I tried posting this last night, but can't seem to find it anywhere, so here goes again...

When installing Knoppmyth, I followed the how-to on these webpages (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/doc.html#manualinstall) and divided my 60GB hard disk into 4 separate partitions. Hda1 was for /, hda2 was swap (and defined as that filesystem type), hda3 was /cache, and hda4 was for /myth. When I ran the installer, I was prompted as to which hard disk to install to, and hda1, 3, and 4 were options. I chose hda1 for the system, thinking that the installer would use the partitions I defined.

Ha ha. Silly me.

I started getting disk full errors and didn't know why. A closer examination showed the partitions were all there, but apparently the ENTIRE install was made to /hda1, a 2.5GB partition that's now 95% full.

Now for the question...what's the best way to copy/move parts of the install to the appropriate partitions without goofing anything up?

(By the way, if the post doesn't belong in this forum, PLEASE don't just delete it. If this isn't a Knoppmyth install question I don't know what is.)

You partitioned your drive but you never formated hda3 & hda4. The install script tries to mount them before coping the files but if the mounting fails to just uses the root.

Stop mythbackend. Format the hda3 & hda4 partitions. Mount hda4 to a temporary location such as /mnt/hda4. Copy everything from /myth to /mnt/hda4. Deleate everything from /myth. Reboot.

When knoppMyth comes up everything should mount correctly and the backend should see /myth with all it's files.

Hmmm...I could've sworn I'd formatted the drives, as I had to research the correct command line parameters for the filesystems I wanted to use. Obviously, something went wrong there. I'll use your procedure and try again. Thanks!

It is your option, but why do a manual install to hda? Why not auto and simply be done with it?

I wanted to maximize the amount of disk space for the /myth partition. I also figured that the auto install wouldn't divvy up the disk the way I did it. Perhaps I should've just trusted the installer.

The installer is now hardcorded to use 5 gigs as /. Before, / would depend on the size of the drive.

Okay...are the sizes for swap and /cache also hardcoded or calculated depending on drive size?

Swap is RAM x 1.5, /cache is based on drive size. In the next release, there will not be a /cache as MythTV no longer uses the ringbuffer.

Cecil--that's good information to know. If I were to do a disk wipe and Auto re-install with 30.2, and then did an upgrade install of .19 when it's released, would the installer be able to recover the space used for the /cache directory under the old install? If not, perhaps I'll just wait and do a completely new install of .19.

As far as I understand it the autoinstall doesn't mess arround with the partitions at all. It just formats hda1 and installs away. But if you did a manual install you could take the space from /cache into a larger / partition. Though this wont make anymore room for recordings. If you are really concerned about every last GB you should just wait until the next knoppmyth release.

Not True. Auto Install wipes the partition table and then creats the desired partitions.
For previous versions of KnoppMyth, that would be four partitions: hda1 for root, hda2 for swap, hda3 for /cache, and hda4 for /myth. This is changed for MythTV version 0.19 as it does not need, nor does it utilize, a separate partition for the ring buffer, but places it along with the actual data being recorded.

Ahhh I ment to type autoupgrade. Ofcorse autoinstall creates partitions. Duhhh!

Are you sure that MythTV would automatically find the files in the right partitions? If, for example, you just copied the /myth directory from /dev/sdb1 to /dev/sdb6, then everything would just pick up and function?

I'm having a similar problem. The partitions were mounted and formatted, confirmed by cfdisk prior to my last installation, and the installer likewise ignored my partitions. This I assume is because it's an SATA drive.

I'd been using a "real" Linux box, but I had an intermittent problem with either the TV tuner or the sound working but not both on some boots, and I wanted to pare down to a bare set-top box, so I thought KnoppMyth would be ideal. It works great, except for the partitions it's ignoring. I even tried to specify the directories in /etc/fstab.

The knoppmyth autoinstall doesn't work with SATA. The manual install scripts are set to use hda or sda not a mixture of both. So exactly what drive setup are you using? /dev/hda for "/" and SWAP & /dev/sda for /myth?


As long as you correctly set the mount points it will work. MythTV has no idea what drive anything is stored on. It just looks in the driectory /myth whatever drive is mounted there better have the files myth needs.

So to install on your setup you can try some fancy stuff to trick the installer:


I'm not sure how this technique will work when mixing ATA & SATA drives.

Thanks for your reply!

Turns out I was defeating myself, thinking too much like an experienced Linux user without realizing it. I mounted all the partitions properly, but instead of removing the old /myth directory and copying it over, I had accidentally essentially moved /myth to /mythold, such that KnoppMyth wasn't even looking for the newly mounted /myth anymore.

It also helps (for future new users finding this thread) to remember that mount points must exist on your root partition. In other words, once you move /myth to a new drive, you have to create an empty /myth directory under / or it won't work.