pjcj's notes

Sat, 26 Sep 2009

Splitting albums with cue files

Keywords: split cue flac mp3 linux ubuntu

In order to split a flac file of an entire album into its constituent parts:

$ sudo aptitude install cuetools shntool flac
$ shnsplit -o flac -t '%a %n %t' -f *.cue *.flac

You can do something similar with other lossless formats.

To do the same with an mp3 file:

$ sudo aptitude install mp3split
$ mp3split -c *.cue *.mp3

Obviously you'll need to be a little more specific if you have more than one album in a directory.

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Mon, 09 Mar 2009

Ubuntu and Ati

Keywords: linux ubuntu 8.10 intrepid ibex ATI Technologies Inc RV370 [Radeon X300SE] X300

And yet another of the things that broke when I upgraded Ubuntu to 8.10 was the 3D graphics acceleration. lspci identifies my card as

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 [Radeon X300SE]

The X log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) tells me:

(II) fglrx(0): driver needs X.org 1.4.x.y with x.y >= 99.906
(II) fglrx(0): detected X.org 7.4.2.0
(EE) fglrx(0): atiddxDriScreenInit failed, GPS not been initialized. 
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed!                  *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO)             *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available                *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *

$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
X Error of failed request: BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
  Major opcode of failed request: 159 (GLX)
  Minor opcode of failed request: 19 (X_GLXQueryServerString)
  Serial number of failed request: 10
  Current serial number in output stream: 10
$

It seems this was finally fixed this year with Catalyst 9.2. In accordance with the instructions I downloaded the installer from AMD and then installed it:

# apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-radeon fglrx-kernel-source fglrx-modaliases
# sh ati-driver-installer-9.2-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/8.10
# dpkg -i xorg-driver-fglrx_8.582-0ubuntu1_i386.deb \
          xorg-driver-fglrx-dev_8.582-0ubuntu1_i386.deb \
          fglrx-amdcccle_8.582-0ubuntu1_i386.deb \
          fglrx-modaliases_8.582-0ubuntu1_i386.deb \
          libamdxvba1_8.582-0ubuntu1_i386.deb \
          fglrx-kernel-source_8.582-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

I suppose it's only to be expected that after rebooting X wouldn't start. The X log file told me:

(II) LoadModule: "amdxmm"

(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//amdxmm.so
(II) Module amdxmm: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
        compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 1.0.0
        ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 1.1

Backtrace:
0: /usr/X11R6/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x79) [0x80c3009]
1: [0xb7fde400]
2: /usr/lib/xorg/modules//amdxmm.so(amdxmmInit+0x245) [0xb61a4845]
3: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//fglrx_drv.so [0xb76a3bdc]
4: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//fglrx_drv.so(atiddxScreenInit+0x7b4) [0xb7699e94]
5: /usr/X11R6/bin/X(AddScreen+0x19f) [0x807137f]
6: /usr/X11R6/bin/X(InitOutput+0x206) [0x80aa536]
7: /usr/X11R6/bin/X(main+0x279) [0x8071b19]
8: /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe5) [0xb7bdc685]
9: /usr/X11R6/bin/X [0x8071101]
Saw signal 11.  Server aborting.
(II) Screen 0 shares mem & io resources
(II) Screen 1 shares mem & io resources
(EE) fglrx(0): === [swlDalHelperSetControllerConfigForRemap] === CWDDC ControllerSetConfig failed: 6 - 0

Wonderful. But easily fixed:

# mv /usr/lib/xorg/modules/amdxmm.so /usr/lib/xorg/modules/amdxmm.so.busted

Presumably, something's not going to work now, but at least it's better than it was, and 3D acceleraton works. I can even watch video.

For some, possibly unrelated, reason at this point the volume control knob on the keyboard stopped controlling the volume until I set the Default Mixer Track in System/Preferences/Sound to HDA Intel (Alsa mixer).

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Mon, 05 Jan 2009

Getting ssh to work over wireless on HP 2133

Ssh over wireless hangs into and out of the HP 2133. Changing the MTU doesn't help. What does help is running:

iwpriv eth0 set_vlanmode 0

[/unix/2133] permanent link

Wed, 03 Dec 2008

Ubuntu and Scanning

Keywords: linux ubuntu 8.10 intrepid ibex sane hp scanjet 5370C avision

Another of the things that broke when I upgraded Ubuntu to 8.10 was the scanning. To be fair, it had barely been working since the upgrade to 8.04, but with 8.10 scanimage just crashed. I debugged it a little and discovered that by uncommenting "option disable-calibration" in /etc/sane.d/avision.conf I could avoid the crash, but after scanning in one direction the scanner wouldn't return to its resting position.

Eventually, I decided that if I was going to fix the crash I'd have to build a debugging version of the code, and that if I was going to do that I should get the latest version available. It turns out that was in a CVS repository and was fairly easy to obtain and build:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.alioth.debian.org:/cvsroot/sane co sane-backends
./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --prefix=/usr/local/pkg/sane
make
make install

And BINGO! The crash was fixed, and I didn't had to change any code at all.

I still had the problem, which was also there in 8.04, that the preview in xsane has diagonal stripes. Do I decided to do away with xsane and replace it by a small shell script which I imaginatively named scan:

#!/bin/sh

out=$1
shift

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/pkg/sane/lib/sane:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
/usr/local/pkg/sane/bin/scanimage -d avision -v -p --resolution=300 "$@" > /tmp/out.pnm
convert -quality 90 -verbose /tmp/out.pnm $out
gimp $out

So now, when I scan album art, for example, (which is what I most commonly scan nowadays), I can just type scan front.jpg and the cover is scanned and thrown up in gimp for me to crop and save. This has been working well so far.

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Tue, 02 Dec 2008

Ubuntu and Pulseaudio

Keywords: linux ubuntu 8.10 intrepid ibex pulseaudio problems solution success multimedia keys volume

I recently upgraded my desktop box from Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) to 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). (I've written down the names so I can look them up when I need to. At least they seem to have settled on some sort of alphabetical system nowadays.)

Anyway, one of the things that broke during the process was sound. And for me it didn't just work, which is bad and wrong. So I searched the web and discovered that 8.10 is now using pulseaudio by default and that I wasn't alone with my sound problem, with many people claiming that pulseaudio just wasn't yet ready for primetime.

So I read up a little on pulseaudio, found out lots of things I didn't really want to know, tweaked all sorts of stuff and eventually got sound out of amarok, but not flash or any of the video players. And not after I had rebooted until I messed with things again. The "solution" involved killing pulseaudio and forcing things to use alsa or oss or something, and it also broke the remaining working multimedia buttons including the volume control, the rest already having been seen off by the upgrade.

Eventually, I really needed to hear something that was on flash, so I searched the web again, and came across a page on the ubuntu forum. I followed it, I set the resample-method to the highest quality, and everything just worked again.

Well, mostly.

Some of the tracks I played caused pulseaudio to crash. So I reduced the resample-method by one notch and things seem OK there so far. I got the volume and mute multimedia keys on my keyboard to work by setting the Default Mixer Track in System/Preferences/Sound to the appropriate "Playback: ALSA" device. I got the rest to work by running the Gnome Multimedia Key's script in the amarok script manager (the author must have been a greengrocer in a previous life).

Of course, the display, the scanner and other stuff were all just as broken as before. But that's another story.

(I'm not sure whether adding the new repositories is strictly necessary - no packages were installed from them - but I can't be bothered to mess with it any more.)

[/unix] permanent link

Fri, 18 Jan 2008

Debian Package Management 2

I don't often have to set up a new system, but every time I do I completely forget the very useful way that debian and ubuntu can save the set of installed packages and reinstall them later. So here it is for next time:

# dpkg --get-selections > /packages.lst
# dpkg --set-selections < /packages.lst

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Sat, 28 Apr 2007

Setting up the N800

Here's the steps I have taken to flash my wife's N800 and make it useful.

Flashing

From maemo.org,

Get the linux flasher-3.0 and firmware image. Put them in the same directory on your linux box.
Update: get the latest image.
Switch off the N800, unplug the charger and connect the N800 to your linux machine with the USB cable.
As root, or a user with permissions to access USB, run

./flasher-3.0 -F RX-34_2007SE_3.2007.10-7_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

Update: run

./flasher-3.0 -F RX-34_2007SE_4.2007.26-8_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

Wait for the message

Suitable USB device not found, waiting

Switch on the N800 by either
- Plugging in the charger or
- Switching it on using the power button whist pressing the Home button
The image should now flash and the N800 will reboot

Get root

In order to do anything interesting, you'll need root access. This involves adding a repository and installing a couple of applications. The N800 uses the debian packaging system, so this will be familiar to anyone who is used to debian or ubuntu.

Add the repository

Catalog name Maemo Repository

Web address http://repository.maemo.org/

Distribution bora

Components free non-free

See http://maemo.org/maemowiki/MaemoReleasesRepositoriesDistros for more information.

Install osso-xterm.

Update: Also available here.

Install becomeroot by clicking on http://eko.one.pl/maemo/dists/mistral/user/binary-armel/becomeroot_0.1-2_armel.deb in the browser on your N800.

Start xterm. It's in the extras menu.

run sudo gainroot

set the root password

Red pill mode

Red pill mode is an (ex) easter egg providing access to some advanced features. Activate it by going to add a new application catalogue, setting the "Web Address" to "matrix" and pressing "Cancel".

See http://hildon-app-mgr.garage.maemo.org/redpill.html for more information.

Ssh

Install the ssh package.

Update: Also available here.

Configure

Perform whatever configuration you would like. For example:

Set the hostname - echo myn800 > /etc/hostname
Set up hosts - scp myserver:/etc/hosts /etc

Add packages

Other useful packages can be found at http://maemo.org/downloads/, for example:

wget

Install by clicking on http://mg.pov.lt/770/wget.install

Start the server by running x11vnc.sh&

vnc

Download http://mike.saunby.googlepages.com/x11vnc_0.8-3_armel.deb from http://mike.saunby.googlepages.com/x11vncfornokia7702 and install it using dpkg -i x11vnc_0.8-3_armel.deb.

In order to get mouse clicks working properly, you will need to add the string " -extension XInputExtension" to the ARGS string in the file /etc/init.d/x-server. For me, that leaves line 5 as

ARGS="-mouse tslib -nozap -dpi $DISPLAY_DPI -wr -nolisten tcp -extension XInputExtension"

Then reboot.

Gizmo

Install http://download.gizmoproject.com/GizmoDownload/gizmo-project_2.0.0.56_N800_armel.deb from http://www.gizmoproject.com/download.php.

rsync

Install from http://maemo.org/downloads/product/grsync/. (Doesn't seem happy to install. Perhaps it's only for the 770 after all?)

Claws-mail

Install from http://maemo.org/downloads/product/claws-mail.

Canola

Install from http://openbossa.indt.org/canola/help.html. Reboot after the installation. To enable clicking on items, run

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/canola/plugins/uicontainer/free_click true
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/canola/plugins/uifolder/free_click true

Boot off SD

Why might you want to do that? Well, you get your root filesystem somewhere where it's not going away, you can make it as large as you need and, as a bonus, not being a jffs2 filesystem it will probably seem about twice as fast.

Partition the SD card

I've seen instructions for doing this on the N800. It seems easier to me to just plug a card reader into your linux box and partition it that way.

Make the first partition FAT16(6) and the second linux(83).

fdisk /dev/sdb

Format the partitions

mkdosfs /dev/sdb1
mke2fs /dev/sdb2

On Ubuntu, removing and reinserting the card should be enough to create the required devices to run these commands.

Get GNU tar onto your N800

The busybox tar just won't cut it, so you'll need to get the GNU version onto your N800. However you do that, you'll need somewhere to put it, so first

mkdir /root/bin

You can get tar onto the N800 using the N800 by downloading the tar .deb file and extracting the tar binary:

apt-get -d install tar  (you'll need to answer Y to the questions)
mkdir /t
dpkg -x /var/cache/apt/archives/tar*.deb /t
mv /t/bin/tar /root/bin
rm -r /t
apt-get clean

Or you could do a similar thing on your linux box, getting the .deb from http://repository.maemo.org/pool/bora/free/binary/tar_1.14-2.1osso_armel.deb (or whatever the current version is) and scp it across. That particular tar_1.14-2.1osso_armel.deb is also available from my site.

Or just download the thing from my site.

Mount the rootfs

mkdir /mnt/rootfs
mount -t jffs2 /dev/mtdblock4 /mnt/rootfs

Copy the rootfs

The rootfs needs to be copied to newly created partition. Again, this can be done directly on the N800, but it seems easier just to do it whilst the SD card is connected to the linux box. On the N800:

/root/bin/tar cf - -C /mnt/rootfs/ . | ssh -l user myserver tar xvf - -C /media/usbdisk-1

Enable dual booting

This part is possible due to the work of Frantisek Dufka.

Download the initfs_flasher and unzip it.

tar xvzf initfs_flasher.tgz
cd initfs_flasher

Make sure the N800 has sufficient power, close all applications, disconnect from the network and open an xterm. Run the flasher

./initfs_flash

After the reboot, run

chroot /mnt/initfs cal-tool --set-root-device ask:mmc2

and reboot

shutdown -r now

Links

[/unix/n800] permanent link

Fri, 27 Apr 2007

Adding disks to VMWare

create the disk using the VMWare UI
fdisk /dev/sdc (or sdb or whatever you have created)
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 (or sdc2 or whatever you have created)
create the mount point(s)
edit /etc/fstab
mount -a
df -h

[/unix] permanent link

Fri, 09 Feb 2007

Removing duplicate PATH entries

I was creating a little setup shell script to be sourced to set up an environment. It's the standard thing; set a few environment variables, play with the filesystem, start some things. Part of it adds directories to PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Then I wondered about it being run more than once. I don't imagine great problems, but multiple entries in the PATH look ugly.

So I wrote this little function to clean up the PATH, or any other similar variable:

tidy () { echo -n $1 | perl -naF: -e 'print join ":", grep !$s{$_}++, @F' }

It can be called as:

export PATH=$(tidy $sw/bin:$PATH)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(tidy $LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$sw/lib:$ORACLE_HOME/lib)

which seems to work well enough.

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Sat, 23 Dec 2006

Mounting a JFFS2 filesystem

I wanted to mount a jffs2 filesystem on my linux box (Ubuntu). It's actually the filesystem from my Zaurus 5500. My first attempt was:

# mount -t jffs2 -o loop initrd.bin r

It turns out that that is the wrong thing to do, and it results in the message:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop/0,
     missing codepage or other error
     In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
     dmesg | tail  or so

and the following is in syslog:

Attempt to mount non-MTD device "/dev/loop/0" as JFFS2

It turns out that the correct incantation is something like:

Load the mtdram module to create a ramdisc of the correct size. The total_size and erase_size parameters are in KiB (1024 bytes), and you should try to be fairly accurate or make sure you have plenty of memory available. The filesystem I wanted to look at was 14680064 bytes, which is 14336 KiB.

# modprobe mtdram total_size=14336 erase_size=128

Check that worked OK:

# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00e00000 00020000 "mtdram test device"

Then load the mtdblock module:

# modprobe mtdblock

Copy across the filesystem to the ramdisc:

# dd if=initrd.bin of=/dev/mtdblock0

Then do a loopback mount on the ramdisc:

# mount -t jffs2 /dev/mtdblock0 r

When you're done:

# umount r
# modprobe -r mtdblock
# modprobe -r mtdram

[/unix] permanent link