[ubuntu-mythtv] Minimum installation requirements details

[Steven Ellis]

Mario Limonciello wrote:
> Steve Ellis from OpenMedia was wondering about the minimum required
> size and RAM to install for a Frontend.  He was intending on
> installing onto a flash based device.
>
> Hard Drive Size
> Frontend
> Previously, I quoted him at just shy of a gigabyte, ~945 megabytes. 
> This was with all mythtv plugins removed, no hdhomerun, no xmltv, no
> proprietary drivers, no themes.
>
> I was just thinking about this, and I realized that quote wasn't
> accurate.  Still there was room to be freed up via the removal of the
> media playback applications that are installed.  At a minimum, another
> 50 mb can be freed by taking off mplayer, xine, and vlc.  This doesn't
> include dependencies that can be autoremoved.  I'd expect this can
> probably be shrunk even further down after taking those off.
>
> Full Install
> A full installation typically weighs in around 1.5 GB.   This means
> that an install could be done entirely to compact flash if the user
> opts to mount /var elsewhere.  Rather than mounting /var/lib, mounting
> /var will make sure that all logs are put there as well to help
> increase the life of the drive.
>
> Memory
> The amount of memory required really isn't as large as you would
> expect.  Looking at the requirements for a standard Gutsy disk, it's a
> minimum of 320 mb for installation off a live disk.  I suspect our
> requirement is significantly lower than that because we don't have all
> of those gnome services that we are running at bootup. 
>
> After installation, it appears that the Xfce env / xorg combination is
> only using ~60mb.  Xfce/xorg/mythfrontend uses around 75 idling.  This
> will probably go up as larger themes are used.  Knowing this, low
> power machines (think epia or via) should be feasible still.
>
I was looking at this after my conversation with Mario. There are a
number of bits you don't really need on a true flash frontend, for
example I don't need all of the xorg drivers. I'd still need mplayer on
my frontends but there are a bunch of other bits that could be stripped out.

I'm wondering at a slightly different approach. Rather than mythbuntu I
could do a minimal gutsy install + any dependancies for a
mythtv-frontend. It would be really nice to have something that is
maintainable on a 1Gb flash drive. The added benefit of making the
install as small as possible is to reduce any patch updates required.

Anyone on the list tried for a minimal frontend on Ubuntu?

Steve

-- 
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email   - steven at openmedia.co.nz
sales   - sales at openmedia.co.nz
support - support at openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz