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Changing files system types

Since I am building a new system I am also trying out xfs instead of jfs.  I just changed two of my drives over to xfs yesterday.  I have one more I would like to change.  In doing this I am also going to check out and see how fragmented the drives get.  I have been doing some digging and found out how to look and defrag xfs partitions.

make sure that you have xfsdump installed and the run:
xfs_db -r /dev/[xfs partition]
at the prompt xfs_db> type in frag to view the fragmentation factor.  This may take a bit of time so let it go.  Then type in quit to exit the xfs_db util.
If your fragmentation factor is above 10% you may want to defrag your partion.
Now, to actually defrag the filesystem you need to do this
xfs_fsr -v /dev/[xfs partition]
This will take some time, just let it be.

Posted in Linux.

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By james – December 4, 2007

Getting closer to a plan for an updated mythtv network at our house

As many have known for months, fedora core 6 will be eol as of Dec 2007.  I have been making preparations for a move.  Not in a hurry but want a plan that I can eventually have in place for our mythtv boxes.  I have 2 front end boxes that I have finally figured out (dumb me) that I can upgrade and change pretty much at anytime.  I just have to keep them at about the same version of myth as the masterbackend.

Over the long weekend (I took Monday off) I worked on the frontend that is downstairs and also worked on moving a few disks around.  In the end I hope to move all recording to the masterbackend and have two frontends that all they do is playback.  Right now I have a masterbackend and a slavebackend.  I have almost all data and disks moved around.  One more reboot and I can take the 3ware card and the last ide disk out of the master backend.  I think I want to buy one more 500gig or larger sata drive and that will be all set.

After this last change I can move the hauppauge 500mce into the masterbackend and then I can rebuilt both of the frontend boxes.  One is almost finished.  After they are rebuilt and stable I plan on rebuilding the masterbackend.  That does a bit more and I have other things running on it.  I plan to move a few things over to the frontend that is downstairs.  Nothing myth related.  Vmware and a few other things like BackupPC.

Posted in Linux.

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By james – December 4, 2007

Building a mythtv box with gutsy

make desktop user login automatically

install nvidia restricted driver

apt-get install openssh-server portmap nfs-common xfsprogs lm-sensors snmpd smartmontools mutt postfix ssh dstat iptraf subversion checkinstall apache2 php5 qt3-dev-tools libdts-dev libfreetype6-dev lame apcupsd apcupsd-cgi logwatch dselect openbox

nano /etc/fstab

192.168.1.210:/offline /offline nfs soft,intr,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,async,nfsvers=3,bg,actimeo=0,tcp
192.168.1.210:/dvr /dvr nfs soft,intr,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,async,nfsvers=3,bg,actimeo=0,tcp
mkdir /dvrmkdir /offline

mount -a

wget http://mythbuntu.org/files/EEED06D0.gpg && sudo apt-key add EEED06D0.gpg && rm EEED06D0.gpg

echo "deb http://weeklybuilds.mythbuntu.org/mythbuntu-trunk/ubuntu gutsy multiverse universe restricted main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mythbuntu-gutsy.list

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add – && sudo apt-get update

apt-get build-dep mythtv

download nx debs

sudo dpkg -i nxclient_3.0.0-89_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i nxnode_3.0.0-93_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i nxserver_3.0.0-79_i386.deb

RSYNC
cp /offline/files/rsync/rsyncd.conf /etc
cp /offline/files/rsync/rsyncd.secrets /etc
nano /etc/default/rsync and enable
chmod 600 /etc/rsyncd.secrets

/etc/init.d/rsync restart

SNMP

cp /offline/archive/common/snmpd.conf /etc/snmp

nano /etc/default/snmpd remove 127.0.0.1 our of config line

/etc/init.d/snmpd restart
SMARTD

cp /offline/archive/common/smartd.conf /etc/smartd.conf
nano /etc/default/smartmontools
start_smartd=yes
/etc/init.d/smartmontools restart

WEBMIN

apt-get install libauthen-pam-perl libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl libnet-ssleay-perl
dpkg -i webmin_1.390_all.deb

apt-get update

apt-get upgrade

dpkg –set-selections < /offline/archive/ubuntu-files-gutsy

dselect

This will open up a dselect session. Type ‘I‘ and allow dselect to install of the the packages listed in your ubuntu-files document. When it’s finished, type ‘Q‘ and hit the ENTER key to exit dselect.

Customize desktop for mythtv

nano /usr/share/xsessions/mythtv.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=MythTV
Comment=Use this session to run MythTV
Exec=/usr/local/bin/mythtv.sh
Icon=
Type=Application

nano /usr/local/bin/mythtv.sh
mythfrontend&
killall irexec
irexec -d
nvidia-settings -l
mtd -d

exec openbox

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/mythtv.sh

ENVY

wget http://albertomilone.com/ubuntu/nvidia/scripts/ubuntu/envy_0.9.9-0ubuntu4_all.deb
apt-get install xserver-xorg-dev module-assistant fakeroot dh-make libstdc++5 gcc-3.3-base

dpkg -i envy_0.9.9-0ubuntu4_all.deb

LIRC

cp /offline/archive/m1box/lircrc /home/desktop/.mythtv
ln -s /home/desktop/.mythtv/lircrc /home/desktop/.lircrc

Backend

cp /dvr/scripts/mythtv-backend /etc/init.d

cp /dvr/scripts/mythtv-backend.default /etc/default/mythtv-backend

update-rc.d mythtv-backend defaults

mkdir /var/log/mythtv

make sure /root/.mythtv/mysql.txt is created and correct

/etc/init.d/mythtv-backend start

apt-get install phpmyadmin cacti backuppc

Posted in Linux, Mythtv.

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By james – November 17, 2007

How to upgrade a netgear FS728TS

I just got a netgear FS728TS from ebay and it had what looked to be the original boot code and firmware on it. You can get firmware from netgears site. The only problem is it mentions something called Smart Wizard. Since my switch was a refurb I did not get the cd that has the Netgear Smart Wizard program on it. Well after googling a bit I found a few sites. One wanted to charge you a few bucks via paypal. I almost did that but then found the smartwizard20505.zip file on another site and it was a direct link to the netgear ftp server. That was the winner. I downloaded all of the firmware files short of the beta one. Unzipped and read the files. I installed the windows program from netgear. It found the router and I started the upgrade process. I upgraded one firmware version at a time. After the inital upgrade took it said to upgrade the boot code so I did that before I applied the next two versions of firmware. Not sure if I had to go through the process I did but I did not want to toast this switch. It is upgraded now and working great.

Posted in New toys.

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By james – November 7, 2007

Finally have a switch for the home network

While ago I had purchased a dell 3348 off of ebay.  It works great.  That is what I am using right now.  The only problem is, it is a little over kill for my house.  The think I hate about it most is how loud it is.  It is louder than my furnace I think.  So I started to look for something to replace it.  I found a Dell 2324.  When I got it everything looked fine.  After a day of playing around with it and trying to figure out what was up (it is not a managed switch) I finally gave up on it.  The person/store I bought from on ebay has refunded the full amount due to it not working.  After I got the full refund I set out to find something else.  I happened upon a netgear fs728ts.  It has 24 10/100 ports and 4 gig ports.  Plenty for my home and smaller than the 3348.  Just got it last night and set it up.  I had a bit of a hard time getting everything I needed to upgrade to the latest firmware but it is all upgraded now.  I will post where I found the files needed in a later post.  Hopefully it will come in handy for others that run into the same problem I did.

So it is now upgraded and all setup to be monitored with cacti on my network.  I just have to get all of the cables plugged in to it and I should be good to go.  I will put the 3348 up on ebay and hopefully make the money I spent on it and then some.  I really just want to break even.  The new netgear switch has no fans.  I am happy with it so far.  Now to see how it performs.

Posted in New toys.

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By james – November 7, 2007

Thinking about switching to ubuntu gutsy for my mythtv boxes

The last week I have been playing around with ubuntu gutsy. I almost have a howto finished on what to do to get mythtv working on ubuntu gutsy. I have the test box up and running at this time. It is just the base gutsy install and then I have gone through and installed all the stuff needed for mythtv. I am using the mythbuntu weekly builds for the trunk version of mythtv. Right now I have my old avermedia a180 card in the test box and it seems to be running fine. I have brought in the record table from my current master backend and all of the shows seem to be setup and ready to record on the test box. I may try setting up 1 or 2 of the tuners from my hdhomeruns to give it a workout. If the box seems to work good over the next few days I will probably rebuild from scratch to make sure my howto is complete and then pick a day to rebuild all of my myth boxes. I will be moving from fedora core 6 to ubuntu gutsy. So far the install has been very easy with gutsy.

Posted in Linux, Mythtv.

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By james – October 31, 2007

Install Citrix client on ubuntu

download .tar.gz file from citrix website.  Install with setup routine.  Then run apt-get install libmotif3

That should be everything you need to run the citrix client.

Posted in Linux.

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By james – October 20, 2007

Shed may have enough room

I spent a few minutes moving things around in the shed before I mowed this weekend. After I build a few small shelves that hopefully will line then entire top of all of the walls in the shed, I may have plenty of room. That is when I am not storing all of the patio furniture in there over the winter. I did not move the rest of the stuff from the garage into the shed like I had hoped but I think there will be enough room for what I want. Hopefully I will get time this we

Posted in General.

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By james – October 8, 2007

Shed is filling up fast

Well I am begining to think that I should have bought a bigger shed.  I believe the shed is finished.  At least I can’t think of anything I needed to finish up.  I do have some extra wood and 2x4s in there that I will be making some shelves and some hangers for things like the patio furniture and what not.  I need to stack that and get it organized and out of the way.  I may build a quick rack just to store the wood on one side up in the ceiling area.  That things is getting full and I have not moved everything in yet.  I have a few things left in the garage that I want to move into the shed.  The biggest thing is a plastic shelving unit with doors.  That I plan to put on the back wall.  I want to build one or two small shelves on each side wall up high to be able to put stuff.  I also want to build hangers for the 4 patio chairs so I can hang them from the ceiling in the winter.  I want to be able to walk all the way in front to back without problem after it is all done also.  Well at least when the chairs are not hanging in there in the winter.  It is asking a bit much to have the chairs in there and also be able to walk front to back I am thinking.  We shall see.  I hope to have time this weekend to get most of the shed organized and all set.

Posted in General.

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By james – October 5, 2007

Finished up most of the details on the outside of the shed just in time

Man that was just in time.  Last night we got a bunch of rain.  I was glad I was able to get a second coat of paint on all wood that had external exposure on the shed.  I also think I sealed up any cracks and what not in the trim work along the fascia.  Now if I can get to the last few details and get everything moved in and organized.

Posted in Home Stuff.

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By james – October 1, 2007