Please review my A300 design plan

[AtariBaby]

Hi guys,

Please look at this and tell me what you think. I welcome criticism such as "the best program for that step is..."; or "that is too much of a pain to execute, do this instead".

All I've done so far is install Ubuntu on the notebook. I'm already controlling YAMJ from a Windows Virtual Machine, using guides and posts I've read here.

LIST REVISED ON 8/12/2012:

- [+] 1 Install Ubuntu Desktop on old HP Notebook
----- [+] 1.1 Learn basics of Ubuntu
--------- [+] 1.1.1 Decided to learn as I go!
- [+] 2 Network Notebook to A300 with 2TB Internal HDD
- [-] 3 Grab files, preferably automatically. Best way?
----- [+] 3.1 Usenet?
--------- [+] 3.1.1 /sick beard /couch potato/headphones
----- [ ] 3.2 * Rss?
----- [ ] 3.3 * BitTorrent?
----- [ ] 3.4 download files to Ubuntu
----- [ ] 3.5 Have sickbeard Move completes to A300's share/tv folder when complete
----- [ ] 3.6 Have couch potato and other apps similarly move complete
files to pch
----- [ ] 3.7 how do I move existing files into right places?
- [ ] 4 Batch rename existing file, automatically
- [ ] 5 Run yamj to update, automatically
- [ ] 6 Backup files to cloud and local external drive
- [ ] 7 program remote controls
- [ ] 8 When HDD gets full, create NAS
----- [ ] 8.1 What is the best NAS setup?
----- [ ] 8.2 Copy content to NAS
----- [ ] 8.3 Integrate NAS with a300

What do you guys think?

POST EDIT: Comments and suggestions still welcome!

[accident]

This list makes it seem like your very unfamiliar with the tools except for their name.. I think going down the list and jsut commenting is a good start here..

Quote:- [x] 1 Install Ubuntu Desktop on old HP Notebook
-- [ ] 1.1 Learn basics of Ubuntu
- [ ] 2 Network Ubuntu Notebook to A300's 2TB Internal HDD

It's hard to recommend another setup until you have any setup to see where it's lacking. so it's a great start.

Quote:- [ ] 3 Grab files, preferably automatically. Best way?
-- [ ] 3.1 Usenet?
--- [ ] 3.1.1 Either /sick beard /couch potato?
-- [ ] 3.2 * Rss?
-- [ ] 3.3 * BitTorrent?

First you need to figure out what you mean by automatic and then what tools might offer that ability. sick/couch is very good in this area.. they can do torrent but really shine with usenet.. Another you need to try them to know if you need something different. usenet providers offer a couple days free, and you can try a few different providers to see how you like them and if that's the method you want to go.

Quote:- [ ] 4 Regardless of method: download files directly to "Incomplete"
folder on A300

Horrible don't do it idea.. more on how the tools work in a moment but in general, first your going to transfer the file, constantly keeping the pch busy.. then afterwords there might be repairs, which means transfering to the computer, repairing and restransfering.. it may not physically move but it's going to look at the whole file.. with pch bus speeds you could be talking hours just to post process, repair and unrar 1 video. I'll explain the tools in a moment.

Quote:- [ ] 5 Move to "Downloads" folder when complete
- [ ] 6 Batch unrar & delete rars automatically.
- [ ] 7 Batch rename, automatically

Most tools will deal with this as soon as the file is finished.. Not really a Downloads folder.. downloads is where they end up, then good tools will rename and move them into their spot nice and tidy.. possibility even adding metadata to them for htpc and jukeboxes. Even better tools will signal that it's time to run your "scanner" to update.

So back to #4. If you go the laptop ubuntu setup for your transfers, it's best to keep it local, it'll handle the files and everything.. a good tool will them move the file to your pch for you automatically and make it nice and tidy.. so you leave the pch out of the loop until it's time to transfer to the drive. you also don't need to slower read, and re-read and re-write it to post process it.. Minimal space needed on that device.. I actually run a setup very close to this with pvr tuners and some dling for tv shows I can't record myself. even with my aggressive nature I fit everythign in about 80gb including os install. you only need room for about 3 videos, 1 while it's transfering, and double the space of one while it's unraring it.. maybe some will error but just check space every day or so and you'll know when you need to get involved..

Alternative, is the pch can do all this.. I don't personally like running other software on the pch and it will post process it slower but starting out, it's a great way to try all these tools out to pick which ones.. you'll also find out if you need more than just the pch doing it and really how long that drive will fill up.. It's easier to plan when your firm on what your planning

Quote:- [ ] 8 Run yamj to update, automatically

not much to say here.. automatic is nice

Quote:- [ ] 9 Backup files to cloud and local external drive

cloud seems overkill for tb's of files your taking from the internet in the first place.. personal data, oh yeah back it up 20 different way.. retransfering some videos takes time but not horrible.

Quote:- [ ] 10 When HDD gets full, create NAS
-- [ ] 10.1 What is the best NAS setup?
-- [ ] 10.2 Copy content to NAS
-- [ ] 10.3 Integrate NAS with a300

so back to #1.. I don't like using old hardware because they tend to take more power. I found that an old desktop actualyl cost me more in 6 months for the power to run it than replacing it with an amd-e machine + the power it takes to run it..

Now you have a lot of ????'s in this post so I wouldn't buy anything new just yet.. You want yamj and have the laptop for that.. Makes sense if it's going to be on to run yamj that you start using it for your transfers.. sick/couch/usenet is popular and a good palce to start..

It'll be easier to plan what you need after you see what is available and how they work.. so don't overplan yet, just get it setup and working and then plan.

[lordy]

Personally I'd recommend Linux Mint over Ubuntu - Very snappy and fresh looking , and it's based on Ubuntu/Debian so must unbuntu guides still apply.

[AtariBaby]

accident Wrote:Most tools will deal with this as soon as the file is finished.. Not really a Downloads folder.. downloads is where they end up, then good tools will rename and move them into their spot nice and tidy.. possibility even adding metadata to them for htpc and jukeboxes. Even better tools will signal that it's time to run your "scanner" to update.

So back to #4. If you go the laptop ubuntu setup for your transfers, it's best to keep it local, it'll handle the files and everything.. a good tool will them move the file to your pch for you automatically and make it nice and tidy.. so you leave the pch out of the loop until it's time to transfer to the drive. you also don't need to slower read, and re-read and re-write it to post process it.. Minimal space needed on that device.. I actually run a setup very close to this with pvr tuners and some dling for tv shows I can't record myself. even with my aggressive nature I fit everythign in about 80gb including os install. you only need room for about 3 videos, 1 while it's transfering, and double the space of one while it's unraring it.. maybe some will error but just check space every day or so and you'll know when you need to get involved..

Update: I'm setting up sabnzbd+ now on my ubuntu machine, then I'll be installing couch potato and sickbeard. Do I use couch and sick to uncompress and move the files to pch or something else? Can you please recommend what I should use to do this?

[accident]

These tools are pretty easy to get information on what they do.. even just the setup goes over how to connect them together so they do everything you need.

[AtariBaby]

I have setup sickbeard and couchpotato, and followed a guide, but for example, I don't see where sickbeard would move files off the ubuntu machine and onto the PCH. Should I have SABNZBD move them to the PCH, then have Sickbeard rename on the PCH? I thought the idea was to have it all done first, then move it over.

[accident]

Make yourself a folder for tv shows on the pch. When you add a new one to sickbeard use that folder for the parent folder.

[AtariBaby]

Hi accident,

And this won't contradict what you had said earlier, "it's best to keep it local, it'll handle the files and everything.. a good tool will them move the file to your pch for you automatically and make it nice and tidy.. so you leave the pch out of the loop until it's time to transfer to the drive."? That's all done before sickbeard moves it to the "tv shows" directory on the PCH?

Thanks for helping me think through this!

[accident]

Here's what your basically doing;

- setup sab with the RPM instructions, only add in your usenet server settings for now. You'll need to see it working to really understand what options to not touch.

- Make a folder on your pch drive for all your tv shows.
- setup sick, follow the ubuntu guide from teh sick website, it's written by an xbmc install but it's exactly what you need to setup, just skip the notify xbmc part.
- the place you put the folder you made for your tv shows to end up on the pch is in sickbeard. When you add a show it's called the parent folder. Just give it the folder you made it'll handle the rest.

It's really very simple to setup, don't get in your own way with overplanning, just follow the guides.

[AtariBaby]

I feel like a bit of an idiot here. I guess on the Ubuntu machine I need to map a network share to that PCH "TV shows" directory? Then I can point to it when I "Add Shows" in sick beard? I really didn't see this in the setup guide I used, or the one I think you're referring to.

[accident]

Yes the ubuntu machine needs access to the drives. Mounting a remote share is pretty simple and easy to find ubuntu instructions for it with minor googling.

[AtariBaby]

Oh man I've been trying to get this remote share thing working for days and days. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently

I followed this guide most recently, and Sickbeard says it can't create a directory there. Presumably it doesn't have permissions.

My fstab file looks like this:

//10.0.1.3/share/TV /home/misterfantastic/Downloads/sickbeard/complete/ cifs uid=misterfantastic,credentials=/home/misterfantastic/.smbcredentials,dmask=777,fmask=777 0 0

Any idea where I might have gone wrong? I can access that folder and create folders, but I can only do it using the sudo command. Is it a permissions or security problem? Any link to a better guide?

[halfelite]

if you can only create folders doing sudo, then you need to chmod -r 777 the mounting folder

[AtariBaby]

Thank you. Feeling around blindly, I typed into terminal chmod -r 777 /home/misterfantastic/Downloads/sickbeard/complete and got this response:
chmod: cannot access `777': No such file or directory
chmod: changing permissions of `/home/misterfantastic/Downloads/sickbeard/complete': Operation not permitted

[halfelite]

you would do

Code:

sudo chmod -R 777 /home/misterfantastic/Downloads/sickbeard/complete/