New release 5.2 + Amahi award, in a bookstore near you!

I feel good! … like I knew that I would … oh hey, hello! 🙂

We’re happy to share that Amahi just got chosen the Hottest Pick award by Linux Format magazine!

… there aren’t many easier ways of getting [a server] set up than installing [Amahi]

That’s what they had to say! Linux Format is UK’s largest  Linux magazine and one of the largest circulation Linux mags in the world, including bookstores and electronics stores. The March issue (LXF129) will be in the shelves in the next 2 or 3 weeks, so look for it!

In addition to this, next Wednesday March 10, at 1.30pm PST (10:30pm EST), there is a live interview about Amahi with founder Carlos Puchol on TWIT.TV’s FLOSS Weekly, one of the most popular free/open source video casts. We’re happy to be featured in this program which often brings illustrious guests. Video to be available a few hours after the live program ends. Suggest your questions to discuss!

Release time! Drum roll please …

Today we announce Amahi 5.2. The bits should be already installed in most Amahi systems by now. This is mostly a bugfix release, with a few major features taking shape, many of them contributed by a strong new team member Guillaume Boudreau (aka Mouton):

  • Notably, we have started working on integrating a very exciting Drive Pooling technology called Greyhole: redundancy across drives, expandable storage on a JBOD-like architecture!
  • Added an “extras” options in the shares to do a lot of advanced things, like adding quotas, running antivirus, add recycle bins to shares, add guest access, or auditing capabilities, in addition to supporting the development of Greyhole.
  • Automatic support for automatic time zone setup of  PHP applications
  • Automatically back up app databases when updating and of course other improvements for supporting apps
  • TONS of application updates: eyeOS, FengOffice, Ampache, Gallery, etc. etc.
  • The DLNA server has been updated to support M3U/PLS playlists
  • AmahiTunes has been released as a new app with streaming built in right on the app
  • Improvements to Dutch, Spanish, with new alpha support for Japanese
  • … and many more fixes and improvements!

Simplicity is what we aim for! It’s your network and Amahi  makes it easy to keep it that way. No complex setup, no graduate degree, and no other software installation is needed. We’re thrilled that Amahi has been recognized in this way by a well known magazine!

Now, one of the things that we don’t do enough is to thank you, the community. You have been with us through thick and thin, always diligently reporting what works and what doesn’t, made contributions, improved documentation, and most of all you have continued to share and evangelize the amazing features of Amahi. So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you!

We have three things for you today!

First, Amahi just got awarded “Hottest Pick” for new or updated Open Source project by Linux Format, the largest UK Linux magazine, and is distributed in the U.S.!

One of the best things Linux Format had to say was “The installation process is almost as easy as installing a new distro” and we have to agree! We’ve said it from day one! It’s your network and we’re fighting to keep it that way! There isn’t any complex setup for your network, you don’t need a graduate degree, and you don’t need to install software on each client. It’s your network we’re rolling with you!

Drum roll please….

Today we bring you Amahi 5.2. The bits have hit the fan, er .. the repos, and should be already installed in all Amahi systems (unless automatic updates are disabled). Some of those pesky bugs from Fedora 12 popped back up and we’ve fixed most of them. The PHP time zone problem was fixed and you have the ability of automatically backing up an app database when updating to a newer release. We’ve updated DLNA to support M3U/PLS playlists! Amahi is proud to support many media formats and work hard for you to use your media that way you want to.

We’ve updated many apps to the newer version (you can find the list here). We’ve already begun work on integrating greyhole into Amahi with the help of the developer of greyhole (he goes by Mouton in IRC). We’ve also added translations for more worldwide users and many other things (which can be found in our wiki).

NOTE: Most apps that have databases include a routine that will backup the db upon uninstall. This will allow users to upgrade without losing data by reinstalling the app to receive the latest version.

Now, one of the things that we don’t do enough is to thank you, the community. You have been with us through thick and thin, always diligently reported what works and what doesn’t, and most of all you have continued to evangelize the positive aspects of Amahi. So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you!

15 comments

  1. Bdfoster89 Mar 4

    Congrats Amahi! Will most certainly pick up that issue.

  2. David Mar 4

    Way to go guys! Keep up the good work!

  3. Fred Thompson Mar 4

    Why not FlexRAID?

  4. Fred Thompson Mar 4

    FlexRAID http://www.openegg.org/FlexRAID.curi

    from the home page:

    FlexRAID protects data and not disks.

    In fact, FlexRAID has no concept of disk as it can be made to work with all data sources and targets residing anywhere on your local computer, network, or the net…

    In theory, you can have an infinite number of parity (fault tolerance) configurations…

    FlexRAID supports an infinite number of sources for one parity configuration.
    That means you can have one million hard drives in your system and only need one additional hard drive for parity.

    Because, FlexRAID works on the data, source data disks and/or the parity disks need not to have the same size…
    Consequently, most user will use their old cheap disks as parity targets and reserve the larger drives to host the data.
    Of course, the parity target disk can be larger than the source data disk, but that would be just wasting space.

    FlexRAID is currently not suited for use with databases or to protect the operating system partition…

    Full disk/target independence (take any disk/target offline or to sleep):

    * FlexRAID is green friendly
    * FlexRAID promotes the powering down of un-used disk drives to save energy.
    All current operating systems have this feature built-in.
    * You could even power-off the disk drive and take it offline and then re-synch it at a future time

    (I’m not sure if ALL drives MUST be present to synch. Hopefully, “loose” data drives could be attached to the system on an as-needed basis.)

  5. Bryan Mar 4

    Keep up the good work! Grayhole sounds interesting. Waiting to get into testing program.

  6. Jeremiah Mar 4

    WOW good job Amahi!! I no longer use amahi in my house right since I was the only one using it and some other technical difficulties but you guys are doing great!! 😀

  7. David Mar 7

    My remote access via HDAConnect has stopped working after the new release was released. Is anyone aware of this issue?

  8. cpg Mar 8

    @Fred Thomsom – That looks good. Do you have first hand experience with it? Seems like an interesting solution.

  9. cpg Mar 8

    @David – I do not believe much has changed with the VPN server settings in this release. What is the failure mode?

    You may want to file a bug in the bug tracker with all the details of the failure mode.

  10. Guillaume Boudreau Mar 8

    @Fred Thompson, Re: FlexRAID

    Another good question would be: Why FlexRAID over Greyhole? 🙂

    I see two advantages of Greyhole over FlexRAID, which I have no experience with, apart from reading their website…

    1. In Greyhole, you define at the share level what you don’t want protected, what you want duplicated once, and what you want duplicated on all your hard drives. What this means, is that I don’t need to waste terabytes duplicating TV recordings I don’t care much about, and that if all my hard drives fails (or burn/explode), except one, I’ll still have my complete pictures archive from the last 15 years intact, and available without the need of reconstruction of any kind.

    2. It’s possible, with GH, to just take out any disk, and insert it anywhere else (where GH don’t need to be installed), and be able to read the files on that drive. So mounting such a drive on a friend’s computer, you’ll be able to see and browse the files the same way you’d browse them at home (same directory structure, etc.)

  11. cpg Mar 9

    For me 2) is HUGE, and the main reason I am weary about RAID and LVM: their “recoverability” in case of failure. Personally I am really excited to see GH coming along nicely!

    When we originally looked at GH, it looked very promising, however, we felt that it needed a bit of work.

    We have been very pleasantly surprised on the evolution of Greyhole, streamlining and packaging. It’s really really cool!

  12. Fred Thompson Mar 9

    @Guillaume Boudreau,

    “Another good question would be: Why FlexRAID over Greyhole?”

    Mirroring and parity recovery are not mutually exclusive.

    Cost advantage quickly goes to parity over mirroring as data set grows.

    Parity does not preclude mirroring.

  13. Peter Apr 2

    Great job guys! Congratulations Amahi. You deserve such award.

  14. Chelsea Jul 3

    For me 2) is HUGE, and the main reason I am weary about RAID and LVM: their “recoverability” in case of failure. Personally I am really excited to see GH coming along nicely!

    When we originally looked at GH, it looked very promising, however, we felt that it needed a bit of work.

    We have been very pleasantly surprised on the evolution of Greyhole, streamlining and packaging. It’s really really cool!

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