Raspberry Pi's more fragile than x86?

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yawlhoo
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Raspberry Pi's more fragile than x86?

Post by yawlhoo »

I've been running MythTV for a long time, most of it on x86 servers. Recently I switched my backend to a Pi 400, booting from a usb stick.

Recordings, etc work great. The problem occurs when I do a routine apt update, and the new packages dictate a reboot. Several times (latest this morning) when I do the reboot, the system doesn't come up right.

This morning trying to ssh into the box I got:

kex_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer

After I futilely troubleshot this for a while, I went to my basement where the server lives. Holding down Fn+F10 did nor cause the server to shut down.

I had to (yikes!) pull the power cord. The first time, no joy; the second time the server rebooted correctly.

I have never seen such strange behavior on x86. Anyone else see such fragility?
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jfabernathy
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Re: Raspberry Pi's more fragile than x86?

Post by jfabernathy »

I have not had your experience with RPI4's. My X86_64 production mythtv backend is on Kubuntu and very stable. I'm on the road for 2 months and it's chugging along just fine.

On the road I used a NUC as a mobile backend with Linux Mint 21.1. It also was stable right up until The cooling fan seized up.

Luckily, I havd a RPI4 4GB and a USB3 NVME SSD with me. I installed Ubuntu 22.10 following viewtopic.php?f=46&t=5225

I used v33 and HDHomeRun quatro tuners.

I recovered all my recordings to the RPI4 and restored the database and now it's up doing all the stuff the NUC was doing.

So in my case the RPI4 was more reliable than the X86, at least for the last week.

I think using a USB stick is not your best options. I used to use USB 3 to SATA 2.5 adapters and SATA SSDs. That worked great. However now it's more cost effective to use a USB3 to M.2 NVME SSD adapter. The NVME is faster that a USB stick, certainly for running an OS and streaming data.

I connected the HDHR tuner in local-link mode to the RPI4 RJ45 and use WiFi on the RPI4 for internet connectivity. I can record 4 simultaneous OTA ATSC 1.0 HD programs. I usually use Leanfront on a FIreTV 4K stick to watch TV from the RPI4.
yawlhoo
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Re: Raspberry Pi's more fragile than x86?

Post by yawlhoo »

My USB stick is a Samsung 64gb FIT drive:

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/me ... f-64bb-am/

Maybe it is not quite up to the task. I will look for something better.
yawlhoo
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Re: Raspberry Pi's more fragile than x86?

Post by yawlhoo »

I have a 128GB M2 SSD I am not using. I am going to try replacing the Samsung FIT with this and see if it works more reliably.

I've been thinking: my main recordings drive is a HDD in a USB3 adapter. Why couldn't I just boot from this, then record, like with an ordinary PC. Has anybody tried this?
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jfabernathy
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Re: Raspberry Pi's more fragile than x86?

Post by jfabernathy »

My setup on a RPI4 is always to create my boot OS image on the USB3 SSD via a USB3 to SSD adapter. I either use SATA adapter or M2. NVME adapter. That way my OS and app run a full SSD speed and the recordings are on the same drive.

I don't do the on my Production PC Mythtv-backend at home because I want to boot from SSD and put all data on a setup of 4TB NAS HDs in a Mirror configuration. But for a RPI 4, one SSD is all I use.
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