Which distro to use?

Support and queries relating to third party Live CDs and DVD, VM images and other packaged distributions
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troyy0206
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:54 am

Which distro to use?

Post by troyy0206 »

I've been playing around with ZMLARCH and it seems to work well. I've had a few instances where the browser seems to stop responding or the page won't refresh, I guess I should say. Then, I seen someone else post about the same thing, so now I'm hesitant to use it in a live environment. I did see a post from someone else about how good the ZMLive DVD install is, but I haven't put it into production to see how it responds.

I just wanted to get some feedback from those of you using the distros and see which one is my best option. I am good enough with Linux not to screw it up and that's about it, so I'm not someone who is going to do their own server build and install/configure it. I would like one that is stable that I can install and it will, for the most part, just work.

Thanks in advance.
droopsnoot
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:37 pm

Post by droopsnoot »

I'll be watching this as well. I've installed from the Live DVD (which is great, really easy to do) and am having problems with the live view window going unresponsive, and events not being recorded. I'm trying to figure out whether it's me, or whether it's the Grandtec IP camera I have that maybe isn't very good.

Some time ago I had ZM working with an old Pace USB camera, but I want better resolution that the old camera can offer. But it worked just fine, and I can't tell whether it was because the camera was more reliable, or whether the older version of ZM was better, or one of the components on the DVD is at fault.

I haven't got the time to configure this myself (or the Linux knowledge, if I'm honest) so I need some quick way to get it up and running. From what I read of the DVD I'd imagine it can deal with my simple configuration in its sleep, but I'm just not getting anywhere.
bb99
Posts: 943
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:04 am

Post by bb99 »

My experience with three live CD's has been nothing but outstanding! Bluecherry's Ubuntu live cd, RDMelin's ZMliveCD 1.23.3, and my personal favorite, RDMelin's ZMLinuxOS 2008.7 (1.23.3). Bluecherry's CD is currently passing one year of continuous up time without any issues at all using a PV-(143?) and four cameras. RDMelin's ZMLiveCD 1.23.3 is the one I use for friends and family's systems because it just works and keeps working and no matter what computer they come up with for installation I've never had a problem! And my personal favorite, ZMLinuxOS runs on a flavor of Linux that I use day in and day out so it is easy for me to utilize for multiple purposes. This one requires a shared memory adjustment for higher resolution cameras. I've limited experience with the 1.24.x live CD's and DVD's so you'll get no comment from me on them. Up time and usefulness keep bringing me back to the above three and I've brought up seeds for all three plus others over at Linuxtracker.org for downloading via torrent. Bluecherry's live CD is available through their website at Bluecherry.net
droopsnoot
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:37 pm

Post by droopsnoot »

I'm going to try out at least one of those in the next few days, in case the combination of stuff on the DVD is not liking my camera.
troyy0206
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:54 am

Post by troyy0206 »

I've been using ZMLarch CD since I posted this and it works very well--once I configured it better. See my post here for the details on how I did it and the results.

http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15432
st2000
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2008 3:26 pm

Post by st2000 »

troyy0206 wrote:I've been using ZMLarch CD since I posted this and it works very well--once I configured it better. See my post here for the details on how I did it and the results.

http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15432
My 24/7 linux box is a Debian media server. I assume people here are talking about a dedicated ZM box built with its own CDs? Is that the best distribution? I really don't want to bring up another 24/7 computer. Hummm...

I have been trying ZM off and on for several years. I've never been able to get a stable system up and running. First RedHat and now Debian. My most frequent problem? - ZM usually drops my wireless cameras saying they are not available. I have also had to restart ZM from time to time. Its great fun to play with - but you really couldn't depend on it.

Now using Debian I can't even get the package to install. Bunch of Perl script errors not to mention the ZM data base does not get created. This last point is causing all kinds of problems. People here and there talk about removing the package from some Debian derivative distributions because it is un-installable.

I'd really like to hear from anyone who's got ZM running on a Debian system. What HOWTO did you follow?

-thanks
mastertheknife
Posts: 678
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 4:32 pm
Location: Israel

Post by mastertheknife »

I use Gentoo with the naked (default) profile, works great.
troyy0206
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:54 am

Post by troyy0206 »

[quote="st2000" ZM usually drops my wireless cameras saying they are not available. [/quote]

I seen a post on here somewhere that someone change the connection timeout from it's default to 5000ms in Options and it fixed their wireless camera connection issues.

I've been using the ZMLarch live CD with a few minor adjustments after install and it's working great and seems very stable.
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kingofkya
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Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:07 am
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

Post by kingofkya »

Keep in mine Zm like being left alone its always better to access it remotely that on the server in my experiences.
Also on my system I run debian in a VM on the zm server to isolate it and keep ram usage of Firefox in check.
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