Linux distro preferred for gstreamer?

[Ron McOuat]

I would like to ask a question about which Linux distro would be best
for hosting a gstreamer application bundle I am working on. I hope I am
not starting a distro war by asking this question, :-) just looking for
some practical advice. I searched for this in the archives and didn't
find much. The system I am building is a server in a corporate
environment, not exposed to the public internet which is an improved
version of systems that already exist but don't use gstreamer.

Facts as applicable to me:

1) I am using very recent gstreamer code (stable + patches), some I did
a small amount of work on which is in CVS head but not released yet so I
build from source.

2) I am using Fedora 10 on my dev machine and no issues there.

3) I deploy to Centos 5.2 which is where I start to have problems.
Gstreamer won't even configure because flex is too old. I pulled a
Fedora 10 build tree over and I could see from trying to run that, even
if I solved the flex problem I would have glib version problems which is
a major base dependency of the system. This indicates it will require
major work to get the latest gstreamer to run. I hear rumors of a 5.3
release which will bring in a newer set of versions for dependent
libraries which may work but that is future stuff.

4) Since a lot of the field machines are running even older (2005)
software than Centos 5.2 I am ready to do a mass cold metal install
across them in the next few months.

5) I have dabbled with Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 and the latest Ubuntu is
pretty much on par with Fedora wrt revision levels. If I get everything
to run on 8.04 then I have an LTS release for the field which should be
good for patches for quite a while. Switching to Ubuntu isn't a big
problem for me other than finger memory on how to do admin things. I
have used UNIX of one form or another since 1982 but the Redhat
derivatives certainly feel more comfortable for me with 10 years of use.

In conclusion, I find the version gap between bleeding edge and stable
is wider for Redhat derived systems vs Ubuntu. This also sometimes leads
to driver support issues when new hardware is purchased. I am reluctant
to put Fedora into production because of the high level of update load
and short patch support lifetime, so at this point I am leaning towards
using Ubuntu.

Any comments or sage advice from gstreamer developers? Just looking for
confirmation of my conclusion or did I miss something in my evaluation?

Thanks for your time, this may seem off topic but my main application
dependency is gstreamer.

Ron

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[Florent THIERY-2]

Hi,

I've been having a similar problematic, and we chose to stick to
Ubuntu. Depending on your stable gst version requirement:
* 8.04 will offer you LTS 0.10.18 gstreamer packages distribution
* 8.10 will offer you 0.10.21 gstreamer packages distribution

So far, we're very happy with Ubuntu hardware support and overall
gstreamer stability; but i aknowledge the lack of a lightweight
gstreamer-oriented distribution for dedicated multimedia solutions
deployment. It would be great to start such a project !

Florent

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[Ron McOuat]

Thanks Florent for your kind advice.

Waking up this AM I realized what has been bothering me about the
Fedora-RHEL versions, not to say bad things about them, they work very
hard to produce a good product that I have been thankful to have for
many years. The realization is during development of something one tends
to need the newest releases. However, no matter how long I wait, a
Fedora release will not seamlessly become a RHEL version without
re-install. If I have to use Ubuntu 8.10 to get the latest then I can
slide that system along to the next LTS e.g. 9.10 for a hypothetical
number and if development is done on that system I can lock it in for 5
years if server or 3 years if desktop. It all stems from the respective
business models of the two organizations.

Your comments on a lighter server based gstreamer are very relevant to
me as well. I have a Ubuntu Server 8.04 machine installed which is very
light but with no gstreamer used for backup. On top of that can be
installed a metapackage to turn it into Ubuntu-Gnome, Kubuntu-KDE or
Xubuntu-XFCE which is a full meal deal, ok Xubuntu is a 3/4 meal if some
desktop features are needed. It should be possible to build a
metapackage that installs the gstreramer plus dependency essentials for
server use. If X is left off the machine then there will be no display
function so maybe it would need an X/non-X version. Of course I may get
caught by other dependencies. When I get closer to completion with what
I am working on I will look into how to build a metapackage. I don't
believe it amounts to much more than a list of the needed components put
into a wrapper.

Ron


Florent wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've been having a similar problematic, and we chose to stick to
> Ubuntu. Depending on your stable gst version requirement:
> * 8.04 will offer you LTS 0.10.18 gstreamer packages distribution
> * 8.10 will offer you 0.10.21 gstreamer packages distribution
>
> So far, we're very happy with Ubuntu hardware support and overall
> gstreamer stability; but i aknowledge the lack of a lightweight
> gstreamer-oriented distribution for dedicated multimedia solutions
> deployment. It would be great to start such a project !
>
> Florent
>
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>  

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[Edward Hervey]

Hi,

  Just thought I'd make the following information available. In order
for people to test new (pre-)releases of pitivi on ubuntu, we've set up
a PPA for all GStreamer packages from debian/experimental here:

  https://launchpad.net/~gstreamer-developers

  We try to update it as soon as debian/experimental packages are
updated.

  It's as 'bleeding-edge' as you can get on ubuntu without having to do
any compiling :)

    Edward

On Thu, 2009-01-15 at 21:17 -0800, Ron McOuat wrote:

> I would like to ask a question about which Linux distro would be best
> for hosting a gstreamer application bundle I am working on. I hope I am
> not starting a distro war by asking this question, :-) just looking for
> some practical advice. I searched for this in the archives and didn't
> find much. The system I am building is a server in a corporate
> environment, not exposed to the public internet which is an improved
> version of systems that already exist but don't use gstreamer.
>
> Facts as applicable to me:
>
> 1) I am using very recent gstreamer code (stable + patches), some I did
> a small amount of work on which is in CVS head but not released yet so I
> build from source.
>
> 2) I am using Fedora 10 on my dev machine and no issues there.
>
> 3) I deploy to Centos 5.2 which is where I start to have problems.
> Gstreamer won't even configure because flex is too old. I pulled a
> Fedora 10 build tree over and I could see from trying to run that, even
> if I solved the flex problem I would have glib version problems which is
> a major base dependency of the system. This indicates it will require
> major work to get the latest gstreamer to run. I hear rumors of a 5.3
> release which will bring in a newer set of versions for dependent
> libraries which may work but that is future stuff.
>
> 4) Since a lot of the field machines are running even older (2005)
> software than Centos 5.2 I am ready to do a mass cold metal install
> across them in the next few months.
>
> 5) I have dabbled with Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 and the latest Ubuntu is
> pretty much on par with Fedora wrt revision levels. If I get everything
> to run on 8.04 then I have an LTS release for the field which should be
> good for patches for quite a while. Switching to Ubuntu isn't a big
> problem for me other than finger memory on how to do admin things. I
> have used UNIX of one form or another since 1982 but the Redhat
> derivatives certainly feel more comfortable for me with 10 years of use.
>
> In conclusion, I find the version gap between bleeding edge and stable
> is wider for Redhat derived systems vs Ubuntu. This also sometimes leads
> to driver support issues when new hardware is purchased. I am reluctant
> to put Fedora into production because of the high level of update load
> and short patch support lifetime, so at this point I am leaning towards
> using Ubuntu.
>
> Any comments or sage advice from gstreamer developers? Just looking for
> confirmation of my conclusion or did I miss something in my evaluation?
>
> Thanks for your time, this may seem off topic but my main application
> dependency is gstreamer.
>
> Ron
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by:
> SourcForge Community
> SourceForge wants to tell your story.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gstreamer-devel

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[Tim-Philipp Müller-2]

On Thu, 2009-01-15 at 21:17 -0800, Ron McOuat wrote:

> I would like to ask a question about which Linux distro would be best
> for hosting a gstreamer application bundle I am working on.
>
> (snipalot)
>
> Any comments or sage advice from gstreamer developers? Just looking for
> confirmation of my conclusion or did I miss something in my evaluation?
>
> Thanks for your time, this may seem off topic but my main application
> dependency is gstreamer.

I'd recommend a recent debian or Ubuntu or Fedora Core (in no particular
order). All of these have fairly well maintained GStreamer packages.

Cheers
 -Tim



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