I see no evidence that the Beelink Minis come with a licensed OS. If true, that would add $130 to get a legal Windows 11 OS. The RPI OS is free.
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They come with Windows 11 Licensed so no extra Charge... Some even come with Linux.
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Yes and it's Windows Pro.
And windows 11 works great as a DVR.
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I think i would rather install linux and really enjoy the server.
Windows is great but for the price, you can't beat it.
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I ran a Windows 10 Channels server from the beginning (years), moved over to Ubuntu Server a few months ago. My system has never run better. No daily reboots necessary. In addition to Channels, I run other media related software on it. It runs flawlessly so far.
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I have the same experience, but I run Windows 11 flawlessly.
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I have two machines with perfectly good hardware that can't be upgraded to Windows 11 due to their secure boot requirement.
MS did me a favor though, they motivated me to move my two machines to Linux (one desktop / one server). I like free and not having to do a forced upgrade puts more money in my pocket.
I may never bother with Windows again.
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Great you should use what you feel comfortable with ... I feel Comfortable with Windows .. My Server is self-maintained. It updates when Channels is not in use it also restarts, if necessary, when Channels is not in use... using PowerShell.
goto startnow
:loop
cls
timeout 300
:startnow
set notbusy=555
curl http://127.0.0.1:8089/dvr | findstr /I /C:"busy\":false"
set notbusy=%ERRORLEVEL%
if %notbusy% NEQ 0 goto loop
powershell.exe Install-WindowsUpdate -AcceptAll -AutoReboot
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File RestartIfRequired.ps1
exit
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I had scheduled tasks to reboot nightly, no big deal. But as a whole, my Windows environment continued to have sporadic issues. It wasn't the hardware since I'm running on the same hardware on Linux.
In my experience, Linux is more stable. That's why it's used on a lot more mission critical applications at the enterprise level. And, yes, there's a learning curve but anyone that has reasonable technical skills should be able to figure things out if they put in some effort.
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I don't think you are correct about host OS for critical applications.
If you were having frequent issues on Windows, there was likely a flaw in your configuration. Moving on is fine and I'm glad you are happy. Most people's Windows systems are incredibly stable as are most people's Linux systems.
This is a silly thing to argue about. People should run the OS that they are conferrable with and/or can easily get help with.
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I have no issues running Win 11 Pro 24/7. It does not update unless i manually trigger it.
It images it self the 1st of the month, and shortly after that, i manually will run Win update.
Never had any issues in the last few years. It also runs many other programs and services for me, not just Channels.
I also have had zero issues with Win 11 Pro on much older/un-supported hardware. My main old X99 based 5th gen Intel desktop that i use for AI video upscaling, is a ancient build of Win 11, and is rock solid, (it is not connected to Internet though)
Linux is great for a server device too. SBCs especially. I have used(and still use on certain devices) Linux of different flavors alot as well.
Use whatever OS you are most comfortable with.
Any OS can give you issues...even if you know how to use it as a power user.
Edit: Having recently converted to a full Ubiquiti Unifi Network setup, it is very useful the Unifi Network Gateway and is controller to be able to see what apps and connections are being made. You can block Win Update and many other things on a per client basis network side. So, that is another way one can limit what a Windows system does, and what any client can connect to WAN side.
This is common knowledge. Look up Crowdstrike for just one devastating example. Linux is far more secure.
It's also funny the people lobbying for Windows and then explaining all the gyrations they have to go through to keep it stable (no internet, imaging constantly, rebooting, etc).
I'm just reporting my experience, but seems like many experiencing similar, but mitigating the issues and don't seem to realize it.
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I haven't had the stability problems with Windows that you suggest, personally, but I respect your desire to run something else.
I also appreciate the developers continued support for Windows.
I would really love to see the community efforts also embrace something similar in their efforts, but at the same time, I realize that they are probably doing their great work without any real monetary compensation.
Counterstrike which is not part of windows demonstrated how much critical infrastructure runs on Windows. You are lobbing for Linux.
I just spent a week tracing down a crashing Linux system that was failing because of a bad NIC driver. That dose not make Linux bad yet it had no diagnostics that pointed me to the issue. That sucks!
No OS is perfect and I run what I need and advocate that people should run what works for them and is easy for them to maintain.
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Late to the party, but I've been lurking. Been running Channels DVR on a freenas/truenas BSD-based server for a while. had been weighing my options for upgrading, especially since i just replaced my RAID drives last year with ones twice as big (array finally doubled in size once i swapped in and it finished rebuilding the final drive). as a stop-gap solution/experiment, I tested using a pi4 running the generalized linux docker container DVR with NFS to the BSD server for storage. Kinda roundabout, but was working without trouble. I've since managed the budget to upgrade the server hardware from a low power (lethargic) AMD to a modern model (step 1) and am transitioning the RAID to a non-GELI volume (step 2) in anticipation of migrating to TrueNAS Scale 25 in may (step 3). I'll probably be running the DVR on the BSD server for some of May for a little bit until I am comfortable with switching to Scale, tho I have the pi+NFS if I must. (announcement does say unsupported shouldn't actually fail immediately) fingers crossed I don't mess it up. Channels really was the primary motivator to take all the steps to upgrade away from BSD. Just sharing my experience, and hoping Channels doesn't actively break old things, either by testing, or at least documenting what is expected to not work and what will actively go boom.
I'm running two R Pi servers and have been for years. They just work. I'm not thrilled with the idea that they are going to stop working. I have two Intel Celeron J3455 6GB mini pcs that are not being used, but it looks like those are also not going to be supported. Am I understanding this correctly?
You can use your R Pi device, you would just need to use the Linux CDVR server. As far as your mini PC goes, as long as you are using a modern OS, it will work.
They should work fine running Linux or Windows
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