Skip to content

Updated myth to latest atrpm bleeding last night

I wanted to see if my one box would run any better with the newest version of myth in the bleeding repo from atrpms.  Well in doing so it updated the mysql schema.  I said what the heck, I will go for broke.  After about 30 minutes of uninstalling myth entirely from all 3 boxes and then enabling the bleeding repo from atrpms and then installing all packages again, I had all three boxes upgraded and rebooted.  Everything came back after a quick chkconfig mythbackend on for each box (I forgot about that and almost freaked out when myth would not startup).  Made it through about 4 shows recording last night and playing about 3 shows and deleteing each one.  Commflagg worked on the rest of the shows that were recorded so I think it was a success.  I have been watching ebay for prices of replay 5000 series boxes and they look like they are still going for 200 to 300 dollars for each box.  I have 2 5040 boxes with lifetime activation.  I am going to replace a bad drive in one of the boxes and it will be ready to go up for sale.  The second box I will probably sell in a bit also.  My myth network has pretty much replaced the old replays entirely now.  No need to keep them around anymore.

Anybody that wants a replay let me know before I put them up on ebay.  I have original boxes for both I think.  I also have a case and what not for a third box that the network port went bad in.  No lifetime on that one but still parts none the less.  I will update this post when I post on ebay.  Right now they are forsale so make me an offer.

Posted in Mythtv.

rev="post-599" No comments

By james – May 2, 2007

Myth backend has crashed twice this week

Two nights this week I have had my masterbackend crash while I have been watching a recorded show.  The master backend was also recording new shows at the same time.  Normally not a problem.  I just enabled comm flagging as soon as the show starts though.  Last night I turned that off.  Hopefully that was what was causing my problems.  I should know in another week or so.  Not a huge deal but still a pain.  Think since  I have been using mythtv the masterbackend has crashed 3 times while recording shows.  Not to bad but still not good to have it crash at all.  Hopefully this change will get me back on track.

Posted in Mythtv.

rev="post-598" No comments

By james – April 13, 2007

Asus spdif connector for the ASUS M2NPV-VM

I had purchased the ASUS M2NPV-VM micro atx motherboard awhile back.  At the time I did not plan on using optical audio out from this box.  I figured I might as well get it now because I probably will not be able to find it if I ever need it in the future.  Well this ended up being harder than expected.  Even the estore from asus did not have the optical/coax module in stock.  Well I finally found a store called antonline.com that had them in stock for cheap.  Got it for just under 15 dollars shipped.  Just came this week and it is the asus module I wanted.  Installed but have no use for it yet.  The part can be bought at this link.  I am not sure how long they will have it in stock though as it is very hard to find anywhere.  Only 4 bucks if you use google checkout for the first time.

Posted in Mythtv.

rev="post-597" No comments

By james – April 13, 2007

It has been awhile since I have posted

Not much has changed with the new mythtv network I have been working on.  This past weekend I setup one of the slavebackends/frontend to use our cable box via firewire.  I have takend the avermedia a180 out all together.  We still have a total of 5 tuners but do not use the firewire tuner at all really.  I have also changed the boxes to commflag right away and that seems to be doing fine.  I have added a 320 gig sata drive to the frontend/slave backend that has the 500mce and is hooked via firewire to the cable box.  All recordings go to that drive now.  I have almost 600gig of disk space setup for recordings now.  The 300 gig mirrored array on the master backend and the 320 gig  drive on the slavebackend/frontend.  Eventually I probably will mirror the slavebackend also.  Just waiting for prices to drop a little more.

Posted in Mythtv.

rev="post-596" No comments

By james – April 10, 2007

Using Vnc to control display 0 or the console X session on Fedora Core 6

edit your xorg.conf file to have items listed below.

  Section "Module"
          ...
          Load "vnc"
  EndSection
  Section "Screen"
          ...
          Option "SecurityTypes" "VncAuth"
          Option "UserPasswdVerifier" "VncAuth"
          Option "PasswordFile" "/root/.vnc/passwd"
  EndSection

next run vncpasswd

That is it.  Restart X11 with gdm-restart and you should be able to log on your fc6 box with vnc.

Posted in Linux.

rev="post-595" No comments

By james – March 29, 2007

Everything on the new myth setup made it through the night

After thinking my cable modem went out yesterday and finding out it was the master backend that was having problems, I was not sure what I would find when I got home yesterday. Got home and the box seemed to be locked up. Could not ssh in or get to any web interface at all. I could ping it though. Just did a reset and the box came back up. Had to fsck.jfs the two jfs files systems but after a check and a reboot the box was happy once again. Made it through the night of recordings and then on to comm flagging over night. Box is still running just fine. I hope it was just a fluke. Time will tell.

Posted in Mythtv.

rev="post-594" No comments

By james – March 28, 2007

How to install a valid cert for apache on fedora core 6 from cacert.org

  1. Create the server key (in this example RSA 1024 bit): 
      openssl genrsa -out host.key 1024
  2. Make a certificate out of it (it won’t be signed yet): 
      openssl req -new -key host.key -out host.csr
  3. Create your CA certificate (will be valid for a year): 
      openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -key host.key -out host.crt

Once you get a signed crt, put it in /etc/pki/tls/certs named localhost.crt if you are using the base config located at /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf. You will also need to move your .key file create above to /etc/pki/tls/priviate named localhost.key.

Very easy to do with fedora core.

Posted in Linux.

rev="post-593" No comments

By james – March 28, 2007

That was easier than I thought it would be

A few weeks ago I won a cable modem on ebay. After waiting awhile for it to ship and then not getting the power cable with the modem, I finally got the power cable today. Called charter this evening and was on hold for about 5 minutes. Gave them my info and then the new mac for the cable modem. Had to power off the cable modem and my router. Powered on the cable modem let it link up and then powered on my router. Got the same ip I had before and speed looks to be the same also. I am good to go. I will take back my charter cable modem at lunch today and I will be all set. That should remove the stupid $2.50 fee they are charging me with the new plan I have. Can’t wait to see my bill for next month. See what it is down to now. I am hoping it will be about $115 or $117 now.

UPDATE: No problem returning the modem today. Got back to work now and looks like they may have taken my current cable modem(the one I own) off the account also. Can’t get to my host at home now. Will have to call back in tonight and see what they did. Man, I thought this would be the easy part today.

UPDATE2:  Well it is not the cable modem that is down.  This sucks.  My new mythbackend is having problems it looks like.  I can get to the other boxes no problem.  No charter problems but I will have to look at what is going on with the new box tonight.

Posted in New toys.

rev="post-592" 1 comment

By james – March 27, 2007

New mythtv network is almost finished

It was a big weekend at our house as far as mythtv goes. Friday night I stayed up late and moved the currenty mythdora box out of the living room(hooked to the panasonic ae-900u) and moved the new asus motherboard and processor in. All is working on that box(2 tuners on the hdhomerun and 2 tuners on the hauppauge 500mce inside the box). Just moved that in for a short time. After I moved that in I started working on the old mythdora box. Now it has fedora core 6 with myth .21 trunk from atrpms. That box now has the amd 64 x2 4600 in it and is the master backend among other things. After getting all services up and running and configured, I moved on to the last box of the setup. The old server case with the abit motherboard and the amd 64 x2 3800. Just finished that up tonight. That I just moved up into the bedroom to try out. I hooked it up to a new Vizio vx32l that we purchased today at sams club. Seems to be doing fine. I need to do a few things still.

  1. Move hauppauge to m1box.
  2. Make m2box be a slave backend to mbox.
  3. Move m1box down to the family room
  4. Move m2box up to the bedroom
  5. Work on resolution on all boxes. Get 1024×768 going on mbox, 1024×720 on m1box and 1366×768 on m2box

Posted in Linux.

rev="post-591" 2 comments

By james – March 25, 2007

A few parts going back to mwave

First of all I pulled the amd 64 x2 3800 out and had it working on the motherboard before I noticed the box said ada3800 no ad03800. They send me the wrong processor. They sent me the 89watt one instead of the energy efficient 65watt processor that I wanted. They are working on that, it has been a full day and no answer yet. The kingwin usb case I think was faulty. Bios in two boxes saw it and the drive. Two linux boxes gave errors when it connected, a 2000 box saw it and gave the drive to click on but nothing but errors also. A xp box did the same thing. Just going to send it back and get a refund. That thing sucked. Lesson learned. I hope they ship the replacement 3800 tomorrow. Otherwise I will call back and just rma both items and get processor somewhere else. Very dissappointing. First time I have had wrong items shipped from mwave. The external case probably just a bad unit but I don’t want to chance it. Just sending it back.

UPDATE: Guess the processor was labeled wrong in the warehouse. They are shipping me the correct processor this time. Just have to wait for the prepaid label and I can then ship back the case and processor. Glad they handled it that way they did.

UPDATE2:  Replacement 3800 energy efficient processor is in and running.  Just have to take the box to a local fedex shop and send it on its way back to mwave.  All hardware is working the way I planned now.

Posted in New toys.

rev="post-590" No comments

By james – March 21, 2007