can do so much more, but I just use it as a basic dvr (well basic is putting it mildly - mythtv is so much more powerful than tivo and cable boxes) for recording and watching OTA HD. Maybe someday I'll figure out getting the hulu and dvd ripping and gaming going on it, but for now it is a fairly vanilla setup so hopefully this will all go smoothly. Thanks again.

-Chris