James Emmrich » Ubuntu

Mount Remote Filesystem Over ssh

James — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:27:32 +0000

Here is a nice tip when having to access remote files. Whether it’s a personal computer or a device somewhere running an ssh server, sometimes it’s great to use those files as if they were local.

I use this for sharing my media collection between computers outside of my local network.

Install the Packages

apt-get install sshfs

Mount the Remote Filesystem

sshfs james@james.dyns-home.com:/home/james/music /home/james/music

As you can see here, I am using dyndns’s service so that my home pc’s dynamic IP is always accessible. I suggest checking them out and installing the ddclient package to maintain your dyndns account.

Unmounting the Remote Filesystem

fusermount -u /home/james/music

Running GUI applications as another user in Linux

James — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:12:29 +0000

Here is a handy script I made for those situations where you are logged into a user account but require running a program as another user.

Why would this be handy? Well in my case, I have two users on my laptop. My personal account which I use at home, and my work account. This helps me keep my work data separate from my personal data. But how do I use my instant messenger or IRC chat and retain chat logs and preferences without having to duplicate them or create weird symbolic links everywhere?

The bash script:

#!/bin/bash
xhost +
gksudo -u $1 $2
xhost -

Set the permissions to for executing:

chmod +x AppAsDiffUser.sh

The script takes two arguments, the user you want to run as and the application you want to run. Now we can run the script:

./AppAsDiffUser.sh james xchat

Linux and the Mercury EZ View TV Tuner Card

James — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:16:57 +0000

I am not one to watch much TV, but when I do, I prefer to do so by PVR with commercials cut, and live pausing. I also like to set recording schedules in advance and do it from my cellphone if need be.

I bought this little card originally for my parents PVR that I built them, unfortunately I could not get it to work. I believe I paid a little less than $100.00 for it. After a lot of messing with it, I put it back in the box and left it.

Four years later, I attempted again ha.

This is how to get your Mercury EZ View PCI Card to work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

The Mercury EZ View PCI Card

Product Image

FM Radio Reception

Auto Scan FM channels

TV / Video Display

Full motion display @ 30fps
Resizable video window from free size to full screen
Full screen display: Max resolution up to 720 x 576
Supports overlay mode to get the best quality

TV / Video Capture

Full motion video capture up to 30 fps
Video capture format: AVI, MPEG-1/2/4, DVD, VCD, MP3
Still image snapshot format BMP
Video capture size up to 352 x 288 (AVI), 325 x 240 (VCD NTSC) and 322 x 288 (VCD PAL)

Digital Video Capture

Capture and display video from Digital Video (DV) camcorder
Record DV video into MPEG-I or MPEG-II and AVI files
Camera control via GUI

System Requirements

Outdoor antenna or cable TV connection
Pentium III 700MHz or higher processor
128MB of system memory recommended
Microsoft Windows 98 SE/ME/2000/XP with DirectX 8.1 installed
DirectX 8.1 compatible VGA card

Hardware

Conexant CX 23881 chipset, 10bits high quality ADC
Multiple tuner receptions (NTSC, PAL system)
PCI 2.1 compatible Interface
4 layer PCB
Remote power on
Full IR remote control function

Installing the Card

Jumper cables provided

Duh, just like any card. But on the serious side, it came with a bunch of jumper cables as shown on the left. The back of the card has a cable coaxial input, a IR input port for the remote, and an “S-Video” like connector. The jumper cables provided, allow you to split this into the following connections:

Splitter cable:
- Audio Out – 3.5mm female
- Audio In – 3.5mm female
- Video Composite Out – male
- S-Video Out – female
3.5mm headphone cable jumper – male/male

It seems to be a funky way of doing things, but in any case…

Upon system reboot, the card is not detected, the syslog shows the following:

May 24 19:38:20 lonewolf kernel: [ 13.296313] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
May 24 19:38:20 lonewolf kernel: [ 13.766829] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80×30
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010115] cx88/0: cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.7 loaded
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010171] cx8800 0000:02:0a.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010469] cx88[0]: Your board has no valid PCI Subsystem ID and thus can’t
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010471] cx88[0]: be autodetected. Please pass card= insmod option to
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010473] cx88[0]: workaround that. Redirect complaints to the vendor of
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010474] cx88[0]: the TV card. Best regards,
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010475] cx88[0]: — tux
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.012313] cx88[0]: Here is a list of valid choices for the card= insmod option:
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.012815] cx88[0]: card=0 -> UNKNOWN/GENERIC
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.013152] cx88[0]: card=1 -> Hauppauge WinTV 34xxx models
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.013521] cx88[0]: card=2 -> GDI Black Gold
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.013841] cx88[0]: card=3 -> PixelView
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.014143] cx88[0]: card=4 -> ATI TV Wonder Pro
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.014468] cx88[0]: card=5 -> Leadtek Winfast 2000XP Expert
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.014832] cx88[0]: card=6 -> AverTV Studio 303 (M126)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.015178] cx88[0]: card=7 -> MSI TV-@nywhere Master
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.015518] cx88[0]: card=8 -> Leadtek Winfast DV2000
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.015858] cx88[0]: card=9 -> Leadtek PVR 2000
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.016214] cx88[0]: card=10 -> IODATA GV-VCP3/PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.016554] cx88[0]: card=11 -> Prolink PlayTV PVR
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.016893] cx88[0]: card=12 -> ASUS PVR-416
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.017208] cx88[0]: card=13 -> MSI TV-@nywhere
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.017532] cx88[0]: card=14 -> KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.017900] cx88[0]: card=15 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T1
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.018252] cx88[0]: card=16 -> KWorld LTV883RF
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.018570] cx88[0]: card=17 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-Q
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.018925] cx88[0]: card=18 -> Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.019270] cx88[0]: card=19 -> Conexant DVB-T reference design
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.019644] cx88[0]: card=20 -> Provideo PV259
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.019960] cx88[0]: card=21 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Plus
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.020356] cx88[0]: card=22 -> pcHDTV HD3000 HDTV
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.030618] cx88[0]: card=23 -> digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.040737] cx88[0]: card=24 -> Hauppauge WinTV 28xxx (Roslyn) models
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.051028] cx88[0]: card=25 -> Digital-Logic MICROSPACE Entertainment Center (MEC)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.071494] cx88[0]: card=26 -> IODATA GV/BCTV7E
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.081762] cx88[0]: card=27 -> PixelView PlayTV Ultra Pro (Stereo)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.091783] cx88[0]: card=28 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.101925] cx88[0]: card=29 -> ADS Tech Instant TV DVB-T PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.111947] cx88[0]: card=30 -> TerraTec Cinergy 1400 DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.122069] cx88[0]: card=31 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 5 Gold
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.132337] cx88[0]: card=32 -> AverMedia UltraTV Media Center PCI 550
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.142650] cx88[0]: card=33 -> Kworld V-Stream Xpert DVD
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.152954] cx88[0]: card=34 -> ATI HDTV Wonder
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.163478] cx88[0]: card=35 -> WinFast DTV1000-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.174010] cx88[0]: card=36 -> AVerTV 303 (M126)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.184401] cx88[0]: card=37 -> Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.194992] cx88[0]: card=38 -> Hauppauge Nova-SE2 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.205465] cx88[0]: card=39 -> KWorld DVB-S 100
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.215970] cx88[0]: card=40 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1100 DVB-T/Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.226649] cx88[0]: card=41 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1100 DVB-T/Hybrid (Low Profile)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.247883] cx88[0]: card=42 -> digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T Pro
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.259172] cx88[0]: card=43 -> KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T with cx22702
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.270560] cx88[0]: card=44 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.282025] cx88[0]: card=45 -> KWorld HardwareMpegTV XPert
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.293396] cx88[0]: card=46 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.304702] cx88[0]: card=47 -> pcHDTV HD5500 HDTV
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.315830] cx88[0]: card=48 -> Kworld MCE 200 Deluxe
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.327030] cx88[0]: card=49 -> PixelView PlayTV P7000
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.338171] cx88[0]: card=50 -> NPG Tech Real TV FM Top 10
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.349322] cx88[0]: card=51 -> WinFast DTV2000 H
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.360277] cx88[0]: card=52 -> Geniatech DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.371133] cx88[0]: card=53 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR3000 TriMode Analog/DVB-S/DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.392302] cx88[0]: card=54 -> Norwood Micro TV Tuner
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.403119] cx88[0]: card=55 -> Shenzhen Tungsten Ages Tech TE-DTV-250 / Swann OEM
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.425351] cx88[0]: card=56 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1300 DVB-T/Hybrid MPEG Encoder
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.448397] cx88[0]: card=57 -> ADS Tech Instant Video PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.460250] cx88[0]: card=58 -> Pinnacle PCTV HD 800i
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.472088] cx88[0]: card=59 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 5 PCI nano
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.483859] cx88[0]: card=60 -> Pinnacle Hybrid PCTV
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.495621] cx88[0]: card=61 -> Leadtek TV2000 XP Global
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.507511] cx88[0]: card=62 -> PowerColor RA330
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.519250] cx88[0]: card=63 -> Geniatech X8000-MT DVBT
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.531312] cx88[0]: card=64 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T PRO
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.543210] cx88[0]: card=65 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 7 Gold
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.554938] cx88[0]: card=66 -> Prolink Pixelview MPEG 8000GT
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.566832] cx88[0]: card=67 -> Kworld PlusTV HD PCI 120 (ATSC 120)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.578525] cx88[0]: card=68 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000 DVB-S/S2/T/Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.589973] cx88[0]: card=69 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000(Lite) DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.601279] cx88[0]: card=70 -> TeVii S460 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.612676] cx88[0]: card=71 -> Omicom SS4 DVB-S/S2 PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.624058] cx88[0]: card=72 -> TBS 8920 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.635450] cx88[0]: card=73 -> TeVii S420 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.646784] cx88[0]: card=74 -> Prolink Pixelview Global Extreme
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.658301] cx88[0]: card=75 -> PROF 7300 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.669770] cx88[0]: card=76 -> SATTRADE ST4200 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.681486] cx88[0]: card=77 -> TBS 8910 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.692933] cx88[0]: card=78 -> Prof 6200 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.704146] cx88[0]: card=79 -> Terratec Cinergy HT PCI MKII
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.715313] cx88[0]: card=80 -> Hauppauge WinTV-IR Only
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.726179] cx88[0]: card=81 -> Leadtek WinFast DTV1800 Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.736853] cx88[0]: card=82 -> WinFast DTV2000 H rev. J
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.736865] cx88[0]: subsystem: 0000:0000, board: UNKNOWN/GENERIC [card=0,autodetected], frontend(s): 0
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.736872] cx88[0]: TV tuner type -1, Radio tuner type -1

Never had to deal with this before. Annoying, as my Hauppauge 250 PVR card works amazing and out of the box. As you can see there is no EZ View or Mercury in there.

Debugging

I needed to find out more information:

sudo lspci -v

02:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 03)
 Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 22
 Memory at f9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
 Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data 
 Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
 Kernel modules: cx8800

I installed my usual software:

tvtime
xawtv

sudo apt-get install tvtime xawtv

I tried all, obviously, got nothing.

After posting numerous posts around the web, reading, my last resort was to figure out how to set the card types. To do so I needed to learn the modprobe command.

One thing to note here is that it seems the cx8800 driver creates the device /dev/video0 and the cx88xx provides new functionality, therefore they work together. You need to unload and reload them both. My initial problems was that the cx8800 driver does not support the modprobe command “card” as that was moved to the cx88xx driver.

Another thing was you can’t unload the cx88xx module from the kernel unless you first remove the cx8800 module. These little things caused a lot of initial confusion for me.

I wrote a little script to test each card type, surprisingly, this card seems to work on a couple different types. It was working and I didn’t even know it a couple times. Here’s a simple shell script I wrote:

rmmod cx8800
rmmod cx88xx

modprobe cx88xx card=$1 tuner=$2
modprobe cx8800

tvtime

When tvtime opens, you can then set the input for the card, in my case it was Television, but for some it might be composite, s-video, dvb whatever your case may be. It took a few seconds before my video started producing color video.

Freenode help

A friendly fellow from Iceland, kizi, from Freenode’s IRC ##linux channel, provided some expertise here and helped me on the rest of the journey. He found me this interesting site:

http://translate.google.is/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsugo.ubuntu.hu%2Fcommunity-doc%2Fhardy%2Funiverse%2Fhardware%2Fmercury_ezview_cx88xx.html&sl=hu&tl=en

Honestly cannot thank him enough!

Interestingly this link had the card and tuner number I needed! card=27 tuner=69

So I ran the script again with the following:

./mercury 27 69

Viola! seemed to work even better!

To make this work after rebooting the computer, I made a config file: /etc/modprobe.conf/mercury.conf

options cx88 card=27 tuner=69

So I rebooted and to make sure it worked still. Yay!

As for setting it up in MythTV, well, that is a whole different post. Due to the way my audio is configured, it’s like a puzzle of jumper cables and only just figured it out 24 hours later with lots of frustration. Boy, do I hate the way Ubuntu 10.04 LTS handles the audio card configurations!!

Hope this will help anyone else getting their card to work.

Mercury EZ view tv tuner card (Conexant CX 23881 chipset) – http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=512551

Tethering with the iPhone 3Gs on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10

James — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:53:15 +0000

Ok, this seemed to be a headache for a good hour. Under Windows it was easy easy easy. It seems to be an issue with pairing and Internet Tethering being off and turned on without the iPhone being restarted and how Ubuntu handles the pairing over this transition.

Most notable issue is that Network Manager will just fail to connect to the bluetooth access point immediately. If you install blueman, a great bluetooth manager, you will get the message “Connection refused (111)” or something similar which is a little more helpful, but not quite. To fix this, follow these steps.

Turn on tethering, on your iPhone click Settings > General > Network and turn on Internet Tethering. Tethering seems to be turned off by default on the iPhone.
Make sure that you delete all pairing with your iPhone in the bluetooth-manager (right click and go to preferences)
In your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Bluetooth, slide the computer paired connection, to the left and “Forget this Device”
Hold down the power button and restart your iPhone
In Ubuntu, right click bluetooth-manager and go to Preferences
Set your friendly name and then click Set up new Device…
On your iPhone enter the passcode on your laptop
Success on pairing!
On the computer make sure to check the option to use this as a network connection.
Test: Turn off your Wifi on the computer, and click the Network Manager icon, you should see 23:AF:45:BE:12:FA PANU or something similar. Click to connect.

Important notes:

Wifi Issues

Bluetooth does not seem to work well with Wii connections that are active. I tend to get my bluetooth connections dropping out or just plain will not connect. So make sure if you are having problems at all, turn Wifi to remove one more variable from problem.

Cellular Provider

I am with Telus Mobility and they offer the ability to tether on all their smartphone/data plans.

How I use Dropbox on Ubuntu

James — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Dropbox.com has become a huge time saver for me, and most likely a life saver as well.

I have a folder in my Dropbox called Home. Here I have sub folders for each machine that I have. My two laptops, a desktop which hold computer specific files that are different for each computer I have.

Files such as:

/etc/hosts
/etc/fstab
/databases/

Rather than copying these manually, I have simply moved the files to the dropbox and then symbolically linked them. That way when the system updates these files, Dropbox does it’s sync.

The databases folder is a folder which contains database dumps. My crontab is setup to nightly dump databases in tar form and place them here, for Dropbox to store.

I also have a folder called Resources. This contains files that are shared between computers. I have symbolically linked my .fonts folder here. Now whenever I install a new font for a design project, all my other computers are updated too.

For chat software like Pidgin and XChat, I have symbolically linked their folders .purple and xchat2 respectively, to my Dropbox home folder. Because these will be shared between computers I don’t have them in their respect computer sub folder. Now no matter what computer I chat on, my chat logs and software settings are up to date.

Projects that I work on are placed in my Dropbox under a folder called Projects, with each project as its own sub folder.

During my work, or daily routine I tend to shuffle, download, delete, and create new files. While I don’t always place these files to my Dropbox, I am very careful to not hold them on my laptops for long periods of time.

For files that I want to hold, I either move them to my Dropbox or to my NAS server depending solely on their importance and need of accessibility.

The results

I can now format my hard drive at any time, provided that Dropbox has had time to sync any changes. I also have the feeling of security knowing that my hard drive crashes will not take me out of commission.

How to Remove The Annoying Update manager Pop-up in Ubuntu Jaunty

James — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:33:05 +0000

I have found this handy article. One of my pet peeves is intrusive software. And with Ubuntu’s new release, Jaunty, which pops up the upgrade program in the mix of all your open documents and workspace, can be quite annoying. I will bloody upgrade when I’m good and ready thank you very much!

Useful excerpts:

Alternative method (via the terminal)

If you are just plain lazy, here’s a much easier step.

In your terminal, type the following command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

To recover:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch true

Original article here:

http://maketecheasier.com/remove-the-annoying-update-manager-pop-up-in-ubuntu-jaunty/2009/06/18