Sunday, 7 August 2011

MeeGo

Out with the Slow
A new chapter

Minimal setup
Optimal use of small screen
Easy upgrade path

Easy, right? Well, sort of. There were three distributions that looked interesting,

Once I read that MeeGo was hosted by the Linux Foundation I decided to give that a go. You see I'm a member so it's best to support the people you, well, support!
The Meego v1.2 for Netbooks was a heavy weight download at 900MB. But it looked like it had everything I needed out the box. I was also mesmerised by the promise of really fast boot-up and resume times.
The installation was simple and uncomplicated, but I fully expected to have download and install several 100MB more of updates. Not so! But there were problems. The installation notes were spot on in there known issues and workarounds. There other problem: no wireless. A quick google search found an excellent write-up written by Glen Gray here. The steps are,

Activate the MeeGo toolbar and select the applications icon
Choose the Accessories section and select Terminal (or type terminal in the search box)
Install the various tools you will need
sudo zypper install rpmdevtools
Install the compilers and other toolssudo zypper install pattern:meego-development-tools
Install the kernel-netbook-devel package
sudo zypper install kernel-devel
Now we’re ready to build and install the new broadcom drivers, my moblin srpm workswget http://slaine.org/meego/releases/1.2/ia32/source/wl-kmod-5.100.82.38-1.src.rpm
(This build will download the broadcom driver archive directly from their site)rpmbuild --rebuild --target=i586 wl-kmod-5.100.82.38-1.src.rpm
Install the resulting rpm
sudo rpm -ivh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/i586/wl-kmod-5.100.82.38-1.i586.rpm
Loading the modulesudo modprobe -a wl
You should be able to now connect to a network

On restart I was able to connect.
Packages
MeeGo is RPM based system using the zypper package manager. I've not used an RPM based system in a very long time. So I will have to learn once again how to,
Update a system

zypper up

Search for a package

zypper se [package name]

Install a package

zypper in [package name]

And all those other things you do with packages.
Am I Happy?
It will take a little getting used to a new desktop, but so far, yes I am happy with the outcome. It is fast, it was easy to setup and easy to customise. I love the full screen windows. I love the speed. I love the consistent configuration. I will get re-familiar with working with RPM packages. After all, it is good to know how to do things using the two principle Linux package managers. It might even be fun to do a side by side comparison for common package tasks ...

Sunday, 3 July 2011

podracer - a podcast aggregator

Do you listen to podcasts? Do you want to manage these outside of normal web-surfing time? Do you want easy configuration? Then podracer is the software you need.

Podracer was written by Lorenzo Taylor. It is a simple command line tool that has only two plain text configuration files:

$HOME/.podracer/podracer.conf – configure podracer behaviour
$HOME/.podracer/subscriptions – the list of subscriptions

configuration

This file is used to customise podracers download behaviour. With sane defaults, the only settings that I changed were,

poddir – the default root location to save podcasts into

And two other entries indicating where the log files are to be recorded.

subscriptions

Like the name suggests this a plain text file listing the podcasts you subscribe to.
The format is simple:

RSS feed <tab> target directory relative to poddir
As this is a plain text file, where comments can be added by appending “#” to a line, it becomes a useful historical record of podcasts I listen to.

maintenance

To get the most out of podracer, schedule jobs to run during off-peaks times.

# update podcasts (run every day at 03:03) 3 3 * * * podracer

To effortlessly manage podcasts so I don't become overrun with them, I keep only one months worth. This is managed by another crontab entry,

# clean-up old podcasts
@daily find $HOME/music/podcasts/ -name '*.mp3' -type f -mtime +31 -exec rm -v {} \;

Ubuntu 11.04 - an opinion

Family and friends depend on me to provide support for their Linux PC's. What is great is that does not require that much support. But it does mean keeping at least one step ahead. A variety of issues are at stake:

Do all applications still work?
Are the devices still supported?
Will the user interface changes be problematic?
Are there new must have features?

So, while most stayed back on stable UNR 10.04 systems, I charged ahead to see if the upgrade path was safe ...

Upgrading from UNR 10.04 to 10.10 introduced the Unity desktop. For the netbook form factor, this desktop is excellent. It uses limited screen space well. It can be run with minimal use of the trackpad. It looks good. It is very responsive. All the applications that are required to work, do. Devices are recognised and work. So all looks good! But, as 10.10 was not a LTS release I recommended holding back until 11.04 came out.

So I was very eager to see what the next release had in store.

Instead of upgrading though, I decided on a new installation. This was made practical since the netbook records any localisations into the Ubuntu One cloud. So restoration was trivial. The installation was, as we have grown to expect from Canonical, smooth. Everything worked wonderfully. But boot-up and login was very slow! This was a major disappointment. Even after switching off all non-essential services it still is noticeably, irritatingly slow! Slower than either the 10.04 or 10.10 releases. What's more battery life was much shorter.

A netbook must be fast. You don't want to wait for a portable device to start-up. It will sour the experience. There are workarounds. Using hibernate or suspension will assist, but at the cost of even shorter batter life.
The Unity interface has matured and now that I understand the design philosophy, it's functionality and usability make sense. Customisation was easy.

For the casual users currently on UNR, then the move to 11.04 would not be too traumatic.

Overall, I like what Canonical have done with 11.04. But, can I safely recommend it to all? Sadly, no. For UNR users it is a good upgrade, if you have the hardware. For the rest of us on older hardware, there are much lighter weight options.

Canonical's upgrade cycle is starting to hurt. Six months is way to fast, and it seems that years are getting shorter too! So, rolling releases like Linux Mint are starting to look attractive ...

Sunday, 8 May 2011

[Update] Ubuntu Netbook Remix - Tethering to iPhone

Ubuntu 11.04
My previous instructions successfully worked for natty!

Saturday, 2 April 2011

Installing MCE Remote for XBMC

The remote I purchased was a Media Center Remote Control / Receiver, RC118 / IR6065A / QIR606A / Q. This being a MCE certified device I thought it would be easy to set-up. However, it took a little more effort than expected. Fortunately the steps are easy, and it was a useful problem solving exercise.

SystemI am running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with kernel 2.6.32-31-generic for use as a server for XBMC version 10.1. I received advice from Jarod Wilson of lirc that,

lirc_mceusb is obsolete. This device is already supported by the in-kernelmceusb driver.

So hopefully you are much luckier than I was in setting this up!

Getting the remote to workEven though dmesg reported that I had a infrared receiver, lirc failed to recognise it when testing with irw. dmesg reports:

[ 23.721796] generic-usb 0003:147A:E03E.0003: timeout initializing reports [ 23.722033] generic-usb 0003:147A:E03E.0003: hiddev97,hidraw2: USB HID v1.00 Device [Formosa21 eHome Infrared Transceiver] on usb-0000:00:1d.2-1/input1 [ 23.722127] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid [ 23.722136] usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver

To configure lirc I used the command,

dpkg-reconfigure lirc

Selecting Windows Media Center Transceivers/Remotes (all), and transmitter, none. The default remote device was /dev/lirc0, see /etc/lirc/hardward.conf. But no such device exists! However, checking with lsusb the receiver is being recognised:

# lsusb -v -s 004:002 Bus 004 Device 002: ID 147a:e03e Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc. Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 8 idVendor 0x147a Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc. idProduct 0xe03e bcdDevice 10.01 iManufacturer 1 iProduct 2 ...

So, why does lirc not recognise it? Are the modules being loaded?

# lsmod | grep lirc lirc_mceusb 12100 1 lirc_dev8890 3 lirc_mceusb ...

So, yes modules are being loaded. So is the device known by the modules? To answer that question, I have to install lirc-modules-source:

apt-get install lirc-modules-source

Now look in /usr/src/lirc-0.8.6/drivers/lirc_mceusb/lirc_mceusb.c for your receiver,

grep -i formosa /usr/src/lirc-0.8.6/drivers/lirc_mceusb/lirc_mceusb.c #define VENDOR_FORMOSA 0x147a /* Formosa eHome Infrared Transceiver */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe015) }, /* Formosa21 / eHome Infrared Receiver */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe016) }, /* Formosa aim / Trust MCE Infrared Receiver */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe017) }, /* Formosa Industrial Computing / Beanbag Emulation Device */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe018) }, /* Formosa21 / eHome Infrared Receiver */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe03a) }, /* Formosa Industrial Computing AIM IR605/A */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe03c) },

So, my receiver isn't listed here! Easy to fix, just add:

/* Formosa21 / eHome Infrared Transceiver */ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FORMOSA, 0xe03e) },

Next, rebuild modules using,

dpkg-reconfigure lirc-modules-source

Restart lirc:

service lirc restart

This should have recreated the device /dev/lirc0. But it still didn't exist! But using,

# ls -lh /dev/lirc* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2011-03-30 08:57 /dev/lircd -> /var/run/lirc/lircd /dev/lirc: total 0 crw-rw---- 1 root root 61, 0 2011-03-30 08:57 0

I saw that there was indeed a device created, just not where I had expected it to be. So, change the entry in /etc/lirc/hardward.conf, from:

REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"

to:

REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc/0"

Restart lirc:

service lirc restart

And test with irw to check to see if it responds! Success!

ReferencesXBMC on Acer Aspire Revo R3700
lirc.org
xbmc.org
Mediagate MG-IR01BK and Ubuntu

Friday, 18 March 2011

Xfce no panel

It doesn't happen often (but I'd love to know why), but I lost by Xfce panel again today. Luckily this is easy to fix. Open a terminal (right mouse click) and re-start the panel with:

xfce4-panel &

Now that you have you're panel working make this permanent by removing current session information:

rm -rf ~/.cache/sessions/

Logout and restart your session.
One final hint, backup your Xfce4 settings! I alias the backup command and keep a local and remote copy of the generated archive:

alias backupxfce='cd ~;tar jcvf Backups/xfce4.tar.bz2 .config/xfce4'

This alias will create a bzip2 archive.

Friday, 11 March 2011

XBMC on a ACER Aspire Revo R3700

The following guide is to assist installation of XBMC onto an ACER Aspire Revo R3700 320G/ 2G RAM Mini PC running Ubuntu 10.04. See also my notes on installing MCE remote for XBMC.

Please feel free to suggest corrections or clarifications.

Installation of Ubuntu 10.04
I installed Ubuntu 10.04 from USB. Instructions for this can be found at Ubuntu here.

References

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=53812
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Installing_XBMC_for_Linux

Enable SSH

Enable ssh for easy remote management.

enable X11 forwarding, in /etc/ssh/sshd_config set,
X11Forwarding yes
enable SSH daemon with,
update-rc.d ssh defaults
restart SSH daemon with,
service ssh restart
on the server allow an X client with,
xhost +[ip_of_client]

To start a session with X enabled,

ssh -X user@192.168.0.6

To copy a file from local to remote host use,

scp local_file user user@192.168.0.6:/home/user/

References

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-runlevel-configuration-tool-to-start-service/
http://www.go2linux.org/linux/2011/02/my-top-five-ssh-tips-and-tricks-small-cheatsheet-914

Replace GDM On Startup

I’ll assume that the user name for access to you XMBC box is xmbc.

Auto-login xmbc user, edit /etc/init/tty2.conf exec /bin/su xmbc -l -c "/bin/bash --login -c /usr/bin/startx > ~xmbc/.tty2.errors 2>&1"
Where errors are reported into ~xmbc/.tty2.errors
Put xmbc startup in users X initialisation, edit ~xmbc/.xinitrc exec /usr/bin/ck-launch-session /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/xbmc --standalone -fs > .xinitrc.errors 2>&1
Where errors are reported into ~xmbc/.xinitrc.errors
Ensure user has correct authorities. The following fixes the error,
X: user not authorized to run the X server, aborting.
Edit /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config and replace allowed_users=console withallowed_users=anybody
Remove GDM from startup.
mv /etc/init/gdm.conf /etc/init/gdm.conf.bak update-rc.d -f gdm remove
Reboot.

To recover GDM reverse the fourth step. GDM will then start despite errors being logged by xbmc complaining that startx is already active.

References

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=625230

Sound over HDMI

This was by far the trickiest to set up on the Acer. I've used alsa in preference to pulse. I also un-installed pulse just to be sure it wouldn't clash with my alsa settings.

For this XBMC installation I've used the custom audio output of plughw:1,7
In /etc/asound.conf I added,
# source: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=100759
pcm.dmixer {
   type dmix
   ipc_key 2048
   slave {
   pcm "hw:1,7"        # always use pure hw. dmix will resample
   period_size 512     # a reasonable default
   buffer_size 4096
   rate 48000          # HDMI assumes 48kHz
   format S16_LE       # a  reasonable default
   }
   bindings {
   0 0
   1 1
   }
}
pcm.!default {
   type plug
   slave.pcm  "dmix:1,7"
}

Open alsamixer and ensure channels are not muted. Muted are keyed as (MM), non-muted are something like, (00).
Save the volumes of alsamixer with,
alsactl store 0
To test, aplay -D plughw:1,7 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

References

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=100759
http://guide.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1625530&page=2
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1532355
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=21106

Wireless drops connection periodically

The Revo wireless card raLink rt3090 is known to cause some problems.

First check with setup with,
lshw -C networkThis will show a wealth of wireless information.
To see what drivers are actually loaded try,
lsmod | grep -e rt2 -e rt3
For this device we only want to see rt3090 and not any of the rt2* drivers.
To exclude the rt2* drivers append to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf the following,
# cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf blacklist ndiswrapper blacklist rt2800pci blacklist rt2860sta blacklist acer-wmi
<note – the last line must be blank>
Next ensure wireless driver is loaded in /etc/modules
# wireless drivers for Ralink 2860 rt3090sta
To get interface information, use on or all of,
nm-tool
lshw -C network
iwlist scan
To check clients to your local network,
nmap -sP 192.168.0.0/29
To restart wireless,
service network-manger restart

References

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/howto/rt2860sta_wireless