My Blog

Tag: debian

  • Another Intel DN2820FYKH NUC

    Yesterday I received another Intel DN2820FYKH NUC computer.

    I had ordered another one with the intent of running a Mythtv Backend and Frontend using a Realtek USB tuner.

    I’ve installed Mythbuntu and got everything working, however I really like using Debian itself, and will look at doing a more custom install with Debian. So the plan is work on a Debian 7.7.0 x64 install.

    I’ve configured this new Intel NUC with the usual 8GB ram (max it can take) and Dual Band 802.11ac wireless (as it’s only a $24 upgrade to buy the card), and I had a spare 500GB laptop drive, which I installed too.

    Will be sure to post more about my progress regarding the Debian installation and tweaking it all.

  • rtorrent and rutorrent on Debian 7.5 Wheezy

    I was hoping to install rtorrent and rutorrent on Debian 7.5 Wheezy, however it appears although I was referencing the page here, it appears to not work that simply.

    i.e. Appears the installation of the two packages below causes some messed up packaging conflict and it seems to be in some sort of dead lock. I couldn’t get past it so I had to give up for now.

    Problem packages causing packaging conflict is these;

    • libcurl4-openssl-dev
    • libssl-dev

    Will give it another go in a few weeks time. I’ll also continue to do a bit of research to see if anyone has had success with this and how they did it.

  • Debian Sources List Generator

    I remember finding the website sometime ago where you can generate your Debian Sources file. Turns out I needed to do just that today and I did a Google and found the link.

    Such a great idea and it works so nicely. Check it out here.

    Kudos to the author.

  • So many things to say, just no idea how to express it

    It’s been a crazy number of weeks. The family and I have done so much stuff, however it’s just so hard to express all those things. When I finally get time to type something I just don’t know where to start.

    I guess I should be drafting posts and sending them once I have attached any photos and the like.

    Maybe I might try this method.

    Meanwhile, both boys doing really well. Nate is going through a cycle of teeth coming through at the moment and Darwyn is at that age where he is independent. Darwyn turns 3 very soon, which is surprising how fast it has gone. He also talks a great deal now and says so many variations of words.

    My wife and I managed to find time to head to the movies today minus the kids. We saw The Hunger Games, and I thought it was okay. Don’t think my wife liked it much, guess we will need to make time to see something else in the coming weeks.

    Got a few busy weekends ahead, so will be sure to post more things as they happen.

    I’ve been meaning to get more involved with some linux related stuff, as I still love using Linux and promoting it’s use with others. I’d really love to contribute in some way to the Debian community, so might one day look into doing that. Love getting inspired by some of the folks on Plant Debian to be honest.

  • Linux kernel compiling

    I must say it’s been literally years since I compiled my own custom kernel, although I do recall doing it very often just to stay pretty bleeding edge. Besides it was good practise.

    In the last week I took it upon myself to go over this fine art and was quite surprised to see how things have changed. I remember when the kernel had changes to allow the .config file to be available in proc file system, however it seems atleast on my Debian 6.0 install this doesn’t exist and has been left out of the kernel options. Although the config file used one the kernels shipped/installed is available in /boot file system. Don’t understand why they don’t make use of this, as it was a big thing when finally available in the kernel, guess they have reasons.

    I also found out that ‘make dep’ is no longer required during the compiling process, in addition, mkinitrd is no more. Been replaced by mkinitramfs which requires the kernel config file in /boot to make the initrd anyways. And last but not least, grub2 no longer requires you to modify a menu.lst to boot the new kernel.

    In any case, with a bit of research I managed to compile and install kernel 3.0.4 on a Debian 6.0 host without much fuss.

    michaelf@bravo:~$ uname -a
Linux bravo 3.0.4 #1 SMP Wed Aug 31 20:59:49 EST 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

  • Debian Lenny 5.0

    Installed Debian Lenny 5.0 onto my AMD64 machine. Seems to run alright. I immediately got VMware Workstation installed and this operates nicely too.

    Operating system managed to pickup my native resolution correctly, of course currently only using an unaccelerated video driver, which will be an ongoing issue. My system has an onboard ATI 3200 HD video adapter I think. I think the only accelerated video driver is the non open source one, which from last use sucked. I’ll install the version that ships with Lenny to see how I go. Hope it doesn’t generate core files like the one on 4.0 produced. I’d really hope an open source accelerated video drivers is available eventually.

    The other issue I have currently is no audio working. Which is a problem, as any virtual machines will then have no audio working either. Will work on getting the audio working tonight, think I will need to do a reboot or two with changes made. I know audio works on ubuntu, so it should work on Debian too. Just a matter of getting things right.

    Doesn’t look like the default apt sources has any mythtv packages, I guess I am missing something. Will have to explore this too, as I wouldn’t mind having a backend/frontend on the host too (so I can then use the HDHomeRun network tuner, that I am interested in purchasing).

  • Mythtv and PS3

    As per Simon Rumble I found the PS3 to have a reasonable good UPnP client too. Although the PS3 wouldn’t play back recordings that had obivously had some modifications done. ie. cutlist changes etc.

    Once the recording goes into nuv format, the PS3 won’t have a chance in hell to play it. I did some tinkering and managed to setup a custom job to honour the cutlist and maintain the mpg file format. However once the 2nd install of the configuration this failed to work. 1st time I did it on a setup it worked fine. I never did get around to working it out, maybe I might again in due time.

    I just noticed that the HDHomeRun units are now available in Australia. HDHomeRun is a dual DVBT tuner that connects onto your ethernet and of course MythTv can then be configured to use the unit, or multiple units. Other software on other operating systems also support it. ie. EyeTV on MacOS X etc.

    Having just seen these units now available, I am pretty keen to pick up one in the near future. I have a bit of funds to use on computer items, so I think I will get one once the funds in question are available for my use again.

    Of course this means setting up a virtual machine to run mythtv is very possible, as the tuner is accessed via ethernet, so no fancy pci or usb hardware to consider under the guest itself.

  • Mediatomb on Debian Linux

    If you want a upnp server on Linux that will support streaming of audio and video files to your Playstation 3 (PS3), then Mediatomb is the software for you.

    Grab it from the Debian repository and then configure it as required. Requires editing the config.xml file. Below is a link to my sample config.xml and an import.js which I modified that shows the audio/video files in a way in which I prefer.

    Mediatomb Sample Configs

    I have my media content laid out like so;

    /srv/media/tv/showname - series 1/episodes
/srv/media/music/artist

  • Debian Lenny LiveCD Beta1

    I was trawling the odd rss feed the other day and found the following post. It would appear Debian Lenny LiveCD Beta1 is available.

    Being a Debian fan, I thought this was good news. Will certainly be keeping an eye on proceedings.

  • Debian 4.0 linode vps server and procmail success with smtp virtual users

    After a few days of tinkering, I have finally configured things on the linode vps account so it works and does pretty everything I need.

    I am using Debian 4.0. Had thought about using Ubuntu, but decided to stick with Debian as I have used it previously in the same capacity, without it failing me.

    On a previous setup where I had smtp virtual accounts in the usual directory structure of;

    /home/vmail/${domain}/${user}/Maildir

    I was always looking for a way to have a .procmailrc for the smtp virtual accounts, and finally after a bit of research I have managed to put something together that works. I cannot give much technical details apart from the fact I can now have procmail rules for smtp virtual mail users, and also have those users even have a custom .procmailrc file that will be honoured.

    (more…)