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OMG GRUB2 so doesn’t work with GRUB 1.5

November 15, 2009 in Computer, Linux, MythTV, Technology by Mark Beattie | 1 comment

I mentioned to both Aris and CC about not being able to get GRUB going, but as it turns out, OpenSUSE had overwritten my 1st 9.04 Xubuntu configuration’s GRUB with it’s own (I believe 1.5) but I’d installed OpenSUSE on a secondary 1.0 TB drive…. when I reformatted that 1.0 TB drive from within a Windows 7 boot cycle it decimated the MBR / GRUB setup. I thought a fresh install of 9.10 Ubuntu 64 bit Desktop would cure the “Error 17″ woes I was encountering. It didn’t. I thought, perhaps I needed to edit the device.map file or the /boot/grub/menu.lst “list” file. Nope. None of this fixed the problem. But you know what? I kept going. Because, like all things Linux, if you’re full of hate and things don’t work, that means it’s time to hunker down. FWIW there are 37 pages on the Ubuntu Forums discussing this error and that’s just one thread of many . As it turns out 9.10 Karmic Koala runs a different version of GRUB (GRUB 2, specifically) and they are not compatible. I found a utility called Super Grub Disk and booted it. It was kind enough to give me more than an “Error 17″ or an “Error 21″, it told me in fact explicitly that there was a GRUB versioning issue.

The problem was in the versioning and not where the files were pointing (hd0,0 or hd1,1 sda1, sdb6, etc). Thankfully from within the Super Grub Disk utility I was able to revert the master boot record (MBR) back to native Windows 7 boot and then from there re-booting into Super Grub I was able to boot directly into 9.10. Once in 9.10 (and not on a rescue/live CD) I was able to run Synaptic Package Managers’ update. During the Synaptic Update (code: sudo apt-get install update) 9.10 re-overwrote the MBR with GRUB 2 and it worked. I can now boot either Windows 7 or 9.10 no problem.

My hope is to try the .22 (near release) of MythTV and see if that helps me in my backend woes. MCE & Win7 work fine but doesn’t have the scheduling or Apache features of MythTV. Worst case scenario I need to make a friend at the hacker’s space in NYC (http://www.nycresistor.com/) who actually understands channel mapping tables in MYSQL for QAM ATSC (free and clear) digital cable tuning. Currently the SliconDust HDHomeRun has each of its tuners plugged into the same QAM feed, which is good because now the antenna is gone, but bad as I’ve never gotten all the free digital cable channels to work reliably in MythTV.

Super Grub Disk

Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10

: NYC Resistor Hacker’s Space

Unetbootin, Vista 32bit hell and other stories

September 24, 2009 in Computer, Linux, Mark, Technology by Mark Beattie | No comments

Zoe had a friend who was having some computer problems and I suppose to some extent I brought this upon myself. Thankfully, I now have a strategy. Of course this is probably like 10 hours where I am far too deep in to start strategizing, but I now have a strategy.

Lets pretend for a moment you have a 32 bit Core-Duo laptop running Windows Vista Home 32bit that is infected with malware and viruses and acting generally poorly, what do you do? Well, my friend, you take your 8GB flash key that has an already built 9.04 Ubuntu Kernel on it, you boot it from that and run ClamAV using the ClamTK GUI. It works. It found a couple of viruses on the backup HD and I feel safer about backup data as well as my data on my Windows 7 machine. Thankfully, since I’m principally running OS X and 9.04 MythBuntu these days we’re highly prone to viruses, but nonetheless, I was concerned about re-infection with her external USB hard drive as well as her 4GB Flash Key.

Step 1) Use Unetbootin to load a flash key with a bootable version of the Linux of your choice

Step 2) Boot up the sick (dying) notebook with that USB flash drive

Step 3) Scan all files with ClamAV under Linux, then backup all data

Step 4) Wipe the old computer clean and re-install Windows (this part is oh so familiar) & leave ~ 20GB for a separate EXT3 Linux partition

Step 5) Institute a backup as well as best practice anti-virus procedures

Step 6) Install Linux in the 20GB spare rescue partition in case this happens again!

Step 7) After about a year Windows XP will be gunked up again, so repeat! (see Step 1)

iPod Touch has 802.11n! But it’s not enabled! Zing!

September 14, 2009 in Apple, Audio Server, Computer, Mac, Mark, Technology by Mark Beattie | 1 comment

I went to the Apple Store on 5th Ave before doing a little bouldering in Central Park. Chris sent the Polish Traverse and made it look effortless. At least someone is in shape. So, I stopped by Apple and asked what they knew about the 802.11n chipset on the latest model iPod Touch. Nothing. They never know anything. Seriously, I’ve had my best experiences at these stores only in the morning on very un-busy days.

I had to get a new battery once for a black Macbook and my options were: 1) schlep to Staten Island 2) buy one or 3) schlep to the 14th Street store because they are less busy. I sat around the 14th Street store for about 45 minutes, crossed my fingers and waited for a lull in the ever present traffic. The Genius there was very nice, she took pity on me and warranteed a new battery. But my other option was to come back to the 59th store at 5AM on a Friday. Their system blows, but I digress…

The employee didn’t have any specific answers about 802.11n on the new Touch. It was his belief that it works, though I imagine if this were the case I’d have read at least one technical blog mention it. Right now the word is that it has Broadcom’s mobile n chipset and it has a single antenna and it should be capable up to 30 Mb/s. Most tech writers speculate it’ll be enabled in the next 6 months. Oh well. Also, there is no camera yet on the Touch.

The image below links to the tear down, and if you’re into such things, click here for the Broadcom PDF spec sheet.

iFix it 802.11n iPod Touch Teardown

802.11n in iPod Touch

Darwine you are a fine Wine.

September 10, 2009 in Apple, Computer, Leopard, Linux, Mac, Shimergo, Technology by Mark Beattie | No comments

For whatever reason I’d never played around with application compatibility layer software like Wine under OS X. Parallels and VMware are quite overkill for most people’s purposes. Usually the user may need to run one application in the guest OS and setting up an entire VM and giving 10GB or whatever over to that system, not to mention memory resources, is overkill. Certainly for developers being able to load/change machine states with VMs and sandbox their development, it makes sense, but for most end-users it’s crazy.

I haven’t checked all the applications I’d like to use, the ones I found myself booting to XP the most were A/V stuff like Foobar2000, MediaMonkey, EAC, etc. But the good news is that under Leopard Darwine v1.21.1 runs Foobar2000 just fine, a fine Wine if you will (hah). So that’s exciting. Codeweavers sells something similar called CrossOver but Darwine is free and I figured since I already had X11 installed it was worth a shot. Pretty cool stuff.

Darwine

WWDC no 802.11n in on the 3G S iPhone!? Drat!

July 2, 2009 in Apple, Backups, Coffee, Computer, Linux, Mac, MythTV, Technology by Mark Beattie | No comments

So, with the new iPhone 3.x OS you will not be purchasing an 802.11N enabled wireless chipset. Apparently the new 3G S model does support 4G HSDPA but not 5 GHz 802.11N wireless with the new lower powered Broadcom BCM4325. Apparently the 3G S model is a bit snappier. When is the 802.11n iPod Touch coming out? That’s what I’m waiting for. I saw that Garret had a very small LG phone that’s basically free from Verizon, if I could find that used/new and then go with a Touch remote… we’ll see how it goes…. Windows 7 RC is OK. It works, for what it’s worth.

I like Ubuntu 9.04 with MythTV…. I’m going to go back to that but probably do a dual boot leaving Win7 RC just in case…. Sadly, for Netflix playback due to Silverlight DRM a Windows XP/Vista/7 VM or even an OS X VM is necessary for Netflix streaming…. or buy a Roku box, unfortunately our TV doesn’t have 2 HDMI inputs… I’m surprised no one has been able to reverse engineer the Roku Box’s chipset and put the Silverlight DRM code out there…. Or even just have a “Roku Box VM”…. Why not, right? Seems possible, when you consider how almost all old video console games can now be played and fit on one flash drive.

I brewed with the Yama 5 Cup Vacuum brewer today. Thank you Conor and Leigh, awesome gift BTW; best of luck in your trip West. The coffee is very good, very clean, very smooth. I currently am grinding Gimme’ Coffee’s Picolo Mondo variety. Thank you Japanese vacuum brewing technology and to Chris for the awesome vintage German Peter Dienes grinder which does it job remarkably well for a hand grinder over twice as old as I am.

Yama Vaccuum Brewing by Digital Colony

My Vintage PeDe looks similar, all metal on top though

Hackable? Image from ehomeupgrade.com blog

Awesome awesomeness

May 14, 2009 in Computer, MythTV, New York, Technology by Mark Beattie | No comments

So things have been busy but going pretty well, in comparison to the Winter at least. I’m having another go at MythBuntu 8.04 LTS on the old PIII as the Myth Back-End. I built our Front-End this afternon. It’s a E5200 Core Duo chip, the motherboard is based on Intel’s 4100 chipset and is made by Gigabyte. I ended up with an MSI made Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT PCI-Express x16 v2.0 video card which should be able to offload my the processing needed for HDTV and h.264 1080p video playback, from what I’ve read anyhow VDPAU and Linux have come along nicely especially in the 9.04 release which is what I’ll run on the Front-End. The MSI supports two digital heads simultaneously over HDMI and DVI. Unfortunately the one Antec 120mm fan is quite noisy while the other Enermax 120mm is dead quiet. Lesson learned. I was going to buy two of those but I cheapened out.

The case itself is pretty solid, it’s an Antec Sonata III and it came with a nice EarthWatts 500w power supply and originally I was considering trying to find a different case and keep the PSU, but I think it’ll work out. I would say that you shouldn’t stuff like four 3.5″ SATA HDDs in this case, it’d be too hot and noisy. I may need to buy some sound deadening padding for the walls of the case and do a little dremmel cutting to open up some grating that seems to be blocking airflow. I was considering doing this at the Pratt metal shop but the prospect of dragging this case all the way down there was too daunting and besides, who doesn’t need a rotary cutting tool?

So yeah. A bit of the ‘ole bike commuting across the Williamsburg bridge. The weather has stayed pretty friendly and I’ve been taking sailing classes which have been a lot of fun. That’s all. Lets hope the new builds workout here so Zoe can start recording more model TV shows.

MythTV

I am Netatalk you are Netatalk we are Netatalk

March 23, 2009 in Apple, Audio Server, Computer, DIY, Leopard, Music, Technology by Mark Beattie | No comments

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or does it spend all weekend working out Ubuntu 8.04 command line shell commands to make a beautiful thing happen? Namely, mount an Apple Time Capsule share over ethernet via Samba/CIFS and and then serve the data via mt-daapd to iTunes and Airport Express. All from the command line baby. Yeah. Compile that package of Netatalk with libcrack2 and ssl. Talk to me dirty with inexplicable buffer writes in vi baby. And you’ll do a lot of apt-get. And if you’re lucky you’ll do a few apt-get purge(s) thrown in there for good measure.

What about mounting the Time Capsule in Ubuntu? Shouldn’t that be simple beans? You know, smbclient, smbfs, and GO right? It just works. Hah. Apple doesn’t exactly have a support page for this sort of thing. The crux of it for me was the domain=workgroup option, and figuring out that with Netatalk everything referenced .local addresses no the local IPs for some reason. Whatever. The FLAC flows now. OGG, wavpac, you name it, this little Linux machine can serve it to iTunes whole. No more dealing with that cursed iTunes XML library. Unless of course you want to put music on your iPod. I still don’t have that part completely figured out. My feeling is you copy and add music as you want it on your iPod.

It goes – Ethernet > Airtunes > SPDIF > DAC

February 23, 2009 in Apple, Audio Server, Computer, Mac, Music, Technology by Mark Beattie | No comments

Got the two Airport Express Base Stations working on the network with Airtunes & iTunes. I bought an older 802.11b/g one for wired usage and an 802.11n one for wireless audio in the kitchen. I had to do hard resets on both of them before they’d show up on the Airport Utility. I turned off wireless on the b/g one and told it to use Airtunes via ethernet. The newer 802.11n Express joins our existing Time Capsule 802.11n network. Optical SPDIF out from the wired b/g Express goes into the E-MU 0404 DAC, unbalanced RCA analog line into the old Denon amplifier. Works well. Pretty light, open and clear DAC on the high end. These old Bose speakers were never much for bass anyhow, and we don’t like to annoy the building.

Apparently Hulu’s content providers (which I believe includes FOX & NBC) decided to pull their support for Boxee. Now if you haven’t been following Boxee, they are one of the few companies actually making inroads into “set-top conversion” software, allowing people with computers to get the TV shows they want legally from their computers onto actual television screens. It’s sad really, that this should be an issue. Almost every show we watch online (legally, usually via the networks’ streaming sites) usually only has one commercial. So if you’re watching an hour of television at NBC.com and you’re hoping for a variety of commercials you’ll be disappointed, you’ll simply get the same commercial over and over again. How is it they can’t figure this out? I distinctly remember watching a Verizon LG Chocolate phone commercial approximately 30 times (with the Feist song as soundtrack) as multiple episodes of a show simply had the same commercial.

Anyhow, at some point I’m going to try and put together a small low power HTPC that can record and playback at least a 720p stream. Most of the Intel Atom motherboards simply have abysmal video performance and NVIDIA is supposed going to release something soon (and possibly a new Mac Mini). XMBC or Boxee, or even XP Media Center would work as far as a front end. My requirements are pretty minimal, I’d like to have a Firefly MT-DAAPD server running for music (transcoding .flac to .wav for iTunes/Airtunes) and possibly a second instance of it running for the rest of the mp3/aac/m4a’s. I’d probably record shows via the SiliconDust HDHomeRun, which would give two tuners for playback/recording. Mostly the challenge has been finding something that is close to silent and fanless (especially as the Atom could be fanless) but it really hasn’t been optimized for HTPC applications yet. OSX86 (search “Hackintosh”) with Boxee and Elgato EyeTV could potentially be an option as well. MythTV could work too. Who knows? Right now I’m pretty happy with the Airtunes and Firefly setup.

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