Sat, 17 Oct 2009

MythTV and X10

Added notes to the wiki on controlling lights via X10 from the MythTV menu. joat: 08:38:17 17 Oct 2009

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Sun, 26 Apr 2009

System upgrade

In upgrading the system (yet again), I managed to forget to back up the internal "house wiki". There wasn't much on there that isn't already on the regular 757 wiki except for a couple works in progress and it wasn't anything that I can't redo out of my head (or notes). If anyone else is missing something, I'll dig into the backups (but you have to respond now as I'm coming up on the end of the month and will be deleting a lot of stuff). For those in-house, most of the system is off-line, including phone, video (including the television controls (find the tv's remote in the mean time!)), lighting, intercom, music (including Icecast and the jukebox), Laconica, IRC, and motion detection. I've dug out some of the older hardware and will be re-implementing some of my more favorite projects. The services will be coming online gradually as I restore files and test each. I promise there'll be no more upgrades for awhile, unless something breaks down. Note: development is no longer allowed directly on the house systems. If you need it, I'll provide a VM for your use. Update: The tv controls are back online (squeaky wheel gets the attention). Low channels only, though. joat: 23:29:37 26 Apr 2009

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Sat, 18 Oct 2008

Solaris drive cloning

Notes for cloning hard drives on Solaris are in the wiki. joat: 06:34:59 18 Oct 2008

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Sat, 23 Feb 2008

MPD on the NSLU2

I can't vouch for it operating properly as I have no idea how to configure it to stream to Icecast but MPD did compile on the NSLU2. Notes here. Anyone have a working mpd.conf which allows streaming to Icecast without an audio interface? Update: Running Icecast and MPD on the same NSLU2 may not be the best idea, at least if you're going to use the stock config files. I'm seeing almost 100% load on the box and the output to another system is quite bursty (about 3 seconds of silence for every 3 seconds of music). It's probably a good idea to put the utils on different systems (2 NSLU2s or a NSLU2 and a full-size computer?)(works nicely if I use my Asterisk service as a source). As I've built this for someone else, I don't have the resources (okay, or motivation) to tweak these. For anyone that cares to, I will offer an account on the wiki if you'll post your tweaks. joat: 21:45:00 23 Feb 2008

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Icecast on the NSLU2

I've been wanting a better version of Icecast on the NSLU2 (other than the one that runs on OpenWRT) and have been meaning to build it. Various people have expressed interest, the latest of which was Brian M. In short, I spent roughly four hours this morning installing various code on the NSLU2 and now have a working (I think) version of Icecast. Notes here. If you're going to attempt the same build, it's probably a good idea to devote a Saturday to it cause it's not a simple process. Now build MPD and write the start up scripts. I'll keep you posted. joat: 12:13:18 23 Feb 2008

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Sun, 28 Oct 2007

Geekin' Hard!

Some geeks like showing off their geek pr0n. Some like showing off network diagrams of their home setup. Me, I like function diagrams. Below is a depiction of what I've been playing with in the past year. At some point, I've tested each part. Most of it is still connected and available on demand (from inside the network). About the only part that I've disabled is the IDJC piece (it generated too many audio "artifacts"). The parts in red are record functions. The piece in green is Asterisk passing CallerID info to SageTV. The rectangles are hardware. The circles are not. Pieces that play MP3 files from the library: Asterisk Icecast IDJC Liquidsoap SageTV Slimserver Pieces that accept input from Icecast/Shoutcast streams: Asterisk Cidero Icecast (via relay) Liquidsoap MediaMVP MPD Slimserver Pieces that output Icecast/Shoutcast streams: Asterisk Icecast IDJC Liquidsoap MPD Slimserver Web interfaces include: Asterisk Icecast Liquidsoap MPD SageTV Slimserver TiVO Asterisk, Icecast, Liquidsoap, and Slimserver are the audio powerhouses here, being able to both accept and generate network streams. Because they have inputs and outputs which are accepted "standards", they can be connected in just about any manner. For video, my favorite is SageTV. It records scheduled and timed video, has a "hackable" web interface, allows all sorts of plugins for additional features, and can stream to hardware and software clients in the local network. It generates RSS feeds for recent recordings and the upcoming recording schedule. For those that aren't familiar with SageTV, think MythTV with a lot more polish and a lot less set-up work. Note: this is all Linux-based but there are Windows versions of just about all of the programs. The amazing part is that I rarely see my dual core system get below 95% idle. Wishlist (things I want to experiment with in the next year): X-10 interface, home automation, some sort of podcatcher, IAX to a friend's Asterisk box, a hardware-based phone, motion detection with cameras, hosting and/or recording a live conference call, amateur radio. Disclaimer: I do nothing illegal with this set up, though the capability is definitely there. Diagram courtesy of GraphViz's dot program. joat: 19:58:01 28 Oct 2007

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Tue, 16 Oct 2007

Kernel upgrades and HTPCs

Note(s) to self: upgrading the kernel on a home theater PC is not a good idea unless you really need a new feature. Swapping out kernels will break IVTV and, by extension, whatever sits on top of it. If you're building production machines, it's a good idea to stick with whatever you're currently using and save kernel upgrades for the next model. joat: 10:57:39 16 Oct 2007

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Thu, 20 Sep 2007

FC7, an NVidia 6340 LE, and a SyncMaster 940BW

For the better part of this year, I've stuck with the commercial version of Mandriva 2007 because it was one of the few distros that automatically recognizes my video card and monitor. For those that know me, this is an extremely long time for me to stick with one distro. Not any more. I've needed to install Fedora for a few toolsets that I've wanted to play with and finally had the time (I took a day off) to install Fedora and figure out how to get the video configured properly (usually it'd come up with bars on the side and no mouse cursor). Fixing both of those problems was pretty straight forward. The mouse involved turning off the hardware driven cursor. The video involved trashing the Fedora drivers and grabbing the binary off of NVidia's site and letting it compile new modules. I've stuck my notes in the wiki. joat: 15:13:41 20 Sep 2007

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