XBMC on Ubuntu Maverick

A small step by step guide to install XBMC on Ubuntu Maverick

1. Install Ubuntu Desktop or from MinimalCD (lightweight).
   • Create user xbmc directly on installation process with password “xbmc”
   • Reboot

   • sudo usermod -aG audio,video,fuse,cdrom,plugdev xbmc

2. Install XBMC from SVN PPA

   • sudo apt-get install python-software-properties -y
     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc-svn
     sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
     sudo apt-get install xbmc-live

3. Set autostart and disable USB autosuspend
   • Edit /etc/default/grub and set

     • GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash xbmc=autostart,noredir loglevel=0 usbcore.autosuspend=-1"

   • sudo update-grub
4. Fix poweroff / suspend permissions
   1. sudo apt-get install upower
   2. Create a file /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/custom-actions.pkla with the following contents:

      1. [Actions for xbmc user]
         Identity=unix-user:xbmc
         Action=org.freedesktop.upower.*;org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.*
         ResultActive=yes
         ResultAny=auth_admin
         ResultInactive=yes

5. Enabling wakeup status for device
   • Follow this guide
6. Using IR remote supported with XBMC
   • Large majority of Media Center Remotes you can find online was supported by the LIRC module lirc_mceusb in Ubuntu 10.04.
     From Ubuntu 10.10 support is moved into kernel module mceusb so setup the remote should be easier and so will be in the future. Unfortunately  sometimes fresh hardware in not yet support by the official mceusb kernel module but there is workaround to make it works with the old lirc_mceusb module without poking with the kernel recompiling it.
     Here a tutorial I wrote to setup my HP Pavilion HDX Remote with the old lirc_mceusb: Default HOW-TO Using old lirc_mceusb in place of new mceusb on Maverick 10.10 for HP remote

Make rt73usb working configuring /etc/network/interfaces on Ubuntu/Debian

rt73usb wireless cards needs to be woke up before scanning so you have to add “pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up” in /etc/network/interfaces.

Example:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
pre-up ifconfig wlan0 up
wpa-ssid XYZ
wpa-psk XYZPRESHAREDKEY

Update Dell BIOS in Ubuntu Linux

Dell initially place all his BIOS on a repository to be used by dellBiosUpdate tool but now it is not longer updated.

To get the latest BIOS for your pc you have to download the Windows BIOS package and extract the HDR data using wine (example for Latitude E6500):

wine E6500A19.EXE -writehdrfile

A new file will be created: E6500A19.hdr

Now we can update the BIOS as usual:

sudo apt-get install smbios-utils
sudo modprobe dell_rbu
sudo dellBiosUpdate -u -f ./E6500A19.hdr

Restart your Linux box and enjoy!

Moonlight 2 on Firefox 3.5 Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

I’ve download FF plugin from Official site but FF continue to use Moonlight plug-in version 1.01 from Ubuntu packages moonlight-plugin-core and moonlight-plugin-mozilla.

I resolved roughly overwriting packages files with latest ones directly from extension:

cd /usr/lib/moon/plugin
sudo rm libmoonloader.so libmoonplugin-ff3bridge.so libmoonplugin.so

sudo ln -s ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/extensions/moonlight@novell.com/plugins/moonlight/libmoonplugin-ff3bridge.so libmoonplugin-ff3bridge.so

sudo ln -s ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/extensions/moonlight@novell.com/plugins/moonlight/libmoonpluginxpi.so libmoonplugin.so

sudo ln -s ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/extensions/moonlight@novell.com/plugins/libmoonloaderxpi.so libmoonloader.so

Now restart your browser.

Hard blocked wireless kill-switch on Dell laptop

A few minutes ago my new Dell Latitude E6500 running Ubuntu karmic 9.10 hangs on resume. It pretty frequent but this time the hardware radio kill-switch is set On (=wireless disabled).
I reboot and the dumb dell_laptop linux kernel module thinks the kill-swith is set Off so when I toggle the hardware switch the kernel module works reversed.

It’s the output of network-manager debug when the hw kill-switch is set Off  (=wireless should be enabled):

NetworkManager: <info>  Wireless now disabled by radio killswitch

And this is the output of rfkill list:

# rfkill list
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
5: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
6: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

Rebooting doesn’t help!

I resolve removing dell_laptop kernel module

# rmmod dell_laptop

then I toggle the hw kill-switch and finally

# modprobe dell_laptop

Great, now works like a charm!

Converti i video per iPod con Linux

L’iPod è compatibile con il formato MPEG-4 ma solo con una precisa codifica per audio e video.
Per esempio paradossalmente l’iPod non gestisce video con audio MP3 ma solo AAC!

Per convertire con ottima qualità (anche 2-pass)

i vostri video vi consiglio lo script di Mark Pilgrim che gestisce:

• H.264/AAC
• cropping a 4/3 se la sorgente è widescreen
• resizing
• DVD o file video

Se poi volete tutti i video di una cartella io di solito uso un semplice script bash:

$ for i in *.avi; do podencoder $i; done

Oppure per chi ama la shell un’altra soluzione con MP4Box…

Truecrypt 4.2a on 2.6.24

Anche con la release 2.6.24 è necessaria una patch per compilare il modulo del kernel.

La patch cumulativa per 2.6.23 e 2.6.24 la potete scaricare qui altrimenti separatamente dal cvs gentoo.

In attesa della prossima release pianificata a giorni…

HD SATA2 su controller SATA

Utile se avete problemi con controller vecchi.

In dettaglio sui Western Digital basta ponticellare i pin 5-6 (OPT1) come da guida.

Abilitare i canali wifi 12 e 13

In Italia sono abilitati secondo normativa i canali fino all’11(2462MHz)
Per abilitarli fino al 13 (2472MHz) se usate lo stack di rete mac80211 va specificata l’opzione “ieee80211_regdom=64″ con

# modprobe mac80211 ieee80211_regdom=64

Altrimenti affinché avvenga direttamente all’avvio aggiungete la riga seguente a /etc/modprobe.d/options:

options mac80211 ieee80211_regdom=64

Per verificare se usate lo stack mac80211 guardate se è caricato il modulo con # lsmod | grep mac80211.

Per controllare i canali abilitati: # iwlist freq.