Category Archives: Linux

SATA DVD Burner with LightScribe

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As mentioned before, I have a new DVD Burner. After getting it to work, I needed to start using it. The first pack of media that I bought had the LightScribe surface. For those that don’t already know, LightScribe is a technology developed by HP that uses the DVD burner laser to effectively print directly onto the surface of special discs. Now I need to get this to work with Ubuntu.

First I went to the download area of the LightScribe website, and in the pre-release area, they have a few Debian packages that are compatible with Ubuntu. I installed these following the instruction provided, and started to use the simple labeller application.

This worked great, but is limited only to the most basic format of label, which consists of only two lines of text with a few provided graphics in a narrow band near the centre of the disk. My handwriting is not the best, so was happy with this as a simple solution, but it would be nice to have more.

I did a quick search to see if anybody has made any other label software for Linux that can use LightScribe, and drew a blank. This seems strange to me as HP have made the API available and even provide a sample application with the SDK. It would be nice to one day bite the bullet and have a go at writing my own application. Maybe this is the one!

A little bit of further research and I found LaCie have provided a LightScribe program for Linux. Initially I discarded this, as I was sure that it would be somehow crippled to only work with LaCie drives, and not with my Samsung one. Well it turns out that it is not. I only need to download the application, as I already had the LightScribe support files from the LightScribe site.

The LaCie software makes a good companion to the LightScribe software. The LaCie software only prints graphics, but will print to the full face of the disk. The clever thing with LightScribe is that the drive is able to recognise the position of the disk, so I can use the LaCie program to put a picture on the lower half of the disk, and leave the top area blank. I can then use the LightScribe simple labeller program to add a line of text. It is even possible to print the same label twice to get a darker image.

So I am happy. I have a method of marking my disks that looks smart, and it all works in Linux. I could really do with making a template for Gimp or Inkscape so that I can generate images easily, but that can wait. I now need to work on a few recipes to cook up some content suitable to burn.

SATA DVD Writer issues!

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I decided to buy myself a DVD Writer. A quick search and I decided to get a SATA device from Samsung that has LightScribe. I have a SATA controller on my motherboard, and I don’t like the idea of buying old technology, so I wanted a SATA interface.

I did a quick check to make sure that there was a good chance such a device would work with my Ubuntu desktop system. No major issues were highlighted, so on Tuesday I went bought the drive. I guessed that it would be only a few minutes to install, and then I would be up and running.

How wrong was I? To cut a long story short, I found that I have two different SATA controllers on my motherboard. One is incorporated in the southbridge, and one extra one. If I plugged the DVD into the extra one, then the machine would not even complete the POST. If I plugged it into the one on the southbridge, it would boot, but very slowly, and the DVD would not work, and the lots of error messages would fill dmesg.

It turns out that I have an early motherboard with SATA, and that it is not very good. Eventually I gave up trying to get it to work, and just bought a new SATA controller card. Now the machine boots without errors. Next thing is to learn how to create DVD’s and see if I can get LightScribe to work.

MythTV on Ubuntu

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I have just installed MythTV on my Ubuntu desktop machine using the instruction found here. I am really pleased with the result even if I did have to jump through a few hoops to get here.

I first looked a MythTV a while back, when I first got the DVB USB adapter. I had trouble setting it up and was a bit disappointed so I did not bother to use it. Instead I just use Xine to watch live broadcast, and then dvbstream via the ‘at’ command to schedule recordings. It worked, but was not very elegant.

I decided to have a go again after reading the guide mentioned above. The initial set-up probable went OK, but for some reason I could not get the schedule to download the information required. I fiddled about lots and tried alternative methods, only to later discover that I had a network problem, not an issue with MythTV. By this time I had already sent an email to the guy who wrote the guide above.

To avoid untangling the mess I had gotten into, it seemed that it would be easier to remove what was already set-up, and start again. This time the schedule was working in that the data was retrieved from the website, and could be seen in the schedule. However the problem now was that the channels had been duplicated in the schedule. When I selected a channel that had program information, I could not tune in. When I selected the version of the same channel that had no information, it would tune in OK and display the channel on the screen.

From the replies that I received from the author of the guide, it was apparent that the information for the channels is stored in the channel table of the mysql database that is used by MythTV. Well a quick view of that table showed me what was wrong, and a quick bit of SQL editing, and I had the channel table sorted.

Now I have a fully working MythTV setup that I am quite pleased with. The only thing I would like to do now is to set-up the system so that it can be run in a window in the corner of the screen, much like can be done with Xine. My hardware now probably needs some attention as it is not exactly the quietest machine.

Life on the edge with Ubuntu Feisty – issues with Nvidia driver

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Ok, so I probably deserve this for using beta software, but I have just recovered from a major falling over with Ubuntu feisty.

A few weeks ago, I jumped through some hoops to get feisty running with compiz on my aged graphics card. In the end all it took was to use the standard nvidia packages that ubuntu supply, and some reconfiguring of my xorg.conf, and I had a fully working 3D bling desktop. I was happy. The only problems I saw are down to the limited memory on my graphics card.

Monday I installed a lump of updates. On Tuesday, when I rebooted, it all fell apart. Much gnashing of teeth later I gave up. Tonight, I decided to look into the problem. Well it would seem that Ubuntu have upgraded the nvidia driver that they package. The new one, 1.0-9755, has dropped support for my graphics chip. Ubuntu do supply a legacy driver, 1.0-7184, but that does not support the extensions required to use compiz.

It would seem that Nvidia are now supporting three versions of their unified driver. How that is unified, beats me. That aside, the version that is required for my hardware is not currently supported by Ubuntu. I ended up removing as any Nvidia package that I could, and then installed the driver using the download from Nvidia direct. All i need to do is remember to rebuild the kernel module next time it is upgraded.

I can’t wait for feisty to be released. Hopefully that will mean things settle down for a time. Next time, i must try and resist the urge to upgrade before the software is released. I don’t think I am really cut out to be a beta tester 🙂

Ubuntu fstab changes

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A couple of weeks ago, I had a look at /etc/fstab for some reason. I was a little surprised to see that things have changed. Where partitions were labeled /dev/hda1 etc., now they look like this:-

# /dev/sda5 -- converted during upgrade to edgy
UUID=2350b9c8-c62a-4c50-b494-6c7db3438192 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

This confused me a bit, but I did not do anything about it. What worried me was how would I know which drive or partition was being referred to. I let this go until a discussion that mentioned /etc/fstab came up on my local LUG mailing list.

Well it would appear that the idea behind the change is that with the latest drive technologies, there are so many possible drive connections, what with multiple SATA, IDE, RAID etc, a new method of drive and partition naming was needed. The UUID referred to above is taken from the actual partition. Therefore, drives can be moved around without having to edit /etc/fstab each time.

To find out where these partitions are, or what the UUID of a partition may be, a quick look at /dev/disk should be the place to start.

I am not an authority on this. I am just writing this primarily as a memory aid for myself. If I have missed anything important, please add a comment below.

Ubuntu Upgrade Woes

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In a way I am glad it is not just me that has had problems with the edgy upgrade. This indicates that many have not had a smooth ride. The crazy thing is, when I upgraded a machine much earlier on when edgy was in development, it went really smoothly.

On the plus side, I have just installed Beryl and it looks really cool. However, I will probably not use it much. After the initial wow factor, it does very little to improve the actual use of the desktop.

Re-install server with Ubuntu

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Now that Ubuntu edgy is out, I feel like installing Ubuntu on my home server. Before I do, I need to make a list of services that I currently use, and then make sure that I have backed up any data that I will need. My home areas will be easy as they are all on one partition. However, I have a few applications that are supported by a database back end that I will need to take care of.

If anybody reading this, with some experience of migrating operating systems, has anything to tell me, then please post a comment below. Your help will be appreciated.

Here is a list of services that I need to have on the new machine.

  • MySQL – set root password as now.
  • Webserver – My website and Ian’s
    • phpmyadmin
    • Gallery – Private and Public – Database & Albums
    • WordPress – Database and Files
  • SMTP Server – My email and Ian’s
  • Samba – share media directory
  • Ssh – on custom port
  • Contents of /etc/

I won’t suggest that this list is complete. I will add to it as I prepare for the change, and then I will hopefully have a reasonable plan to minimize downtime of the server. Also I can use the Ubuntu Server Guide as a reference.

Ubuntu Edgy Upgrade

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Well the new version of Ubuntu is out. I have almost been on the edge of my seat waiting for this. I did upgrade a vmware instance some time ago, but have waited until the official release before upgrading my main machines here.

In order to save a bit of time, I downloaded the alternate CD image and burnt it to a disk. I also made sure that my squid proxy was set to cache large files and had reasonable size cache to hold them all. The first attempt at an upgrade was to use aptitude. In short, it failed miserably. Lots of dependency issues and then failing completely.

At this point I was a little disappointed. My experience of Ubuntu had been positive up to this time. It seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

I then tried the /cdrom/cdromupgrade command. Success! well at least with one machine. I have my second machine running now, so hopefully soon I will have both machines up to date with the latests Ubuntu funkiness soon. All that is left to do is sort out my server! More about that soon

Ubuntu Ascii Logo

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For some time now I have used an ascii representation of the Debian logo in the footer to my emails. As I have now switched to using Ubuntu for my home desktop needs, I was thinking of replacing the Debian logo with an Ubuntu one. After a quick search, I found that I could not find any ascii logos for Ubuntu. The only thing for it was to try and make my own. This is the result.

 |\\O
O| >
 |/O

It does look a bit better in my console, but any suggestions for improvements to this would be welcomed.