I’m a linux newbie so apologies if I get my terms wrong…
I’ve been using the Vero 4K+ for a few months now and am super-impressed. Problem is it’s got me ambitious I’ve hoping to move to a shared mysql database and share my files around the house - music (MP3/FLAC) more so than video (1080p or less). I’ve read every HowTo & Wiki that I can!
First step in that process is a new external Hard Drive (extHD). My new extHD arrived this morning and I’ve formatted it to ext4. I’m currently transferring my media files from the old ntfs extHD to the new ext4 extHD using the osmc USB hub (it’s taking a while!)
I already have the Samba server/sharing turned on and it’s working. E.g., my Win10 computer can see the new extHD. Unfortunately, the Win10 computer has to stay in the mix for a year or two.
My (very limited) understanding is that if I give the new extHD (ext4) a unique ‘label’ name (e.g. Kodi2020) and automount it under /media, all the other computers/devices on my network can ‘see’ it. Assuming I get the mysql database working, that’s good enough for me at the moment. Any additional 4k+/kodi boxes will connect over wi-fi but all my content is 1080p or less…
TBH, I’m a bit confused about mounting things under /mount or /media. Is there any advantage in going down the /mnt route or is /media ok since my media is 1080p or less. That’s unlikely to change in the next year.
/mnt or /media? My timeframe is a year or two out.
Where Windows automatically mounts disk with a drive letter and your used to seeing it done that way, Linux does not use this concept at all. Linux (for the most part) does not care in the least where you attach your drives to, and when mounted they are just another folder somewhere. The folder /mnt is just where Linux users most commonly attach their drives. The /media folder in OSMC is just where they decided to auto-mount any USB storage plugged in. The only thing that is a bit different about that folder is that there is a routine that is run at startup that clears out that folder (this does not touch anything on the actual drives mounted there). If I remember correctly the default settings is for OSMC to actually automatically share any folders in either location.
For your particular application you don’t really need to do, or worry about any of this. When you plug in your external drive it will be mounted as /media/[something] and it will be shared as \\[ip of Vero]\[something] and to connect to this with other OSMC machines you just add a system mount in that same place on the other machine, or alternatively you can just access it in kodi by using smb://[ip of Vero]/[something]
I didn’t say it explicitly but I’m hoping to get rid of Windows eventually and move to Linux. Currently, my video/music files start ‘life’ on Windows and then get transferred to the V4K+ over Samba/wifi. Everything can be done on linux except for music (for me). The sticking point for me is music. I use MusicBee on Windows as a music manager (ID3* tags) & have done for maybe 10 years. When I find a replacement for that, I’ll almost certainly ditch Win10 and move to Linux.
I just want to make sure as possible that when I move everything over to linux, I can ‘scale’ things up (probably the wrong phrase).
/media is the standard place for mounting removable devices on Linux. /mnt is for temporarily mounted file systems on non-removable media.
Permanent mounts (like critical OS pieces) end up under /var, /usr, and other places, based on what they are for.
Semi-permanent mounts (like data needed for an app to function, but that is on an remote server) should go wherever convenient, as long as they aren’t in a “wrong” place:
As far as Kodi and using a MySQL library there is not much you can do to really hurt yourself in this regard. The simplest way to do things is to have a Library with one path that is consistent across all devices so you don’t have to make any accommodations for any particular machine, but worst case all you have to do is a simple path substitution that tells it when it sees path A , replace that with path B, and your sorted.
The important bit is what you said in your OP. Give each partition on each drive a label, or else you will find it’s mounted at /media/somelongrandomsetofcharacters/
I’ve hoping to move to a shared mysql database and share my files around the house - music (MP3/FLAC) more so than video (1080p or less). I’ve read every HowTo & Wiki that I can!