I see that I have a lot to learn with this stuff! Fun and a new workout for my recently retired brain... Dumb question though, Since the Beelink came with W11 Pro, what advantage do you have by using Linux? I know W11 is a lot more bloated, but does Channels run equally as well on W11 as it does on Linux?
No problem running on Widows 11 ... but for dockers etc ... that you might use as sources in your DVR UBUNTU Linux is better.. Windows Docker Desktop takes up a lot of resources.
1 Like
I found another thread on the Linux v windows discussion. I withdraw my question as I don't want to cause a war in this forum 
I will keep working on my Linux install and if I give up, I will try W11. More dumb Linux questions to follow...
1 Like
No war here, just my experience.
I have been using W11 Pro on my Beelink for almost 3 years. It works fine for me, but I don't use anything but a HDHomerun tuner and TVE for my sources. I even just use old fashion HDD usb drives for my storage. I remote into my Beelink from my desktop computer and find it easy to manage. I think Linux is great for people who want to learn a new OS, but I haven't found a reason for me to switch yet. But I am open to that possibility someday. People on here make it as easy as possible.
I have 1 DVR running on Windows 11 another on UBUNTU Server. I have Clients that I support that use Windows... Plus I offer help/tips to those the run ChannelsDVR on Windows 11.
Let's ask @Edwin_Perez, which OS requires more support, W11 or Linux?
You could also look at post installation issues people are having. Linux wins!
I find Windows 11 easier to support ... Easier to add SMB Storage you just add the SMB Share. No need to mess with editing mounting points etc ... Also much easier to add Extra Storage if needed... so for beginners that do not have any Linux experience if a PC comes pre-installed with W11 ... I would use that.
@slampman has great documentation on Installation etc .. if you choose Linux ... and he is always very helpful.
1 Like
I see people with NASs and Shield Servers has issues really. I don't have any issues running Channels with Linux/Docker. It's been smooth sailing on my lubuntu laptop
1 Like
I agree 100%! While you can run Docker on Windows, just saying that makes me cringe. The issue is that Docker on Windows relies on nested virtualization (a virtualized environment running inside another virtualized environment), which is inherently resource-heavy. Plus, Windows Docker Desktop is a massive resource hog compared to a lean Ubuntu Server setup.
For example, I run Docker on an Ubuntu Server with about 25 containers, including a CodeProject.AI container for Blue Iris. That particular container is pretty resource-intensive, constantly processing images and analyzing for people, cars, etc. Despite this, my serverâs resource utilization is astonishingly lowâsomething I could never achieve with Docker on Windows.
Another great feature of running Docker on Linux is macvlan networking. This allows your containers to have their own unique IP addresses on your local network, making them accessible like any other device. This is incredibly useful if you need certain containers to act as first-class citizens on your network, with their own distinct identities.
Ubuntu Server keeps things efficient, powerful, and flexible. Itâs hard to go back once you see the difference
1 Like
Well I got it to work on Linux sort of. I have access to my recordings and live TV from my HDHomerun and some TVE from YTTV. Some TVE channels never start. The vid quality is horrible from the local machine and from my windows PC as a client. This if for recordings that I did with the shield and for live TV off the HDHR. I did run the sudo adduser $(id -u -n) video && sudo adduser $(id -u -n) render and it seemed to add it. But the quality is still really poor.
As a note, I did not do anything except follow the migration guide and am using my external drive without any mods. I used the channels migration and it found the drive and I selected the backup and basically did nothing else.
So neither of these OS's have native clients. Dont use the web viewer as a test it always transcodes, try with a proper client.
Is that just a Linux thing? I could always watch on my windows laptop from the shield. Anyway, it looks like it works pretty well using my shield as the client. Video looks fine. But playing a live stream from TVE has frozen a couple times. The second time I found the Linux server has changed its IP address for some odd reason. Also, in settings->General->network discovery it is showing Advertising via 2 local networks showing two IP addresses. I do not remember it doing that with the shield installation. Should I set it to a static IP?
No, the quality should be the same as it was with the shield. Is the setting under settings, advanced, web player set to 8 or 10mb? Does the external hard drive have its own power source or does it rely on the usb port from the Beelink for power?
On the interfaces, are you connected to Ethernet cable and also WiFi? I would remove WiFi credentials entirely from it so it doesnât try to use it. It kinda sounds like itâs bouncing back and forth from WiFi to Ethernet and that is why you are seeing ip changes. I would set a dhp reservation in the router anyway.
Thanks! The WiFi was the issue. I am on only Ethernet now and that seems to be stable. I will check the web player settings. The drive has its own power. Speaking of which, I was testing the power failure restart and the drive turned off. I went through your notes on mounting on startup and that is done now. But I cannot get the drive to mount. I hit the play button on the drive GUI and get an error mounting system managed device. Unknown error when mounting/mtg/wmm..... (udisks-error-quark,0)
Everything was working before I tried the power off test. I only took the power of the Beelink and not the drive. The drive turned itself off when the Beelink was off. I can hear it running, and Ubuntu sees it, but it will not mount.
Did you set a mount point for the drive ?
After a ton of learning, I have what I think will be a stable system! It seems more peppy than the shield. Everything is working including TVE. The external drive issue was odd. For some reason Channels would not recognize it suddenly. I went into the Channels interface and remapped the drive. It somehow now shows up as some weird alpha numeric name, but it works now.
Main learnings:
- The Beelink is a cool little box. I comes with Win11Pro so that is an option if you do not want linux. It is a great deal at less than $150.
- If you go with Linux, do it with a clean installation. The linux install will give you the option to wipe the W11 install.
- You need to have some patience when you try to get the channels code loaded. The sudo and curl stuff was unknown to me. I just hacked on it and kept trying stuff, then suddenly it installed.
- I was shocked that I did not have to do anything to get TVE working. My system worked with TVE on the shield before I started having google authentication issues. But with this install, everything is working again with no extra effort. Comskip is also working while the show is recording so that is also great.
- The Ubuntu desktop is kind of spartan and it was not simple to find stuff. Perhaps another version would be more windows like.
All in all, it was a lot of tinkering, but this forum has some awesome people to help! Thanks to all!
There seems to be some teething issues now. For my TVE channels, I am getting a chrome failed to start error. I am using Chromium. I looked around this forum then remoted in. Ubuntu wanted a bunch of updates so I did those. Then rebooted the server. Now it seems to work but I am not sure if I fixed anything or if it just want me to log in. Any ideas?
did you check out this thread....
Yes I did. But it was working well for a couple of weeks. As noted, I am a total newbie with Ubuntu. So going in and doing a pile of command line things that I know nothing about is uncomfortable. I would like to learn what is actually happening. Is this a snap issue? Or is it that I'm using chromium instead of Chrome? I don't get how it is working again with only OS updates and a reboot.
Start over using my tutorial and you wont have an issue. I explain each command in detail.