Been looking at a future purchase of a Mikrotik RouterBoard RB3011 for home. Lucky for me I noticed someone selling one of these units 2nd hand and thus was able to purchase a year old model at a reduced price compared to the new retail price.
More information here on this router.
Been a little busy the past week, but did notice Mikrotik RouterOS 6.41 released on 22nd Dec 2017.
It has some significant changes that I wanted to highlight from the changelog and quickly show the changes in the winbox interface.
!) bridge – implemented software based vlan-aware bridges;
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/Bridge#Bridge_VLAN_Filtering!) switch – “master-port” conversion into a bridge with hardware offload “hw” option;
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Switch_Chip_Features#Bridge_Hardware_Offloading!) detnet – implemented “/interface detect-internet” feature;
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Detect_internet
The switch changes is the one that got my interest, as this is the one that I have known and used since I first started to use Mikrotik hardware. So now I have to get my head around the fact it has changed.
You can see from the images above that Master Port is no longer used and/or available under your interfaces to group interfaces together as switched ports. This is now done differently.
Upgraded one of my routers and I think I understand how this change impacts future configurations and setup process.
Intel Core i3 7100 (Desktop CPU)
distributed.net RC5-72 workload sample – 80 packets.
[Dec 27 09:41:10 UTC] RC5-72: Summary: 80 packets (80.00 stats units)
0.00:37:47.78 - [149.06 Mkeys/s]
Intel Core i7 7500U (Laptop CPU)
distributed.net RC5-72 workload sample – 85 packets.
[Dec 27 11:04:28 UTC] RC5-72: Summary: 85 packets (85.00 stats units)
0.00:46:22.95 - [128.69 Mkeys/s]
Surprised that the i3 Desktop has the slightly better throughput on this workload. I somewhat expected that the i7 to win. The interesting thing to note though is that of course the i7 laptop CPU would be using way less power, thus generating much less heat. It makes me wonder though… how would an i3 laptop CPU perform in this test when compared to the i7 laptop CPU. Unfortunately I do not have one to test.
Finished off the PC build tonight, however hit a few snags. The Corsair H60 radiator is much larger then the Corsair H55 version and as such cannot be installed in a Corsair Spec 03 case on the rear. This impacts the PCIe video card slot. If I had got the Corsair H55 this wouldn’t be a issue, as I know it fits based on previous experience where I have one installed in another machine (tempted to honestly swap H60 out for a H55 in coming months).
For now as pictured below, the Corsair H60 is intalled in the top of the case. The only place it can fit in this case without impacting my video card.
So far I am very impressed with the system. It is able to encode a 1 hour 30mins video file into a Android 720p30 mp4 file with 2 pass enabled in about 23mins. The same test on other machines ranges from 1 hour to 2 hours depending computer used. So massive improvement.
Battlefield 1 also runs great. So I am very happy.
This machine I want to last me a good 5-6 years. The only things I want to replace will be items that die outside of warranty, which might typically be hard drives etc.
Upgrades include in the future for the machine..
Will be sure to post more about this computer as things happen.
My New PC hardware arrived. I ordered this on Friday and paid for it yesterday.
I ended up deciding on the following items;
I already have Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Samsung M2 250GB SSD, Optical Drive and 3.5″ Hard drive.
I opted to get the Intel i7700k for the faster base clock speed, but then got the faster memory and Z270 mainboard in case I wish to overclock it. As I know that it’s possible per Adam Fowler and his recent PC build.
Decided I would compile Tvheadend again and install it on a Ubuntu 16.04 host. Below is some of my notes that will help others with this installation and problems I hit along the way.
Required packages.
apt-get install unzip libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config git build-essential dvb-apps gettext libssl-dev cmake liburiparser-dev libavahi-client-dev apt-get install hdhomerun-config
Installation/Compiling steps.
wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libiconv/libiconv-1.15.tar.gz tar zxvf libiconv-1.15.tar.gz cd libiconv/ ./configure make install
I created a user called “tvh” which will be used for the running of the software, this way it doesn’t run as root. Plenty of guides about that detail how to create your user and associated correct group assignments to it. So I won’t cover these steps/operations.
Noticed when I executed the product post being compiled i was getting an error.
tvh@oscar:/usr/local/bin$ ./tvheadend ./tvheadend: error while loading shared libraries: libiconv.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
As you can see from the output below, it’s a library issue.
tvh@oscar:/usr/local/bin$ ldd tvheadend
linux-vdso.so.1 => (0x00007fff1d1e6000)
libdvben50221.so => /usr/lib/libdvben50221.so (0x00007f3545385000)
libdvbapi.so => /usr/lib/libdvbapi.so (0x00007f3545180000)
libucsi.so => /usr/lib/libucsi.so (0x00007f3544f69000)
libssl.so.1.0.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 (0x00007f3544d00000)
libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 (0x00007f35448bc000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f35446a1000)
liburiparser.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liburiparser.so.1 (0x00007f3544486000)
libavahi-common.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libavahi-common.so.3 (0x00007f354427a000)
libavahi-client.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libavahi-client.so.3 (0x00007f3544068000)
libdbus-1.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdbus-1.so.3 (0x00007f3543e1c000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f3543c18000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f35439fa000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f35436f1000)
libiconv.so.2 => not found
librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f35434e8000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f3543166000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f3542d9d000)
libsystemd.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsystemd.so.0 (0x00007f3542d17000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00005642bf9af000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f3542b01000)
libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007f35428de000)
liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007f35426bc000)
libgcrypt.so.20 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcrypt.so.20 (0x00007f35423db000)
libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007f354216a000)
libgpg-error.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgpg-error.so.0 (0x00007f3541f56000)
Perform the following steps to address it.
cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu ln -s /usr/local/lib/libiconv.so.2.6.0 libiconv.so.2.6.0 ln -s /usr/local/lib/libiconv.so.2 libiconv.so.2 ln -s /usr/local/lib/libiconv.so libiconv.so
It would appear that Tvheadend has had some improvements since the last time I compiled and installed it.
As shown below we now see a new logo for the product, and now get a wizard which helps with the setup.
Tvheadend is such a great application.
I was lucky enough to be provided a review unit of the Silicondust HDHomeRun Connect. Let it be known, I actually owned an earlier edition of these devices back in the day. Regret actually getting rid of it these days.
Meanwhile, the new units are absolutely awesome. The out of box setup and experience is so much better with the new model. Since you can actually connect to the web server built into the unit which helps with configuration.
Setting it up was so easy, when done I was then able to stream the TV channel straight to my VLC application to watch it live. Below is some images of the process where I configured my unit.
I love being able to have a DVB tuner available on my network and not need to have my computer on to use it. My Samsung Smart TV can access the Silicondust HDHomeRun Connect TV channels via the upnp/DLNA client. The network tuner makes the channels available over upnp/DLNA.
I would recommend this unit to anyone if you would like to have a Digital DVB tuner on your network.
The Mikrotik wAP (Model: RBwAP2nD) I purchased arrived today.
This unit was purchased so I could mount an external 2.4Ghz wireless access point so my Spa wireless module can access it to see internet.
Available for purchase in Australia from Duxtel. (Product Link)
I’ve been thinking of purchasing another monitor for probably several months now. I already have dual screens that I use with my Intel NUC 5th Gen i3. But I have got sick of switching inputs to use one of them with another computer. So thought why not, just buy another monitor after all.
I wasn’t after anything flash, just needed something that did 1920 x 1080 resolution and had D-Sub, DVI and HDMI ports. In the end I decided to purchase the Asus VP228H 21.5″ LED 1ms Full HD HDMI Gaming Monitor with Speaker.
Hopefully this will be an alright monitor, as I must admit I purchased my Dual LG 24″ displays and haven’t really been very impressed with them.
The computer has now been installed and given to its new owner. It’s operating very well.