HTPC build upon Asrock A330Ion in a MS-Tech MC-1200 Case

2. Februar 2010

Intro

After purchasing a new flatscreen tv with all it’s hd-readyness, it was time for me build a HTPC from scratch. Since I’ve heard about MythTv’s capabillities, this was always a projekt I wanted to beginn with. Now the time has finally come.

Goals

Before you start such a project, especially go out and by hardware, you should be aware of your goals you want to achieve. If you just want to watch regular TV, there is no need for HD, thus maybe cheaper hardware available. If you don’t care about energy consumption, you might just want to buy a tv card for the old PC in the attic…

So this are the things I want from my HTPC:

  • It want to store my videos, pictures and music on it
  • I want to watcht my videos in full HD with dolby 7.1
  • I want to watch and record DVB-T
  • I want to play musik
  • It has to be silent, not to say: quiet
  • It shouldn’t cost to much (I think everyone agrees…)
  • I should have a lowest power consumption possible
  • It has to be in a nice case, fitting for the livingroom
  • It needs to be remote controlled
  • It has to be Linux

Hardware

After hour of research and evaluting prices vs. features vs. powerconsumption vs. etc. So this is what I came up with

  • Case: MS-Tech MC-1200 (black) : ~90€
    It’s black and beatifull! It has a aluminum cover (the inside is bit crapy, but i think the best you can get for that money). You need to do something with the PU, since the fan is far to noisy. It comes with a remote and fits into any hifi rack (420 mm x 103 mm x 343 mm). Be carefull, it only supports micro-ATX and mini-ITX and low profile PCI(e). Also the PU is micro-ATX.
  • Motherboard (+CPU +GPU): ASRock A330Ion: ~120€
    ASRock’s A330Ion is one of the few boards available with build in Intel Atom 330 on a Nvidia Ion chipset. Ion comes with a on board graphics unit Nvidia Gforce 9400M and thus capable of handling HD. The Atom 330 is a dualcore CPU at 1,6 Ghz. This is enough for most application whilest consuming only as little as 45W. Whitch also leeds to less extensive cooling, wich leeds to a more quiet expirience. The board comes with on board sound, hdmi and one PCIe. This solution serves the whishes of having low power consumption while still being able to watch full HD and enjoy simple games. Don’t even think of playing your brand new 3D-Shooter on it! The GPU should be permanent set to 512MB.
  • RAM: OCZ DIMM 4 GB DDR3-1066 Kit: ~110€
    4 GB should be more than enough. And fast enough to support my needs.
  • Power Unit: Be quiet! SFX Power: ~40€
    Of course, replacing the fan of MT-Techs case would be much cheaper but: I wanted quality, since I plan to run that box sometimes 24/7 and this PU is said to have a fairly good efficenzy.
  • Harddisk: Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1 TB: ~70€
    It said to be silent while serving 1TB with a reasonable speed. Of course, flash would be better, but I guess I’ll wait a few years…
  • Optical Drive: LG CH08LS10: ~100€
    According to the reviews it’s a quite good drive. But it’s a bit loud. I don’t bother since I don’t plan to use it that often. Beware!!! Linux has some trouble with Blue-Ray. You should do some research on that if you want to run Linux, before you end up disapointed as me. (There are workarounds, but nothing straight as of the time of writing).
  • DVB-T: Haupauge WinExpress 1700 PCIe: ~100€
    It is supported by Linux and it fits on the motherboard and it has integrated hardware encoding, thus lifting some weight of the CPU

Software

For some time now, MythTV caugh my attention, since it serves the all in one media experience (movies, tv, vdr, gallery, music, etc.). Although there are other solutions, like XBMC and FreeVO, I had to start with something. So MythTV it is. Therefore I needed a Linux. I’m a Gentoo user for quite some time, so the final goal would be to have a full featured MythTV on Gentoo. These are the goals I want to achieve:

  • Make use of power states (Standby and Hibernation)
  • Fully  managed by remote control (so that even my girlfriend be able to enjoy it)
  • Mediacenter (Video, Music, Pictures)
  • VDR
  • …

Operating System

to be continued…

Comming soon on this site: The Operating system and MythTV

Schlagworte: , , , , , ,
Veröffentlicht in HTPC, IT-Allgemein | 4 Kommentare »

Ruby on Rails deployment to Plesk/SuSE VPS

17. Januar 2010

Last night I wanted to deploy my fresh Rails application to my virtual private server.

It wasn’t as easy as I initially thought, but with a little help from google, I managed to get it running. Of course, there is still a bit to do, but before I forget all the steps, I wanted them to be safe in this article.

For the moment I have it running using sqlite3, but I will switch to MySQL quite soon, so you may need to adjust the steps accordingly.

This solution is based on Passenger

Software Preperation

You may be tempted to use YAST to install all Ruby/Rails related components. I strongly discourage you to do so, since I did and it failed. On my SuSE (10.3) all packages where to much outdated, so that I even couldn’t use gem to install e.g. passenger.

  • The following packages need to be installed from YAST:
    • Ruby (1.8.6) from YAST seems to be recent enough
    • sqlite and sqlite-devel
    • apache-devel
    • c++ (gcc)
  • Download the *.tgz of RubyGems (1.3.5) from RubyGem, then do:
    • tar -xzvf  rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
    • cd rubygems-1.3.5
    • ruby setup.rb
  • Install Rails (2.3.5)
    • gem install rails
  • Install Passenger
    • gem install passenger
    • passenger-install-apache2-module
    • put:
      LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.9/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
      PassengerRoot /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.9
      PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby
      into /etc/apache2/conf.d/passenger.conf
  • Install sqlite3
    • gem install sqlite3-ruby
  • You may need to install more project related gems according to your application

Create Site and deploy

  • Create a new domain with Plesk’s webinterface
    • Goto Domains and follow the process on Create Domain (Important: You need FTP-access to your new site)
  • Connect to your site with your favourite FTP-Client
  • Goto httpdocs of your new site and wipe out all content
  • Deploy your application via FTP to the empty folder httpdocs

Setup Apache

  • Put:
    ServerName YourDomain
    DocumentRoot /srv/www/vhosts/YourDomain/httpdocs/public
    <Directory /srv/www/vhosts/YourDomain/httpdocs/public/>
    AllowOverride all
    Options -MultiViews
    </Directory>
    the new file /srv/www/vhosts/YourDomain/conf/vhost.conf
  • Make Plesk aware of your settings (Plesk discourages you from editing their config files, therefore you have put it into your own vhost.conf) and run:
    • /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -u –vhost-name=YourDomain

Migrate and make it work

  • cd /srv/www/vhosts/YourDomain/httpdocs
  • rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=”production” –trace
  • chown -R wwwrun:www /srv/www/vhosts/YourDomain/httpdocs
  • Take your favourite browser and navigate to your new and shiny application

I got to this solution by trial and error and I’m not 100% sure whether I remember all the steps, so there might be some glitches left for you to sort out. But it should cover most topics.

Future plans is to get it running using MySQL and RubyEnterpriseEdition

This are some of the blogs and sites, that helped me out:

Have fun!

Schlagworte: , , , , , , ,
Veröffentlicht in 1&1 VPS (SuSE), Ruby On Rails | 2 Kommentare »

Googlemail and the art of POP

8. Dezember 2009

After purchasing an IPhone, I opened up a new account on Googlemail. This works great for the IPhone. If you use GoogleSync it works even better, since you can now sync your contacts with your google account.

But there was also a draw back for me. Since IMAP was working fine on the IPhone, it caused some trouble on my KMail-clients. Therefore I also enabled POP3 on the my googlemail account. But the funny thing was, that:

  1. All sent messages appear in my inbox as well
  2. If you have more than one POP3-client, you might lose some messages since they were already pulled by another client.

This is the solution I’m now quite happy with.

  1. On googlemail, enable POP3 as well as IMAP
  2. In your email-clients use POP3 (IMAP on the mobile devices)
  3. Make sure the client doesn’t delete received messages from the server
  4. In order to get all emails to all clients prefix your login-name with recent: (recent:myaccount@googlemail.com). This will pull all message of the last 30 days as long as they haven’t been pulled by the very same client
  5. Having the sent messages in the inbox is not a bug, it’s a feature! If you use an email client, which is able to show your messages as thread, then it’s quite an advantage. In order not to get confused, wether you go new email or you simply wrote on a different client, simply add a rule that marks all messages from you as read or, if you don’t like them in your inbox, move them some were else (e.g. your sent-messages folder)

Now I’m happy with my googlemail after all. Maybe you find it usefull, too…

Schlagworte: , , , ,
Veröffentlicht in iPhone | Keine Kommentare »

Using Kppp for Vodafone 3g(UMTS/HDSPA)-card on KDE4

20. November 2009

Running linux is fun, but sometimes it’s also a bit of a pain in the ass. Especially wireless networking (wifi and 3g) are still not well supported among some distros (e.g. gentoo). There are a few tools you can use, but not all of them work as they should.

Note: The emphasis here is to get a proper frontend for your 3g/HDSPA/UMTS-modem running. It’s not about pppd nor kernel settings.
My system: Gentoo / kernel 2.6.28 / kde 4.2
Some time ago, I purchased a UMTS-stick from Vodafone. It’s a Huawai E660. Back the I tried to get it running using NetworkManager with the KDE-applet, umtsmon and the vodafone mobile connect for linux. The results where:
- knetworkmanager-applet -> paritally working but no stable connection possible (still not in portage)
- umtsmon -> got it running, but no connection could be established, although the card seemed working. tried all permutations of available pppd-arguments
- vodafone-mobile-connect for linux -> this actually work for me. but if you are not on mandriva or opensuse, you have to get the old beta3
But after a recent update on my gentoo box, vmc stopt working properly. I personally blame the update to udev-146. Anyway, again I was looking out for a good solution. Since I’m not to fond of scripting anything (e.g. wvdial) I came across a solution for kppp, which I want to explain here in more detail.
You should know, that 3g-cards usually need a PIN to work. Therefore the original author of this solution provided a script to set the PIN before dialing with kppp. Since I had umtsmon still installed on my machine (although I wasn’t able to establish a working connection) I simply disabled the PIN on the card using an option from the menu of umtsmon. So you can either install umtsmon to disable your PIN too, or search the web for a script to set the pin, which the can be run before kppp dials (there is hook in kppp for scripts running prior dialing).
Now, let’s focus on the proper settings for kppp. It’s really dead simple. I provided some pictures for better convinience.
1.) Set up the provider
You can name your access as you want, important is the dial-string. For most providers it’s “#99*”. If it doesn’t work for you, ask google.
Additionally you have to provide the “nojv” argument to pppd (don’t ask me why, I simply copied it…)
2.) Set up your modem
Check out the dev node where your modem is attached. In my case it was /dev/ttyUSB0. Since I wanted to be sure that the modem is always in the same place, I wrote a simple udev-rule, which attaches the modem to /dev/modem. If you like that too, simply create (if not exists) the file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules and adjust the code acording to your results of udevadm info -a -p `udevadm info -q path -n /dev/ttyUSB0`.
# Huwai UMTS-Modem E660a
BUS==”usb”, ATTRS{product}==”HUAWEI Mobile”, \
ATTRS{manufacturer}==”HUAWEI Technology”, \
NAME=”%k”, SYMLINK=”modem”
3.) Set up Modem-Commands
This is very important! You need to set right APN or might end up paying way to much (e.g. some providers have different APN for flatrate and pay per use)
Set this string to second init-string of your modem commands: AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”your.apn”
4.) Dial using your provider
Select your previously set up connection and provide a passwort. Usually a dummy-passwort is sufficient, since must providers don’t check it.
Hint: You might want to check the option where kppp goes to your taskbar…
Now you should be able to dial in using kppp. Actually kppp runs significantly faster and reliable the the vmc. If you encounter problems, you might want to set your DNS-server manually, some people reported problems here.
Hope it works for you as well as it works for me! Enjoy!!!

Running linux is fun, but sometimes it’s also a bit of a pain in the ass. Especially wireless networking (wifi and 3g) are still not well supported among some distros (e.g. gentoo). There are a few tools you can use, but not all of them work as they should.

Note: The emphasis here is to get a proper frontend for your 3g/HDSPA/UMTS-modem running. It’s not about pppd nor kernel settings.

My system: Gentoo / kernel 2.6.28 / kde 4.2

Some time ago, I purchased a UMTS-stick from Vodafone. It’s a Huawai E660. Back the I tried to get it running using NetworkManager with the KDE-applet, umtsmon and the vodafone mobile connect for linux. The results where:

  • knetworkmanager-applet -> paritally working but no stable connection possible (still not in portage)
  • umtsmon -> got it running, but no connection could be established, although the card seemed working. tried all permutations of available pppd-options
  • vodafone-mobile-connect for linux -> this actually work for me. but if you are not on mandriva or opensuse, you have to get the old beta3 from betavine

But after a recent update on my gentoo box, vmc stopt working properly. I personally blame the update to udev-146. Anyway, again I was looking out for a good solution. Since I’m not to fond of scripting anything (e.g. wvdial) I came across a solution for kppp, which I want to explain here in more detail.

You should know, that 3g-cards usually need a PIN to work. Therefore the original author of this solution provided a script to set the PIN before dialing with kppp. Since I had umtsmon still installed on my machine (although I wasn’t able to establish a working connection) I simply disabled the PIN on the card using an option from the menu of umtsmon. So you can either install umtsmon to disable your PIN too, or search the web for a script to set the pin, which the can be run before kppp dials (there is hook in kppp for scripts running prior dialing).

Now, let’s focus on the proper settings for kppp. It’s really dead simple. I provided some pictures for better convinience.

1.) Set up the provider

You can name your access as you want, important is the dial-string. For most providers it’s “#99*”. If it doesn’t work for you, ask google.

Additionally you have to provide the “nojv” argument to pppd (don’t ask me why, I simply copied it…)

Provider

Provider

2.) Set up your modem

Check out the dev node where your modem is attached. In my case it was /dev/ttyUSB0. Since I wanted to be sure that the modem is always in the same place, I wrote a simple udev-rule, which attaches the modem to /dev/modem. If you like that too, simply create (if not exists) the file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules and adjust the code acording to your results of udevadm info -a -p `udevadm info -q path -n /dev/ttyUSB0`.


# Huwai UMTS-Modem E660a

BUS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="HUAWEI Mobile", ATTRS{manufacturer}=="HUAWEI Technology", NAME="%k", SYMLINK="modem"

kppp: Modem

3.) Set up Modem-Commands

This is very important! You need to set right APN or might end up paying way to much (e.g. some providers have different APN for flatrate and pay per use)

Set this string to second init-string of your modem commands: AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”your.apn”

kppp: Modem Commands

4.) Dial using your provider

Select your previously set up connection and provide a passwort. Usually a dummy-passwort is sufficient, since must providers don’t check it.

kppp: Startscreen

Hint: You might want to check the option where kppp goes to your taskbar…

Now you should be able to dial in using kppp. Actually kppp runs significantly faster and reliable the the vmc. If you encounter problems, you might want to set your DNS-server manually, some people reported problems here.

Hope it works for you as well as it works for me! Enjoy!!!

Veröffentlicht in Gentoo | Keine Kommentare »

Warum sind Frauen nur so verdammt ungeschickt?

11. November 2009

Ich weiß, wenn ich weiter solche Artikel schreibe wird man mich wohl zurecht für einen üblen Sexisten halten. Zum Teil stimmt das wohl auch, aber ganz ehrlich; Ich verehre die Frauen! (Was mich aber nicht davon abhalten soll, mich ab und wann über sie lustig zu machen…)
Da gibt es also diese eine Sache, die mich schon lange beschäftigt. Sind Frauen wirklich so ungeschickt, oder ist es nur meine Einbildung, die das suggeriert. Zum Beispiel sagt man Frauen nach, wenn man von der Torhüterin der Nationalmannschaft absieht nach, das sie nicht im Stande sind, selbst Gegenstände, die mit adequater Geschwindigkeit und Einfallswinkel auf sie zu kommen, zu fangen. Das konnte ich selbst auch schon öfter beobachten. Ich habe in dem gemeinsamen Haushalt von mir und meiner Freundin zerbrechliche Gegenstände, wie Gläser oder Geschirr, die mich seit mehr als 10 Jahren begleiten und unzählige Parties und Gäste überlebt haben. Diese fallen Ihr nach und nach zu Opfer. Auch mein Laptop musste bereits einen Sturz vom Tisch überstehen. Wo für Frauen überhaupt kein Gefühl zu haben scheinen, ist das männliche Gemächt. Man hört dann nur etwas wie: Hat das etwa weh getan? Ist mir gar nicht aufgefallen, das ich mein Knie da reingerannt habe.

Die Liste der Eignisse und Beispiele ließe sich endlos fortsetzen, aber ich denke was zu sagen bzw. Schreiben war habe ich Wesentlichen hiermit getan. Passt auf euch auf!

Schlagworte: ,
Veröffentlicht in Losgworden | Keine Kommentare »

iPhone rockt!

4. Oktober 2009

This one is written using the worpress App from the AppStore.

Now I can Blog from everywhere…

Schlagworte: ,
Veröffentlicht in iPhone | Keine Kommentare »

Gentoo on a Samsung NC10

10. August 2009

Even before my brand new Samsung NC10 entered my appartement, I began to prepare the installation. Since I’m a big Gentoo-Fan and therefore quite familiar with it, I set up chroot-eviroment for my new netbook on my regular PC. I did this, not only to have my Gentoo ready on the day the netbook will come, but also to benefit from the greater cpu-power.

Since I have also Gentoo on my host, the preparation was quite easy. Instead of installing Gentoo using a livecd I simply created a folder form my new system and chrooted to it. Everything else is quite easy and can be done following this guide.

I also like KDE alot. Although people say, that KDE 4.2 might perform slowly on a netbook, I gave it a try. Now I can tell you: It works great (though, I strongly recommend to disable the eye-candy. The intel-chipset can handle it, but the performance is poor and frustrating and after a while KDE automaticly will turn them off. So don’t waste your time…)

So this where my primary design decessions:

  • KDE 4.2
  • Ext4
  • UMTS (via Stick)
  • GRUB
  • FbSplash
  • X-Hotpluging via HAL
  • Hibernating using Tux-On-Ice

This is how it worked out:

Component Works Comment
Graphics YES Needed to change KDE-login screen to fit, 1024×600
Touchpad YES Added custom fdi-policy to /etc/hal/fdi/policy
WLAN YES NM-Applet in KDE 4.2 is crap, did with wpa_supplicant
UMTS YES With third party tool, see
Blootooth NA Haven’t tested yet
Hibernating Yes Needs PM-Utils
Sound Yes Microfon tends to give noisy feedback

For the cflags, I used the brand new native-Flag, which comes with GCC 4.2.3 instead of using core2. Since it is a still a laptop, I also used the useflags minimal and laptop, though you need to enable minimal for at least X. This is the resulting make.conf:


# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically built this stage
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
#LDFLAGS="-Wl,--as-needed"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/gentoo/ http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://ftp.du.se/pub/os/gentoo"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.de.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="-gtk -gnome -gtk2 -esd -ldap -emacs -berkdb -fortran -floppy -dvd -cdrom -dvdr -cdr -eds cairo phonon mtp rss laptop fbcondecor dialup bluetooth mng minimal md5sum oscar fuse lcms suid amazon xulrunner x264 quicktime css bash-completion icu nptl fbsplash bzip2 jpeg2k loop-aes crypt id3tag libnotify xf86-fbsd ppds threads symlink truetype xcb xscreensaver X pdf glitz v4l amarok v4l2 flash history logitech-mouse mjpeg ieee1394 mp4 meanwhile ffmpeg aac dri tiff sysvipc svg spell gnutls wifi gimp dbus arts xcomposite asf nsplugin hal sockets dba xv qt qt4 kde alsa msn lm_sensors nls win32codecs acpi aim audiofile avi cdb cups dga dio divx4linux encode fbcon gphoto2 foomaticdb glx gpm gimpprint imlib innodb java jpeg kdexdelta mime mmx mp3 mpeg opengl png networkmanager posix readline samba sse sse2 ssse3 xine xml xml2 xvid x86 gstreamer unicode usb mad flac a52 dv fame ogg subtitles vorbis"
LINGUAS="de"
CAMERAS="canon ptp2"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
VIDEO_CARDS="intel"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
FEATURES="parallel-fetch ccache"

To improve compilation, on host and netbook, I recommend to use tmpfs on /var/tmp/portage. In my case, it almost saved me a third of the time (Unfortunatelly, I figured that out later).

Simply add this to your fstab (or manually using mount):

tmpfs          /var/tmp/portage/           size=1.5G       0 0

After one day of compilation interrupted by minor errors, everything was done and I waited for the netbook to arrive. When it finally came, I used the UNR (ubuntu netbook remix) to boot from a usb-stick and copied the content of my new Gentoo to the harddrive using one partition for /boot, / and /home. I also wanted to use ext4, since it’s brand new and got quite good comments.

Actually, most things worked out of the box. I had a bit trouble, since I focuesed on the NM-Applet for KDEs Plasma. In short: I’m not happy with it!!! I quit using it. Therefore UMTS didn’t work out as expected. I wasn’t in the mood of doing some scripting using ppp and/or wvdial. Therefore I tried UMTSMon (without success) and I’m now happy with the vodafone-tool. X-Hotpluging works extremly good. I really like it, since you don’t have all that bullshit in your xorg.conf. The microfone is a bit disappointing, since it’s almost useless without boost, but tends to feedback, when you close the lid. Therefore I turned it off for most of the time. Function-Keys for sound work but unfortunatelly not yet for switching off WLAN.

Schlagworte: , , ,
Veröffentlicht in Gentoo | Keine Kommentare »

Simple Linux Backup Solution: rdiff-backup

30. Juni 2009

For quite some time I was looking for a backup solution wich could provide me with the following features:

  • easy and simple setup
  • incremental
  • desaster recovery

For more than 3 years I used to stick arround with a simple tar-script. The advantages are obvious. Extreme simple, more or less reliable and due to compression, rather small. On the other hand, it took me almost 1 hour to save my precious data (not including media files) and it was not incremental. And for the sake of beauty, it wasn’t state of art in any way.

So, after years of not caring to much about this, I made another approach and asked my beloved Gentoo-Forum, wich helped me a lot during the past years of gentooing and linux in general. (Just making some advertisment…)

The to proposals that where not too complex but yet efficient seemed to be dar and rdiff-backup. Dar has the advantage of compressed backup, while rdiff-backup seems to be faster (due to lack of compression for the current state of the system). I went for rdiff-backup…

Both systems can do backup accross your LAN. But in my case, I wanted to use a simple USB-Drive. Both can do that, too. In simple words, this is how rdiff-backup works:

  • it copies files from A to B (simple copy, no compression)
  • if file @ A is different from file @ B, it will increment (old state will be compressed)
  • you can exclude files, filetypes, sockets and so on

There is a little need to do for yourself. If you do not want to execute the command each time manually, you have to write some sort of backup script. You can execetute this manually or using cron. I’m also thinking about using my Maxtor One Touch’s Button, but haven’t found anything usefull so far…

The following is my current backup-script, please note, that this is my first bash-script, so there might be better ones around… It will backup all of my data, excluding the folders in rdiff-exclude-list (wich will be provided beneath).

Preperation:Add an entry into your fstab for mounting /mnt/backup. I strongly recommend using the feature of mounting via UUID, since if you attach other usb-devices, sdc might become sdd. Use ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid and pick your device. Snippet from my fstab:

UUID=afe8b9e3-33d9-4d26-881d-b3efe08afaec /mnt/backup ext4 noauto,defaults 0 0

rdiff-backup-script: Can be moved to any cron folder (e.g. /etc/cron.daily)

#!/bin/bash
LOGFILE=/var/log/rdiff-backup.log

echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" >> $LOGFILE;
echo "`date`: starting backup..." >> $LOGFILE;
echo >> $LOGFILE;
if mount /mnt/backup >> $LOGFILE 2>&1 && mount -r /boot >> $LOGFILE 2>&1; then
echo "deleting old backups..." >> $LOGFILE;
echo >> $LOGFILE;
nice rdiff-backup --remove-older-than 20B /mnt/backup/stahleck >> $LOGFILE 2>&1;

echo "backing up..." >> $LOGFILE;
nice rdiff-backup --print-statistics --exclude-globbing-filelist /etc/rdiff-exclude-list --exclude-sockets / /mnt/backup/stahleck >> $LOGFILE 2>&1;
fi

echo "unmounting devices..." >> $LOGFILE;
umount /mnt/backup >> $LOGFILE 2>&1;
umount /boot >> $LOGFILE 2>&1;
echo >> $LOGFILE;
echo "`date`: end of backup" >> $LOGFILE;
echo "-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" >> $LOGFILE;

rdiff-exlude-list: I moved it to /etc/rdiff-exlude-list

/data/exchange
/data/windows
/tmp
/mnt
/sys
/mnt
/media
/proc
/var/tmp
/usr/portage/distfiles
/var/cache
/usr/src

The results will be logged to /var/log/rdiff-backup.

So, that’s it for the moment.

One problem remains. If you restore your system from scratch, don’t forget about the directories you excluded…

Veröffentlicht in Linux | Keine Kommentare »

Migrating Vista and Linux to Fake-Raid0

21. Juni 2009

Starting Situation:

  • Motherboard: GA-965P-DQ6: ICH8R-Software-Raid-Chip
  • Linux and Vista on two local harddrives

Goals:

  • Move Linux and Vista to Raid0 without reinstall
  • Improve Linux by using ext4

In simple words, I followed this two Howtos:

Additional Information:

  • In order to use seagates discwizard, you need to have at least one seagate drive (mine was usb); if not, go for acronis
  • Haven’t found anything usefull for usage of lilo, therefore i switched to grub
  • gentoo’s livecds can’t handel ext4 yet, therefore i used ubuntu’s

Details may follow

This text is still a draft…

!!! Think twice before doing so!!! — It’s not that consistent as it should be. Run into troubles with HPA I try fixing it for days.

turns out that you should not use ubuntus’s livecd, since they have corrupt dmraid, which messes with your software raid from bios.

Schlagworte: , ,
Veröffentlicht in IT-Allgemein | Keine Kommentare »

Der Netbook Wahnsinn

17. Juni 2009

Ich dachte mal, auf diesen Hype springe ich mal mit auf und besorge mir auch ein Netbook. Bei der Auswahl des zukünftigen Modells habe ich einen Gegenvergleich der Tests von nachstehenden Seiten gemacht:

Soweit so gut. Intensives Interesse schenke ich zur Zeit den nachstehenden Modellen:

  • Asus Eee PC 1000HE
  • Asus Eee PC 1002HA
  • Asus Eee PC S101
  • HP Compaq Mini 730
  • MSI U115 Hybrid Luxury Edition
  • Dell Mini 10

Aber leider muss man ganz klar sagen, eigentlich bin ich mit keinem Angebot zufrieden. Es ist so, als würden die Hersteller abichtlich Mängel einbauen, die nur die Konkurrenz behoben hat, während diese im Gegenzug ein anderes Eingebaut hat. So scheint es gegewärtig unmöglich, ein Netbook mit folgenden Spezifikationen zu bekommen:

  • Prozessor: N280 / Z530
  • Festplatte: SSD >16GB
  • Gehäuse: Alu
  • Display: >1024×600 (non-glossy)
  • Akkulaufzeit: >4 Stunden
  • UMTS

Wenn ich mal von der SSD absehe (sie sprengt wohl den marktypischen Preis eines Netbooks) dann schafft die Hersteller gerade mal 3 Punkte meiner Liste zu erfüllen. Es ist wie die Wahl zwischen Pest und Cholera. Wenn ich zuviel Geld hätte, dann würde es wahrscheinlich das Sony Vaio P in der besten Ausführung werden, dass allerdings mit knapp 1400 € zu Buche schlägt. Aber auch hier haben sich die Entwickler einen Fauxpas erlaubt. Sie verbauten einen Intel Graphic Accelerator 500. Warum???

Wenn ich mich also jetzt und heute entscheiden müsste, dann würde ich mir entweder den Dell Mini 10 (inkl. besseren Akku und Display) oder das Asus 1000HE zulegen. Müsste allerdings auch hier mit Kompromissen leben.

Leider ist der Netbookmarkt auf die Masse der Kunden fixiert, die in abgedunkelten Verkaufsräumen auf die schicken Glossy-Displays hereinfallen und sich dann im Park wundern, warum sie mit ihrem neuen Spielzeug nix anfangen können. Die Strategie der Hersteller ist es wohl, sich auf jedenfall unterhalb der 500€ Grenze zu plazieren, auch wenn es auf Kosten wichtiger Aspekte geht. Schließlich sind Netbooks ja als Zweit- oder Drittgerät gedacht. Dass Geeks wie natürlich auch bereit währen 700€ für eine kompromisslose Lösung auszugeben ist da wohl aufgrund der fehlenden Masse eher unwichtig. Schade eigentlich… Die Technik wäre schon heute verfügbar!

Nachtrag: Nach einem weiteren Tag der Online-Rechereche habe ich mir nun das NC10 von Samsung bestellt. Es ist optisch überzeugend, worauf meine Freundin auch sofort ansprang. Was die Innereien betrifft, so ist die einzige Qual der Wahl, ob man nun UMTS oder Bluetooth haben will. Beides geht leider nicht. Meine Wahl fiel auf Bluetooth, da ich bereits im Besitz eines UMTS-Sticks bin und somit auch die Option hätte, via Handy zu surfen.

Schlagworte: ,
Veröffentlicht in Netbook | Keine Kommentare »

« Ältere Einträge