IntroductionThis page summarizes my lecture on FOSS in home networking, telephony, and entertainment. Devices and their ResponsibilitiesHere is a summary of the devices, there operating systems, and their responsibilities/services. The order is bottom (network infrastructure) to top (applications) - cable modem/DSL modem - black box
- gigabit switch - black box
- Linksys SPA3102 analog phone adapter - black box
- Linksys WRT54GL router - Tomato 1.28
- DHCP server
- DNS caching
- QoS
- Dynamic DNS client
- ssh server
- Linksys NSLU2 embedded server - OpenWrt
- printer server (p910nd)
- scanner server (saned)
- telephony server (asterisk) - for control over what calls are handled by which provider
- Zotac MAG-ND01 - Ubuntu 11.04
- CIFS server (Windows file sharing)
- MythTV DVR backend
- MySQL server
- DAAP iTunes music server
- Icinga host/service monitoring service
- Apache web server
- MythTV web interface
- Icinga web interface
- Mac mini - OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
- MythTV DVR frontend
- Plex media center frontend (Netflix etc.)
- web browser
- other applications
DiscussionSo you might ask: why did I separate the backend from the frontend?
This is a bit complicated. I absolutely wanted Netflix in the living room. Netflix requires Silverlight with a certain DRM mechanism (digital rights management). This means Windows or OS X, no Linux. I don't like Windows for various technical reasons, so this leaves OS X. But even though MythTV backend runs on OS X, there is no support for my Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB digital tuner. This means I would have to use EyeTV (commercial software) instead of MythTV for the DVR functionality, which would put me at Elgato's mercy in terms of paying for upgrades etc.
I used to run Linux on the frontend with Windows + Netflix running in a virtual machine, but the video performance was slightly less nice and I wanted the nice, user-friendly Plex interface (with support for the Apple remote) instead of using Netflix through the web browser. |
 Updating...
Konstantin Läufer, Jul 7, 2011, 12:13 PM
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