Wireless connection for Ubuntu gutsy

I recently bought three HP e-PC C10 models for working as streaming clients for my VDR setup. Installing Ubuntu gutsy was relatively easy and i actually used a network install called "unetbootin" available from: http://lubi.sourceforge.net/unetbootin.html

Tricky part was getting wireless connection to work. I have A-LINK WL54USB wireless cards installed and it proved to be quite a challenge to get them working. All seemed to be fine except that i was not able to get ip-address from dhcp server in my router. After several hours of search i found the solution. I found that my /etc/network/interfaces was for some reason not correct:
.....
#Not like this
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wireless-essid SATURNUS
auto eth1
.....

#This is how it works
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wireless-essid SATURNUS

small difference solved the problem...

Streamdev plugin and VLC

Project is making progress quite well...now i have streamdev server up and running and VLC clients using HTTP TS network stream from servers port 3000....

This was actually quite easy to setup. vdr-plugin-streamdev-server was installed from e-tobi.net as instructed in my previous post. After that the only necessary setup was to allow connections from my internal network to server. Allowed connections are specified in the file called streamdevhosts.conf....

From VLC media player you can then open the network stream by specifying the URL as follows:

http://server:port/channelnumber

with this you are ready to go.

I will actually have three clients accessing my server over WLAN using HTTP....hopefully my bandwidth is able to handle the traffic....this means also that i'll have to invest on additional DVB-T cards.

Ubuntu Gutsy and VDR with Xine

Core of my Ubuntu based media center will be VDR using Xine as frontend. There are also ready made packages available, but i'm building all from source .... since i need subtitles for YLE - Finnish Broadcasting Company.

Most of the source required is available from http://www.e-tobi.net/, http://www.xinehq.de/ and http://home.vrweb.de/~rnissl/.

This is not a compelete howto. Most probaply you'll find that you are missing some librarys when you try to compile the source packages...don't worry once you've installed the librarys it should be ok ...before you start read "Strange things..." at the end of this text....


So here's how i did it:

Optional:

Get the latest drívers for V4L[sudo] apt-get install mercurial linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential
hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb
cd v4l-dvb
make
sudo make install
make reload

1. Add e-tobi key

gpg --keyserver hkp://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv-keys DB90D8FC306B6783

gpg --armor --export DB90D8FC306B6783 sudo apt-key add -

2. Add e-tobi repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list

deb-src http://e-tobi.net/vdr-experimental sid base addons vdr-multipatch


3. Update your list

sudo apt-get update


4. Get your build environment

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev build-essential fakeroot


5. Create directory for compiling

/usr/local/src/vdr


6. Get source for VDR and build dependencies

goto /usr/local/src/vdr

apt-get source vdr

sudo apt-get build-dep vdr


7. Edit patch list at vdr-1.4.*/debian/patches/00list

remove comments from opt-20_liemikuutio opt-27_subtitles-ttxtsubs opt-27-x_subtitles-ttxtsubs-volumebar-fix


8. Compile

goto /usr/local/src/vdr/vdr-1.4.*

fakeroot debian/rules binary


9. Install vdr and vdr-dev

goto /usr/local/src/vdr

sudo dpkg -i vdr_1.4*.deb vdr-dev_1.4*.deb


10. Install chosen plugins (all plugins go like this except xine)

goto /usr/local/src/vdr

apt-get source vdr-plugin-femon

sudo apt-get build-dep vdr-plugin-femon

cd vdr-plugin-femon-*

fakeroot debian/rules binary

cd ..

sudo dpkg -i vdr-plugin-femon_*.deb


11. Get xine-lib and xine-ui from xine's site (1.1.8)

unpack those to /usr/local/src/vdr

name the folders xine-ui and xine-lib


12. Get vdr-xine plugin from http://home.vrweb.de/~rnissl/

unpack to /usr/local/src/vdr/vdr-1.4.*/PLUGINS/src


13. Patch, compile and install xine-ui and xine-lib according to install document included with vdr-xine plugin

note: first xine-lib then xine-ui


14. Compile vdr-xine plugin according to install document included in vdr-xine plugin


15. After vdr-xine plugin try runnig vdr with xine ....

You'll probaply get few errors when startting, but it is quite obvious how to solve those...


16. Before you continue check with dmesg that you don't have any version conflicts with your firmware for DVB-T cards. It might be that you see:

tda1004x: timeout waiting for DSP ready
tda1004x: found firmware revision 0 -- invalid
tda1004x: trying to boot from eeprom
tda1004x: found firmware revision 0 -- invalid
tda1004x: waiting for firmware upload... ...or something similar.

It means that you have wrong version of firmware and you should acquire a correct version. There is a script called get_dvb_firmware availabe in several locations (try ubuntuforums.org). You should download it and proceed with the following steps....

There's three versions of the tda10046 firmware available for download with the script :
tda100452
tda100463
tda10046lifeview

Unzip this script to your Desktop. Then in terminal :
cd Desktop
sudo ./get_dvb_firmware tda10046

Change the permissions in terminal : sudo chmod 777 dvb-fe-tda10046.fw

Also check if these files are marked "executable"

Then give it a try in your /lib/firmware directory.

17. Next step is to use scan to get your channels.conf in order

Make sure you have dvb-utils installed

sudo scan -o vdr /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-t/fi-Espoo > channels.conf

Strange things wich may come around:

1. Error on missing "xshm" library

Use keywords MIT - SHM in synaptic to find it

2. While building xine-lib with autogen you get:
.....
rm -f cs.gmo && : -c --statistics .....
mv: cannot stat 't -cs.gmo : No such file or directory
......

try running configure as follows

./configure --disable-nls

3. error X11/Intrinsic.h: No such file or directory

you need libxt6-dev library

4. When you try running vdr with xine

error about missing "libvdr-xine.so.1.4.5" in folder /usr/lib/vdr/plugins

as you might notice vdr-xine plugin was built differently from other plugins so library is sitting in wrong directory

goto /usr/local/src/vdr.../PLUGINS/xine-0.8.0.....folder and you'll find it there without version number

copy it to /usr/lib/vdr/plugins and rename as required

PS3 Remote control and Ubuntu

This is a short howto get PS3 Remote control working on Ubuntu 7.10

Hardware: Targus Bluetooth USB Adapter (ACB20EU).

The obvious way to try:

1. Insert your Bluetooth hardware to USB port and boot
2. Ubuntu recognizes Bluetooth devices automatically and you should see Bluetooth managers icon in upper right corner of your desktop
3. Right click the icon and setup preferences
4. While pressing "Start" and "Enter" from your remote select "Browse devices" from your Bluetooth manager. This starts scannig of available devices.
5. Shortly you are able to see your BD remote in "Browse devices" dialog
6. After pressing "Connect" you will propably get the following error message:

Obex://[xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx] is not a valid location

No worries the actuall pairing can be done manually from the prompt as follows.
(following is mostly taken from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup)

Before start make sure that you have all necessary tools installed. You can find them from "Synaptic package manager" with search term: bluez.

This is how it works in theory:

1. Find device address (try which one works for you)
note: press "Start" and "Enter" from remote while issuing command

sudo hidd --search

hcitool scan

2. Connect temporarily to make sure that you're able to connect (current session)

sudo hidd --connect aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

3. To connect at startup every time

make a backup of your /etc/default/bluetooth

sudo gedit /etc/default/bluetooth

search the following line: HIDD_ENABLED=0

change to: HIDD_ENABLED=1

search in the same file for a line similar to: HIDD_OPTIONS="--master --server"

add "--connect" arguments for device that you want connected at startup:

HIDD_OPTIONS="--connect aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff --server"

note: remove --master if it seems to cause trouble

save modifications add hidp to /etc/modules

echo hidp sudo tee -a /etc/modules

4. Reboot and you should get connected after startup...but you need to press "start" & "enter" for a while before it connects ...10 seconds or so...check from Bluetooth preferences dialog while pressing buttons....

"hcitool con" shoud show you're connected

Use "lsinput" command after connection and you are able to find /dev/input/eventX.

To make this work properly as a remote for my ubuntu it seems that the bestway to go is with python scripts....

Maybe within the near future we'll get a linux driver to handle all this.

5. Keycodes from PS3 remote

You can get a python script to show the keypress from your remote: http://ps3mods.blogspot.com/2007/03/bd-remote-for-linux-update.html.

If you read the script you can see wich code corresponds to each key.

Install pybluez if you don't have it already

Open script and find "Manual input of PS3...." almost at the end of the file and insert your device address to line below

Save the file, make it executable and give it a try

6. If you want to use uinput goto http://www.apebox.org and download cakemote.py script

Install pybluez if you don't have it already

Open cakemote.py and find "Manual input of PS3...." almost at the end of the file and insert your device address to line below

Save the file and make it executable

Issue sudo modprobe uinput and run cakemote.py with simultaneously pressing start+enter from remote

Sony announced PVR

I found this today:

Sony's just announced a personal video recorder (PVR) add-on system for the PlayStation 3

It's been coming and i can see that Microsoft is well behind when it comes to "Entertainment" gadgets. This is a must have....

Yesterday i actually went and bought a PS3 Remote Control, which is based on Bluetooth. Goal is to make that work as remote control for my Ubuntu....

Remote control and Ubuntu 7.10?

One thing i've spent several hours to solve is my remote control. For my setup this is not an easy task, since my hardware is about 20 meters away downstairs. This leaves me only one choise in tehcnology and that is radio frequency. Normal IR won't do because of the setup.

There are not so many manufacturers who have the required hardware available. My first choise was Soundgraph iMON 2.4G DT, which seemed to have all the good qualities.

After installing LIRC in my old Ubuntu 6.06 configuration i tought that it would just need some hard work to get it working, but i was so wrong.....after several days of different setups with LIRC and my remote i gave up and so far i haven't found anyone who has been successful with this remote....altough LIRC says it's supported. If there's anyone out there with a working solution on Soundgraph i would like to hear about it....and don't get me wrong LIRC was allright, but my choise of remote wasn't...so what to do next? Maybe i sell my remote to some windows user and try to find another remote which would do the trick for me....if anyone has good references on remotes working with radio frequency i'd like to hear about it....

Dualview VGA + DVI out from Geforce FX 5200 ??

I tried to get two monitors connected to my Geforce FX 5200, but it turned out to be a challenge. Goal was to get both Viewsonic (VGA plug) and Sharp (DVI out) working simultaneously. I kept trying different setups and played with xorg.conf with no luck. I wonder if anyone has had luck with this type of setup? Nvidia settings didn't help either...this seems to be the area where Windows beats Ubuntu 100-0 and Ubuntu requires significant improvements to level with Windows ...

We'll i'm not giving up yet....maybe i'll find something from various forums out there...and when i succeed i'll post it here ...