Tvheadend

A L wrote:

Hi,

I am currently running a headless Windows 10 server with NextPVR as my PVR backend, and Emby for all the scraping. I also use SchedulesDirect for my EPG.

I also have a couple of internal TV tuner cards (which I am hoping to swap out for SAT>IP versions) and three pooled hard drives as my storage.

I was hoping to give Linux a try but was wondering what the best server software was.

So far, it seems that Ubuntu Server and OpenMediaVault are good candidates.

I am, however, having trouble understanding what the main difference is. I understand that OMV is not "technically" Linux. If so, what is it?

OMV is based on Linux, Debian in fact, Ubuntu is also based on Debian. OMV is a NAS OS that has everything almost pre-done for you.

Ubuntu & Debian comes with many different editions. The desktop editions are for well, desktops, and the server (or mini/netinstall in the case of Debian) editions have no gui & are usually ran without a monitor and controlled via SSH. Hence "server". Really the only difference between the desktop / server editions is the default selection of packages.

Also I note that the two programs work slightly differently. With Ubuntu, I would just install TVH and Emby on it. However, it would seem that these programs exist as add-ons for OMV. Is either one preferable?

These add-ons I believe are just automatic installers (using the same install method as debian/ubuntu) triggered by a point & click interface. You can install them on debian/ubuntu easily but it'll require you to enter commands into a terminal (over ssh).

Any advice on which would be best would be much appreciated.

There is an online demo of OMV somewhere, so try it out, but really it's whatever works best for you :).