BimmaBlog

What a palava. Grub2 will become the defacto standard in time, but right now I am not quite ready to switch over. Having installed Karmic to a separate partition, and chosen to install grub2 to the local root (not mbr) I could not chainload boot to karmic from grub legacy.

So, bootedup the live cd again and installed Grub2 to the mbr. Instructions on how to do this can be found here.

OK, good. Boot up Karmic now, and run “sudo update-grub” in order to load up all the other OS’s into Grub2 menu.

While you are in Karmic, open up the grub.cfg file and copy out the boot menu info for Karmic (you will need this later to put into your grub-legacy menu.lst) Should look something like this:

“sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg”

menuentry “Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic” {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,10)
search –no-floppy –fs-uuid –set b50237f3-c90c-4af6-a275-892a09165ea3
linux    /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=b50237f3-c90c-4af6-a275-892a09165ea3 ro   quiet splash
initrd    /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic

Now reboot, and you should be OK to boot back into Jaunty.

In Jaunty, open up menu.lst, and add the following entry to your “Other Operating Systems” section

title       Xubuntu Karmic Koala
uuid       b50237f3-c90c-4af6-a275-892a09165ea3
kernel    /vmlinuz root=UUID=b50237f3-c90c-4af6-a275-892a09165ea3 ro  quiet splash
initrd    /initrd.img
quiet

You’ll see why you needed the info from grub.cfg to insert the UUID information. This layout, I believe also has the benefit of coping with kernal updates to Karmic.

Save your menu.lst file, and reboot. You should now have an entry for Karmic and it should boot. 

Lots of large files come down split up into pieces using HJSplit. It’s a bit of a slog to do the joining manually, so here is a simple command line that solves the problem as a thunar custom action

java -jar /path_to/hjsplit_g.jar -c join -f %f

of course you need sun java installed 

 Have previously used xdialog for this, but it was time to update to zenity

zenity –question –width 640 –height 240 –title=”Permanently Remove Files” –text=”Are you sure you want to remove these files? \n\n %N”; if [ $? = 0 ] ; then rm -r %F ; else exit; fi

You do get a sanity check before you decide to delete, and of course, DON’T run this on /       

Love my thunar custom actions, and all I wanted to do was run mediainfo against a media file to see how it was made etc. Trying to do this with just xfce4-terminal was a pita. This simple line throws the info up in a zenity info dialog:

mediainfo %f | zenity –width=640 –height=480 –text-info

Unfortunately you don’t get the nice alignment you get in a terminal but hey…

Nice easy tip this one.

Open Firefox, and open up  GMail/Googlemail.

Paste this command into the address bar with the GMail/Googlemail page on view

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(”mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s“,”GMail”)      << all one line

and click on green arrow

Firefox will ask if you want to add the application, to which you say yes.

Now click on a mailto link, and Firefox will ask you which email client you wish to use. Select Googlemail and also tick the box to allow this to persist.

Job done

Not a big problem with Firefox, but if you forget the password you used to access a web page or site in IE, it can be a right pain to retrieve it.

Found this little script that runs as a bookmark: Reveal Password

Simply right click on the link above and add it to your bookmarks - sorry, favourites.

Next time you come up against a site you have the password “dotted” out, simply go to your favourites and choose this link. A small popup will appear showing the password in plain text.

This also works for Firefox, and is the lazy mans way of discovering the password.

All credits to originator.

Enjoy

It’s been a long time coming, over three and one half years, but I can finally put all the hardware in the house to good use and use my PC (internet wise) as I was using Windows. And using a Sony Playstation Eyetoy to boot!

From my post on ubuntuforums, here is how to get the eyetoy working with Skype:

Close Skype before continuing.

Using K/X/Ubuntu 9.04 +, the gspca module in the kernel will run the eyetoy cam as a webcam, but to use it under Skype, and to prevent the pink and green horizontal lines, you need to edit the config file. This is tucked away in your home directory:

/home/user/.Skype/skype-user/config.xml

where user is your login, and skype-user is your skype login

If you are the cautious type, back up this file first:

cp /home/user/.Skype/skype-user/config.xml /home/user/.Skype/skype-user/config.xml.bak

Open up the config.xml file in your text editor, and browse down through the file, you should find a <Video>…</Video> section.Add the following:

<CaptureHeight>480</CaptureHeight>
<CaptureWidth>640</CaptureWidth>
<RecvPolicy>callpolicy</RecvPolicy>

Mine looks like this:

…..</StatsSender>
<Video>
<AutoSend>1</AutoSend>
<CaptureHeight>480</CaptureHeight>
<CaptureWidth>640</CaptureWidth>
<Device>/dev/video3</Device>
<Disable>0</Disable>
<RecvPolicy>callpolicy</RecvPolicy>
</Video>
<table_insert_history>….

Start up Skype and head for video settings to select and test.

You can also select the Eyetoy Microphone to use, you may need to play around with your main sound settings to get this working. I had to change from Mic2 to Mic1 in Sound Settings / Mixer, and of course chose eyetoy microphone in audio settings in Skype

This has been an issue for me for quite a while, but I have simply overcome it by using the menu to change the aspect ratio.

It all stems from the perplexing confusion of recording dvb tv for later playback. Watching live TV on the TV, the picture fills the screen. It’s a 16:9 42″ TV (720p). When I record dvb tv using my main pc in its raw .ts state it is 720×576 (16:9). If I play this back using the GeexBox, mplayer squeezes the picture to a display of something like Cinemascope, so a change of aspect ratio to 4:3 usually sorts this out. But it got me thinking, if the original video is 16:9 why doesn’t play as such? The Pc in use to run GeexBox has an nvidia 6200 and is connected to the TV using VGA (DVI/HDMI went “pop” a while ago on the TV!).

First off, I tried all sorts of encoding options, changing the aspect ratio and resolution using mencoder. I got some success if I encoded with aspect=4/3 as an option. but this still didn’t make sense; if I had a 16:9 aspect ratio TV, why the original video didn’t fit.

This is what I did to sort things out. I have a HDD install of GeexBox so can ftp in to edit files. If you use a live cd, then you will need to edit the files before you generate a custom iso.

Boot up the GeexBox

FTP in, and make doubly sure you get into the right place

/mnt/GeexBox-partition/GEEXBOX/etc

Open up tvout in that directory and change the Aspect Ratio line to this:

TVOUT_ASPECT=”16:9″

and save.
By just making this change alone, it squeezed my display horizontally to make a 4:3 image, so more to do

Browse to /mnt/Geexbox-partition/GEEXBOX/etc/mplayer and open up mplayer.conf
In the [default] section, add the following two lines:

monitoraspect=”16:9″

aspect=”16:9″

and save. It may be worth noting that I have vo=vidix,vesa in the default section of mplayer.conf

Log out of the ftp and reboot the GeexBox. The Main Menu and background.avi should be filling the screen.

Now try playing any recorded dvb tv or video that was previously letterboxed, even though it was 16:9 ratio or 720×576 resolution. You should see it playback in full screen.

Caveats: This may not work in your setup, and you may not need to make all the adjustments to get this to work, this is what worked for me.

Don’t like backup programs, but I do like cp. I save all my work to an external HDD but I like to make a copy of this onto my server, prior to burning. As I don’t do things in sequence, I may need to make several “backups” before commiting to disk, so needed an easy way of only copying over changed or new files:

cp -urvp /pathto/externaldrive/* /pathto/backup/directory/

What does it all do?

cp         the copy command

-u         update only new or changed files with a newer date

-r          recursive to all sub directories

-v          verbose, tell me what is happening

-p          preserve file attributes

In my case, the path to the external HDD is /media/HANDY120/* - (the device is a Fujitsu HandyDrive 120GB) . Don’t forget the / and the * at the end to ensure everything on the drive is copied.

The path to the backup location can be anywhere, but you must use the same route each time

Windows 7 to replace Xubuntu?

Whenever a new version of Windows comes out, I am normally one of the first to go grab a copy. Think into “grab” what you like, from the past, but with the arrival of Windows 7 I went for the RC which was on off for free to use until June 2010.

I thought, we’ll have a look, but I can’t see how they will have learnt any lessons after the resource hog they created with Vista. How wrong, install was under half an hour on my Shuttle SN41, boot up time from cold was under a minute to usable desktop, and ram usage was around 380mb, down by 200 mb on Vista, whilst CPU activity was next to nothing. No drag, no delays, no problems…. hang on, all I have done in the last three years is use linux, and found the need to move towards lighter and lighter systems to maintain speed and productivity. Yep, but W7 seems to be a real contender, until June 2010 comes round!

OK, its one thing to get the OS up and running, can I “do” everything I can do on Xubuntu 9.04, and access my linux server (that one won’t be changing!). This is a work in progress, but here we go so far:

1. Remove the watermark about evaluation. easily found on the net
2. ExtFsd - provides access to ext3 partitions on the HDD
3. Ensure samba server up and running on the linux server (it is, for my kids and their windows PCs)
4. Install Winrar - I know I will have to download some rar files to get up to speed
5. Firefox - IE8 shoved politely to one side, all required extensions installed nicely
6. Putty - now able to ssh into server
7. UltraVNC - now able to vnc to server and other boxes
8. Geany - helps to overcome linux text files, and mirrors usage on Xubuntu. No need for any other text editor.
9. VLC - mplayer won’t do dvb on Windows yet, so VLC for viewing and recording dvb streams. Will have to spend some time writing batch files to ease planned recordings and viewings, but had to do this on Linux.
10. Brother MFP drivers - original CD no good for W7, but Vista drivers on the Brother site did the job.
11. Gwhere - yes there is a Windows version - for cataloging DVDs
12. Skype - and the Eyetoy webcam experience is here at last
13. CDBurnerXP - on trial as I write. My trusty Nero OEM CD proved to be no good for W7

To come:

• pdf access and creation
• image editing (this will probably be photofiltre)
• video encoding will get shunted off to the server for mencoder to deal with, don’t do video editing as a rule

Note: All mail is up on Google, so no need for a mail client, as with Calendar & To Do, and Google Docs will do if I do not install OO.  For work I have to use Windows, and need access to full Acrobat, Illustrator, IE6+ for Management
systems, and Sage for accounting. I try to emulate this at home, so do need Windows in some form.

Issues

1. a. Several little crashes of programs, and on one occasion the vlc.exe file disappeared, requiring a reinstall
2. Tried, but could not get NFS Services to work, so gave up and used samba instead
3. vlc is a swine to use for dvb but I’ll get there
4. mplayer / smplayer crashed and burned when trying to play video over smb shares and killed the Aero effect until I rebooted.
5. WMP OK for occasional mp3 play, but never saves playlist automatically. Failed to play most of the videos I threw at it
6. Windows Media Center just so unintuitive, and bring machine to its knees. such a shame, it looks great. Has been “dumbed down” so little chance to configure precisely
7. Navigating the file system, and the layout of Windows Explorer is quite alien (might seek out something more simple!)
8. Perhaps most worrying was the dirth of useful information on the net about how to get setup, in particular with regard to dvb and vlc.  (A new user coming from Linux would struggle!!!
9. Seems to grind to a halt after a while, needing a reboot to get back to normal

It scares me just how much I have forgotten about Windows and how it works, but for an underlying OS, it seems pretty  stable and responsive, and very usable on my oldish hardware.

Watch this space for more adventures from a linux user on Windows