I just purchased the Beelink MINI S12 16G/500G/N95 I upgraded a little from your recommendation as by the time I went to purchase the coupon had expired. The coupon for this one was still active and I got double the ram and double the storage. It will arrive in a couple of days but is there a walkthrough that I can follow to do as you suggested for Ubuntu setup and settings for bios auto.boot etc to set this up as a channels DVR server to set and forget?
Not really but here is a quick run down.
- Go ahead and run the windows setup. This will make sure if you ever want to go back to windows it will not lose your license.
- Shut down and restart the pc and enter the bios by repeatedly pressing delete key as it starts. Use this guide to change setting to restart automatically on power loss. Power state link after changing that find boot order in the bios and choose usb. Click save and exit bios.
Google how to create a bootable usb, download Ubuntu desktop Desktop version 22.04.3 LTS and create the image on the usb - Insert usb in beelink and run the install. You don’t need any fancy settings and there are many guides on the web you can follow but it’s pretty straightforward. Don’t forget any passwords you use
- Install chrome. Guide here Install chrome . Channels dvr suggests installing chromium however this can cause issues with snap. So I advise installing chrome like the guide above. If chrome wants a keyring password I wouldn’t use one. Just hit enter with nothing in the field if ot tries to make you make one.
- Install channels server. Guide Linux dvr install . Don’t do the chromium part.
- Migrate your server Migrate guide
You will probably have some questions along the way. Just ask.
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I set one up this morning and had to install these to get hardware transcoding:
https://dgpu-docs.intel.com/driver/installation.html#ubuntu-install-steps
Wait, what?! Ubuntu does not offer i915 drivers, and requires you to install a full development toolchain, and this driver is only through DKMS, which means that every kernel update needs to recompile the driver?!
Why the hell do consumers subject themselves to this when there are better options?! (Especially those that don't use Snap or CloudInit ... those 2 "technologies" spearheaded by Canonical have borked many a server for many more than just I!)
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I definitely did not have to download those for hardware transcoding. It is using the i915 kernel driver. Did you install Ubuntu server or desktop?
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Server 22.04
In installing Ubuntu I chose to install along side windows and went through the setup. I have set everything up and it is functioning. However in turning it off and back on Upon restart (leaving the thumb drive in) it says please remove the installation medium then press enter. If I press enter without removing the drive it shuts off. Pressing the power button goes to the installation menu and if you let it set it loads Ubuntu but tries to reinstall. If you back out of the installation it literally wipes anything already installed (learned the hard way)
If I pull the thumb drive and kill the power or restart it loads windows. How do I get it to load Linux instead. Or do I have to wipe it clean of windows for it to load on startup. Once it loads windows I can't get back into Linux.
So I took the plunge reinstalled Linux deleted windows and it appears to function but I cannot connect remotely i remapped the port but I am getting an SSL certificate is invalid error and it won't connect remotely.
Edit: I was setting everything up on wifi. I moved it to a wired Ethernet and the SSL certificate error disappeared. Everything is working. But my Internet speed is slow for the server. I have 1g through att and it is hard wired but I am not getting enough speed (attached are the screenshots)
This is my first time using Linux and I Googled my way through most of my problems
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Correct you want to wipe windows completely and just use Ubuntu.
Is the screenshot of the speedtest with 455 download from a chrome browser on the Beelink or from a different device like your phone. If it’s from the Beelink make sure it’s not using WiFi again. Try using a different Ethernet cable. Also disk io write seems low. I’m not sure how accurate that test is though through channels troubleshooting.
Now that you seem up and running re enter the bios and change boot priority order back to the built in drive to the top. Also test your power state by pulling the plug and plug it back in to make sure it starts back up.
The screenshot was from my phone running on wifi but the Beelink connected to LAN on the Google Chrome browser it was 756 down and 700 up. But I am getting different readings for Internet speeds and the most recent is
Internet Speed Test
Download: 403.47Mbps Upload: 81.71Mbps Latency: 50ms
Disk IO
Write: 255.9MB/s Read: 14.4GB/s
Which is ok (not the full speed of my Internet) but the disk write is consistently low (by your measure) as it is unchanged.
I have changed the BIOS back and tested the Beelink by unplugging and it functions properly as expected.
Thank you for your help. It was a about a six hour project that started over multiple times and learned a lot on the way but confident this is the way. Hopefully the write speed isn't an issue and the internet speed is just a glitch that isn't consistently low.
For reference my Beelink I run as a second server gets 1GB for write IO. Read is 15gb.
It looks like your up and running though, as far as keeping the system software up to date it is as simple as running this command in the terminal
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
I suggest running this every 3-4 months or if chrome needs to be updated for TVE and restarting afterwards.
Consider enabling ssh on the Beelink and installing an app like Termius on your phone. Set up a connection in the app using the ip of the Beelink as the host name, ssh, port 22 and your password. Once connected you will have a terminal you can issue commands from your phone to the Beelink. You can update ect. from your couch or anywhere while on your home wifi. I don’t even have my Beelink plugged in to a monitor, I just use Termius and occasionally RVNC viewer as a remote screen viewer to check in on the desktop.
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Everything was working fine and last night we had a storm and lost power multiple times and this morning it keeps telling me permission denied on every channel. It's not that my subscriptions have lapse but appears to be a problem with the server. But I don't know how to fix it. Running a diagnostic it says I have a disc permissions error. It could not write to recording directories. Since I have never used Linux before, I don't know how to fix it and I don't even know where to start but I am dead in the water. Please help
Sometimes a good old-fashioned reboot of the server is what it takes.
Looks like a removable drive is not accessible. Or, filesystem corruption on the drive possibly caused by the outage.
My recommendation, stop the DVR server, unmount the drive (but keep it connected), then fsck.
At the very least, power cycle the computer and make sure the drive cleanly mounts before starting the DVR up.
I have rebooted multiple times both by power button and unplugging and plugging back in and it didn't work. As I mentioned this is my first time using Linux. When Linux loads I do not see that channels DVR is running (but I know it is). I don't have the slightest idea on how to stop it. Additionally I don't know how to mount the drive (but keep it connected). I am so lost troubleshooting in Linux. Please walk me through this
Damn autocorrect. It should have said unmount. Assuming your user account is joe, something like umount "/media/joe/New Volume" ought to work. If you installed a desktop-focused distribution, there are several GUI programs that exist for managing disks, like the aptly named "Disks".
Try systemctl status channels-dvr to see if it has loaded or is running; systemctl stop channels-dvr ought to stop it.
To stop the dvr uncheck server enabled under settings > general > basic setup
To unmount the drive just right click on the usb drive emblem and unmount
Did this drive come straight from your shield without any formatting?
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Yes I am willing to reformat
/media/joe/New Volume/Android
I went to fsck in the terminal after I unmounted the drive and it gave me a warning that the file system is mounted. If you can continue you will cause severe file system damage. Do you really want to continue? I said no. Because I had unmounted my drive and it's saying that it's mounted. What have I done wrong?