Archive for December, 2005

Posted on December 31, 2005 - by jono

Year new happy!

Well, before everything kicks off, I want to wish you all a happy new year. In an hour or so the LUGRadio crew are coming over to record our new year episode and then we are going to be drinkin’ until we’re stinkin’. Boy, I hope Gullivers Pizza is open at 4am on Jan 1st…

Anyway, its been an awesome year and I have met many, many good friends this year in the different communities I am involved with. Have a good ‘un!

Posted on December 30, 2005 - by jono

Kernels and ‘tings

Today I started playing around getting a new kernel on my MythTV box in an attempt to solve the Nova-T and PVR-350 conflicts. A kindly soul on #mythtv-users had shared with me that he got both cards working with 2.6.14, so I figured I would give it a go. I downloaded the kernel, copied my existing configuration from /boot to /usr/src/linux/.config and ran make oldconfig. I then filled in the gaps and run the holy line:

make-kpkg --revision=1 --append-to-version=jb kernel_image kernel_headers --initrd

A quick tip: if you are compiling a kernel on Ubuntu, make sure you include the --initrd part. Ubuntu kernels need an initrd image creating, and this option will add it. Otherwise, you are treated to a nasty error when you boot your kernel.

Kernels still suck like they used to

You know, kernels still seem a little crusty around the edges. Don’t get me wrong, the actual kernel itself is fine, and is a tremendous engineering achievement, but the thing that really gets my goat is how the kernel world is so incredibly fragmented. When I started using Linux, it was fairly common to compile a kernel and really wasn’t as difficult (for the technical user) as many people thought. Back in those days, you picked the kernel.org closest to you and compiled it. Nowadays you just can’t do that. The problem is that distributors patch the vanilla kernel to hell and back, and don’t always submit their changes upstream. Even if they do, Linus rules his kernel universe with an iron fist and there are still many high quality drivers that are not in the kernel proper. The result of this fragmentation is that if you want to compile a kernel and don’t have devices covered by it, you need to go and hunt the drivers down using a combination of guile, cunning, grep and IRC. This is not really all that difficult, but its a pain trying to identify which kernel driver you device needs. It just needs to be easier.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking – Bacon, you muppet, you shouldn’t be compiling a kernel anyway! Well, it isn’t quite that simple. I need to use kernel 2.6.14 or later due to these device conflicts and I basically have three options available:

• Use a later kernel for Breezy – no good, the latest kernel is 2.6.12-10 and its not new enough
• Use a Dapper kernel on Breezy – the latest dapper kernel is 2.6.15pre and this release includes a bunch of new features that require newer versions of udev and other bits and bobs. I am loathe to upgrade udev as this tends to break things like that scene in War OF The Worlds when the tripod comes out of the ground and stomps on everything
• Use a vanilla kernel – use a normal kernel release but apply the patches that I need

So there I am. I am patching up the kernel and getting my ship shape. As regular readers will know, I have expressed concerns about the kernel before and this abundance of upstream drivers and patches is beginning to get rather silly. Sure, I am something of an edge case and most regular Linux users would not and should not compile their own kernels, but the fact that the distributors have to apply hundreds of patches to a stock kernel seems to be a flaw in the scalability of the kernel development process.

Posted on December 28, 2005 - by jono

Back

Just got back from Bedford after three great days with Sooz’s side of the family. We ate lots of food, drunk lots of beer, played a lot of Poker and Countdown, and submerged into the usual flurry of schoolboy gags and toilet humour. Its always sad to leave when visiting family, and it was no different when returning from Yorkshire last week. We must do this more often.

Tomorrow we head over to Aq’s for dinner and drinks. Matt and Lyne will be there, but unfortunately Ade cannot make it as he has to work. Apparently he thought it was planned for today and is really gutted that he can’t make it; we are as equally gutted – the bald one brings much joy to the world.

Anyway, I bought seasons 4, 5 and 6 of Seinfeld today, so I have to get started on 70 episodes of comedy genius.

Posted on December 25, 2005 - by jono

Ho Ho Ho!

Well, its Christmas day, and I have stolen a few minutes while the others are watching Eastenders to have a private geeking session.

Firstly, let me wish you all a merry Christmas. I hope the generous bearded one has illegally entered your house and dropped something pleasant under your tree. I was treated to a number of interesting bits, which include:

• An inflatable Sumo suit. Pictures are forthcoming.
• A chocolate cigar
• A Back To The Future Delorean model
• Some realistic-sound virtual drumsticks (that don’t sound all that realistic )
• Two Chas and Dave DVDs
• Jerry Seinfeld stand-up DVD
• The new Gamma Ray album
• Coffee machine
• Wallace and Gromit DVD game
• Money and gift vouchers
• Other bits and bobs

Legal MP3 plug-in

I am chuffed to see our friends at Fluendo have released a legal MP3 plugin for GStreamer. Thomas posted a detailed blog entry talking about the specifics and overall I think it’s rather a good deal. It is great to see efforts like this moving forward. In related news, A few days ago Christian asked me to join up on the Fluendo beta program. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Interestingly enough, I talked to Christian a while back about the logistics of me setting up a business with someone else to sell commercial plugins for GStreamer. He then told me that Fluendo has beaten us to the idea. Its great to see all of this great work coming together.

I am pleased to see GStreamer becoming more and more relevant. Lets hope it continues.

MythTV hacking

Regular readers may be familiar with my recent ivtv woes, so I posted to the ivtv-users mailing list. Nice to see a response, although an initial quick test of the suggestions failed.

One thing I tend to enjoy doing is discovering a new project and then finding out every last detail about it and its community before I move onto the next greatest thing. Regular readers may recognise this from previous escapades with GStreamer, MythTV, Blender, Scribus, Python, Glade and more. Interestingly, ivtv is a really great example of how a small Open Source project that largely works in the background is providing a top notch service. They have a dedicated team of developers, an organised development process, and impressive support for a range of cards. Importantly, the support for recent cards is very good. To make this all the more exciting, the project maintainer, Hans Verkuil, posted a progress report. It is good to see they are not only nailing key bugs, but also tracking fundamental kernel changes and working closely with the Video4Linux bunch. It is going to be a great day for MythTV when this little lot gets built into the stock kernel. Lets hope it is sooner rather than later.

I have two days between Christmas and New Year when Sooz has to work when I plan to try much of this out. ivtv 0.4.1 was also released and I plan on giving this a shot with kernel 2.6.14. I was initially going to move to 2.6.15, but there are tonnes of version upgrades requires to things such as udev which I would prefer to leave alone.

I am determined to get this mother working, rest assured.

Other bits

• Dave sent me a copy of Linux Multimedia Hacks as a courtesy for including my hack in there. Looks like a nice book.
• The current issue of Linux User and Developer has an article that I wrote about LUGRadio. There has been some forums chatter about it.
• Josette sent me Learning SQL as I want to brush up on my SQL. My current knowledge can solve most problems that I encounter, but I want to solve all problems that I encounter. This looks like a great resource.
• Aq has released his Archos PMA400 software archive. Good work, ging.

* More and more people are wanting to see some form of Open Source application that I would be happy to use for editing LUGRadio. I have some ideas about how a community could build this, but I need to flesh it out more. To kick some planning off though, I set up a wiki page.

Posted on December 24, 2005 - by jono

A new experience

Went to Yorkshire for a few days to meet up with family and to attend my nan’s funeral in Kirby Hill; a small hamlet nested deep in the middle of the beautiful Yorkshire countryside. Despite being a sad event for all concerned, it was a much more positive affair than I expected. There was very much an ambiance of celebration of her life, and my Uncle gave an impressively rousing speech that reminisced over past experiences.

A few days before the funeral, my Grandad asked if I could give a reading in church. I was naturally more than happy to oblige, and the passage he chose was John, Chapter 14, Verses 1 – 6 (Jesus Comforts His Disciples):

> Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. > > Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.

You know, I have performed talks at different events all around the world, and on the vast majority of occasions I am never nervous. Despite this typical confidence, the act of standing in a small church in North Yorkshire, reciting two paragraphs to forty people was an intensely nerve racking experience. Whenever I do talks I always place myself under rigorous scrutiny to make sure I perform as best I can, and this combined with the concern to not disappoint at such a personal family event, was a tall order. Luckily, the reading seemed to flow well and was reported to be delivered confidently and sincerely.

Aside from the funeral it was great to meet up with long lost family, and to also hang out with my parents and my brother’s family. This was a really nice start to the Christmas holiday.

Posted on December 19, 2005 - by jono

Fun, fun, fun

You know, its odd how sometimes everything around you decides to give you a hefty boot in the spuds at once. In the last week, the following gathering of bad luck has struck Castle Bacon:

• My Nan died (but thanks for the lovely emails and thoughts folks)
• I bust my MythTV box (more on this later)
• Our server got DDos’ed
• I broke my favourite penguin jar
• I have contracted a cold, and my nose is sore
• The X Factor exists
• I managed to break our upstairs toilet. Don’t ask.

What a load of arse.

MythTV, Kernels and Ubuntu

So, how exactly did I b0rk our pal, the MythTV box? Well, as some of you will know, for some time I have been planning on wedging a DVB card into the box to brighten the world with two tuners, picture in picture and other fun and games. I installed the DVB card (a WinTV Nova-T), and it tried to load the driver. but it failed. The problem was an incompatibility with the PVR-350 driver.

When you install the ivtv drivers for the PVR range of cards, you need to replace the V4L kernel modules with the ivtv ones. One of this modules is called tveeprom. When the DVB card is loaded, it requires the cx88 driver which in turn requires the tveeprom driver. The problem was that the ivtv tveeprom is incompatible with the cx88 tveeprom. Luckily though, after some discussion with Juskin, the god of #mythtv-users, it seems that the original kernel tveeprom can drive both the cards, but the ivtv modules are still needed for the PVR-350 specific bits and bobs. So, I reverted back to the kernel tveeprom and the DVB runs fine, but now the PVR-350 won’t take in any video. Bugger.

The repeated suggestion I seem to be hearing is to move to kernel 2.6.14 where much of this is fixed. At first I thought I would run a Dapper kernel, but apparently they break on Breezy at the moment. Ordinarily, I would just build a stock kernel, but hundreds of patches are added by Ubuntu developers to it. This begs a question – if I move to a stock 2.6.14, what do I lose? Does anyone know which patches are added to Ubuntu kernels?

LUGRadio

Season 3 Episode 5, our Christmas special is out! I am quite pleased with this show, and I love the voicemails we got were great. Currently the LUGRadio Drinking Game.

Other bits

• Just signed a new contract for my PHP/MySQL book. Work begins in March.
• Linux Multimedia Hacks contains one of my hacks from Linux Desktop Hacks
• Neuro is a rock god. Thanks for helping us out last night banishing certain script kiddies.

Posted on December 19, 2005 - by jono

Farewell

Yesterday my Nan passed away. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for the last five or so years, and early evening yesterday, the final stage of the disease kicked in and she left us. Its a sad time for everyone, and my thoughts are with my Grandad and Mum. The funeral is later this week.

My Nan was a strong women with a strong character, never afraid to share her views and opinions. Her staunch support of Labour, and equally staunch scathing of the Tories always kept the discussion lively and heated at family occasions. It was her who taught me the true appreciation of books when I was a snot nosed kid who hated reading and just wanted to play on his Commodore 64 and pretend to be Slash with his guitar.

Despite all this, she lived into her eighties and had a full and rich life, surrounded by a loving family and committed husband. She will be missed.

Posted on December 17, 2005 - by jono

Ugh

Well, after seemingly avoiding the cold that has been jumping from nostril to nostril, it seems I have finally been kicked in the spuds by it. I woke up today, disorientated, nose dripping, throat sore and feeling generally miserable. The only consolation for this misery is being able to pass it onto some other unsuspecting bugger…

Posted on December 16, 2005 - by jono

Google Schmoogle

DVB cards

Off work today on holiday, so I spent a little time fiddling with my MythTV box. I have a Nova-T DVB card that has been lying around waiting to go into the box, so today I cracked it open, installed it and luckily Breezy managed to find the card straight away. The problem I have is that it seems to conflict with the PVR-350 because it uses similar kernel modules for different uses. This is largely because ivtv replaces much of the Video4Linux kernel functionality, and this has not been merged into the kernel. Apparently much of this is resolved with 2.6.14 (released) and ivtv 0.5.0 (not released yet). So, I was thinking I could just install the latest Dapper kernel and it should work, right? Anyone done this?

Speaking

New event added to the Events calendar. This one is called Hack Your TV: Fun and games with MythTV and is happening on Wed 21st December at the Wolves LUG Christmas bash.

Today I also started running through the Seven Steps to Fearless Speaking AudioBook by Lilyan Wilder that I bought ages ago. Started on disc one, and although I don’t categorise myself as a fearful speaker, I am keen to use the advice in the book to refine my speaking and tonality. Seems pretty decent so far.

Google Schmoogle

You know, with most of us hunting stuff down on Google, it is always important to note down even the smallest victories we have. This way, these victories are indexed by Google, and people can bring them up easily. Sure, tagging is mean’t to solve much of this, but I figured it would be nice to just note down short, sharp points quickly on my blog, ready to be indexed. I am calling this Google Schmoogle on here, and I will note these little nuggets of information that I have learned. So, to kick off:

• The Keyspan USB Presentation Remote works perfectly in Ubuntu Breezy. No configuration was required. Worked fine on my Thinkpad and Vaio.

Posted on December 15, 2005 - by jono

Speaking

Added a new date to the Events diary. This one is at Manchester Linux User Group on Sat 21st January 2006. This will be my new advocacy talk, now titled On the Front Line: Convincing People the Inconvincible.

I have also added a Speaking Frequently Asked Questions page and added a couple of older events that were not listed on the calendar. I still have a couple of additional events to add to the archive, but I will do that tomorrow.