Posts Tagged ‘howto’
MythTV how-to video – Part 2
This is a continuation of Part 1 and in this video I just walk you through a Mythbuntu installation and what options you want to use. The next parts will be about configuring the software past the initial installation.
Sorry for the sound quality. I had to use my digital camera for video (which is what I used in part 1) but for some reason there was a ton of static on the recording.
MythTV how-to video – Part 1
I have been working on my MythTV box for some time now and finally got around to editing the first part of the how to I recorded when setting it up. The first part is just about setting up the hardware (not much new), but the second part (and probably third and forth) is going to be on setting up the software and getting things configured just the way you want them to be.
Compile Lirc on an AOpen mp945-dr with Ubuntu
I recently traded in my Mac Mini for a AOpen mp945-dr to see if it would work any better with MythTV and Boxee. I started off with Ubuntu 8.10 installed but found some random problems with video not displaying every time the computer would start so I went back to 8.04. On problem I had with both installations was that the remote sensor did not work out of the box. I did some digging and found that Lirc does work with this machine but the latest development branch was not included in Ubuntu for stability reasons. Here are the steps I had to take to get the remote sensor working.
As a overview we are going to:
1. Download the tools needed to compile software in Ubuntu.
2. Download the latest version of Lirc using CVS
3. Compile Lirc source
4. Test it real fast to make sure it works.
If you have Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) see the notes at the bottom.
1. Download the needed compiling tools.
sudo su
apt-get install libtool autoconf automake linux-headers-`uname -r`-generic cvs
This will download and install the compiling tools.
2. Download Lirc
First lets make a folder to put it in
mkdir ~/lirc
cd ~/lirc
Then we will download the newest source from sourceforge. We are using a tool called CVS to read more about it check out here.
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@lirc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lirc login
cvs -z8 -d:pserver:anonymous@lirc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lirc co lirc
Because we ran that command while in the ~/lirc folder everything downloaded there so we just need to run the commands to configure everything before we build it.
./autogen.sh
./setup.sh
In the graphical interface I selected Driver config > USB > mceusb2 (new)
Then continue with compiling
make
make install
modprobe lirc-mceusb2
Because Ubuntu does things slightly different we need to copy a couple files to where Lirc expects them to be.
cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`-generic/misc/lirc_dev.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`-generic/ubuntu/media/lirc/lirc_dev
cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`-generic/misc/lirc_mceusb2.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`-generic/ubuntu/media/lirc/lirc_mceusb2
Then we can continue with installing the new Lirc into the running kernel.
rmmod lirc_mceusb2
rmmod lirc_dev
lsmod|grep lirc
/etc/init.d/lirc restart
Everything should be compiled and in place now.
4. To test it out run
irw
and then push some buttons on the remote. You should see the commands you press displayed in the terminal. If you see that then you can just push Ctrl+C to stop irw and you should be all set to go.
I had to change this tutorial slightly from where I originally posted it in the Ubuntu forums so that it would be more universal. If you have problems please leave a comment and check out the original thread here.
I hope this helps.
For Jaunty (9.04) I did not need to install the headers (it actually failed because it was already the newest version) I also needed to install “dialog” and “build-essential”. I had to create the “/lib/modules/`uname -r`/ubuntu/media/lirc/” folder before I could copy the configurations, and the folder I created also changed slightly to cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`-generic/misc/lirc_dev.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`-generic/ubuntu/media/lirc/lirc_dev
cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/lirc_mceusb2.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/ubuntu/media/lirc/lirc_mceusb2
More updates as I find them.
Open files as root (the easy way)
I ran across a couple of tips in Linux to open a file as root without having to use a terminal. The first is a shortcut on your desktop. To make this one just right click on your desktop and then select “Create Launcher…”. When the dialog box pops up you can put in whatever you want for “Name” and “Comment” but for “Command” just put in the following command.
gksudo “gnome-open %u”
Now to open a file as root all you have to do is open the file location and drag the file to that shortcut. The system will probably ask you for your root password and then open the file as root.
A easier way is to browse to ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ and create a new file called “Open as root”. Edit the file and put
#!/bin/sh
gksudo “gnome-open $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS”
inside the file. Right click on the file and go to properties -> permissons then check the box that says “Allow executing file as a program”. Now all you have to do is right click on a file you want to open as root, go to scripts and click “Open as root”.
I just wanted to pass these along cause I thought they were very helpful.
Create user template in OSX
After my last post I realized I have never explained (or documented for myself) how to create a user template in OSX. The best how-to I found was on Jim Epler’s Blog which I found via google. Here are his steps slightly modified
1. Tweak your default account including setting dock, clearing cache, recent items, etc.
2. Restart and login to the machine as admin.
3. Issue the following commands in the terminal:
:~root# cd /System/Library/User\ Template/
:~root# sudo ditto -rsrcFork English.lproj/* English.lproj.bak
:~root# sudo rm -rf /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/*
:~root# sudo cp -R /Users//* /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/
:~root# sudo chown -R root English.lproj
:~root# sudo chgrp -R wheel English.lproj4. Restart, log in as admin and repair permissions before creating a new account to see if it worked.
Now all your new users that log into the machine (including mobile users) will have these same settings as your template user.
OSX 10.5 keychain and user templates
We decided to have our Apple computers joined to our Active Directory server so we have a little more control and our users have a little more continuity and features when using different machines. We also finally figured out how to set up a user template similar to Windows default user profile. A problem we ended up with was our user template had a blank password for the keychain access but we need our users to have their keychain password be the same as their login password. If the keychain passwords do not match, the keychain keeps popping up every time they need to use a password stored in the keychain.
To fix this you can simply delete the login.keychain file from the /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/keychains/ folder before a user logs in or you can just deleted the login.keychain from the /User/
I just wanted to help with this problem before too many people got stuck with this like we did.
Leave me a comment if it worked for you or if you have any problems.
Weekend Update
I should have some good pictures of pumpkins sometime this week so I will post those as soon as I get them. I also just wanted to share a few tools I found over the past week (or two).
The first I found over at Lifehacker and it is called NetDrive. It allows you to mount remote file systems (ftp, sftp, etc.) to your windows machine. You can download the utility here because I guess it isn’t developed anymore and somewhat hard to find.
Secondly there is a program called mRemote. I really want to give this one a try. It allows you to manage multiple remote desktop connections all from one program. The real cool thing is it doesn’t have to be the same type of remote desktop. You can use it for RDP, ssh, vnc, etc. It is open source so you can grab the latest version from SourceForge.
Finally there
is a how to on Wired about Usenet file sharing.