Posted by
Eric – January 1, 2010
Happy New Year! Let’s hope 2010 sucks less than 2009 did.
Archos 5
I said last week I would be posting an mp3 of that week’s sermon if I could get my Archos 5 device working correctly. The result surpassed my best expectations of what I thought the FM radio accessory was capable of. The microphone is so good that it was able to pick up Pastor Latham’s preaching even though he walked several feet away from the pulpit. The only fault in the recording was when the pastor stood directly behind the pulpit with the mic turned up too hot. In parts, at the beginning and the end there is a lot of distortion.
Posted by
Eric – October 29, 2008
No doubt your wondering what to do about blocking packages in Gentoo. The latest example involves a new package called sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs. It seems e2fsprogs-libs now includes functionality that was performed by sys-libs/ss, sys-libs/com_err, and sys-fs/e2fsprogs. The solution is to unmerge sys-libs/ss, sys-libs/com_err, and sys-fs/e2fsprogs then update like normal.
ebrake@scanner ~ $ emerge -pvuDN world
These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
Calculating world dependencies... done!
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/findutils-4.4.0 [4.3.13] USE="nls (-selinux) -static" 1,983 kB
[ebuild U ] sys-fs/e2fsprogs-1.41.2 [1.40.9] USE="nls (-static%)" 4,263 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs-1.41.2 USE="nls" 479 kB
[ebuild U ] net-fs/nfs-utils-1.1.3 [1.1.0-r1] USE="tcpd -kerberos -nonfsv4" 793 kB
[blocks B ] sys-libs/ss (is blocking sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs-1.41.2)
[blocks B ] <sys-fs/e2fsprogs-1.41 (is blocking sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs-1.41.2)
[blocks B ] sys-libs/com_err (is blocking sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs-1.41.2)
[blocks B ] sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs (is blocking sys-libs/ss-1.40.9, sys-libs/com_err-1.40.9)
Total: 4 packages (3 upgrades, 1 new, 4 blocks), Size of downloads: 7,516 kB
The next time you update =sys-fs/e2fsprogs-1.41.2 and sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs will be installed.
Posted by
Eric – October 25, 2008
Previously, my hard core Linux kernel news has come from free sources like kerneltrap and kernelnewbies. When I started tracking the development kernel releases. I wanted more information about the changes coming and what it meant for my hardware. When kerneltrap is writing regular updates he provides pretty good information. kernelnewbies is another good source for functional changes to the kernel. The human readable changelog is a good look at the kernel in broad strokes. The diff -u section in the LinuxJournal is another broad overview with some discussion of kernel politics thrown in. The disadvantage in reading free sources, blogs is that the author often posts in spurts then goes to sleep again. That’s the nature of blogging. The BrakeBlog was dead for several months before I revived it again.
On the spur of the moment I bought a subscription to lwn.net. I think I’m going to be very happy with it. Reading through this week’s LWN I was pleased with the twenty bucks I spent. I was so inspired that I went to work creating a LWN badge to display on my website. 
Go steal it for your own use I don’t care. If you make a better one let me know.
Posted by
Eric – October 13, 2008
One of my goals for running a dedicated home server was for backup purposes. I already have a Simpleshare NAS that works OK but if it fails my data is still lost. Unlike previous computers, the Shuttle PC K4500 is so quiet that I can run it 24/7. From the Shuttle PC, I can mount the Simpleshare and rsync changes across.
#!/bin/bash
/bin/mount /mnt/nfsbackup
/usr/bin/rsync -a --numeric-ids /mnt/nfsbackup/ /home/backup/bkup.0/
/bin/umount /mnt/nfsbackup
The –numeric-ids option is handy because the UID/GIDs are different between the server and my laptop. I looked at different methods of doing backups. What I decided was to rsync new files to the Shuttle PC but not to delete anything. I’ll decide how I want to “prune” deleted files later. Rsync runs every six hours and now I have everything mirrored. The next step in centralizing my data is to setup icecast and stream all my music from the server. I archive all my music in FLAC already. Once I start streaming I’ll be able to remove my MP3s from the laptop.
Posted by
Eric – October 12, 2008
The Shuttle PC K4500 had a lot of unfamiliar hardware on it when I first bought it. The most critical part being the SATA drivers.
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)
The pertinent option in menuconfig was to enable “Intel ESB, ICH, PIIX3, PIIX4 PATA/SATA Support” in the SATA drivers section. Important! In order for the kernel to boot, this driver must be built in or you won’t be able to mount your filesystems.
Networking is another critical component since I do nearly all of my work over SSH.
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
The driver is called sky2. The entry in menuconfig is “SysKonnect Yukon2 support”. You have the choice to either build the driver in or modularize it. I should say that when I’m building a new config I execute “make defconfig” to create a base config that I edit later. So there might be other critical options that I don’t mention because they are enabled by default in defconfig.
Posted by
Eric – October 2, 2008
I’m not the only one with no luck handling hardware. Even Gentoo developers don’t like working with hardware.
Oh, how the hardware hates me. My poor Gentoo development box and primary desktop workstation has been suffering a long string of random lockups lately.[...]
Today I cleaned out the machine, getting rid of a fair amount of dust. I had to remove the graphics card to get at its cooling fins, and ever since reinstalling it and rebooting, there are minor graphical glitches covering the screen at bootup, at least until the initrd is loaded. Everything’s fine once fbsplash and X kick in. Maybe I shoulda wiped off the PCIe contacts or something?
Though Josh Saddler seems to be having the opposite problem. His video clears up when graphics load but mine got worse after the splash image loaded.
Posted by
Eric – September 27, 2008
Moving right along, I installed lm_sensors and put the effort in to correct the readings I was getting. I wrote down the readings from my BIOS and matched up those with identical readings from lm_sensors. Then I stole the equations from the it8716 section of sensors.conf. In the end, I only have one sensor which is unlabeled. It is probably -5v but the equation from it8716 doesn’t figure to be close to -5v so it must be disconnected.
Contents of /etc/sensors.conf
chip “it8718-isa-*”
label in0 “DDR2″
label in1 “-12v”
label in2 “+3.3v”
label in3 “+12v”
label in4 “+5 VSB”
label in5 “Chipset”
label in6 “CPU”
label in8 “MB Batt”
label fan1 “CPU Fan”
label temp1 “Case Temp”
label temp2 “CPU Temp”
label vid “CPU volt”
compute in1 (1+232/56)*@ – 4.096*232/56 , (@ + 4.096*232/56)/(1+232/56)
compute in3 ((30/10)+1)*@ , @/((30/10)+1)
compute in4 ((6.8/10)+1)*@ , @/((6.8/10)+1)
set in0_min 1.8 * 0.95
set in0_max 1.8 * 1.05
set in1_max -12 * 0.95
set in1_min -12 * 1.05
set in2_min 3.3 * 0.95
set in2_max 3.3 * 1.05
set in3_min 12 * 0.95
set in3_max 12 * 1.05
set in4_min 5 * 0.95
set in4_max 5 * 1.05
set in5_min 1.5 * 0.95
set in5_max 1.5 * 1.05
set in6_min 1.2 * 0.95
set in6_max 1.2 * 1.05
set temp1_low 40
set temp1_over 70
set temp2_low 40
set temp2_over 70
set fan1_min 1400
ignore fan2
ignore fan3
ignore temp3
ignore in7
Output of “sensors”
ebrake@scanner ~ $ sensors
it8718-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
DDR2: +1.82 V (min = +1.71 V, max = +1.89 V)
-12v: -12.03 V (min = -12.61 V, max = -11.37 V)
+3.3v: +3.28 V (min = +3.14 V, max = +3.47 V)
+12v: +11.84 V (min = +11.39 V, max = +12.61 V)
+5 VSB: +5.16 V (min = +4.76 V, max = +5.24 V)
Chipset: +1.52 V (min = +1.42 V, max = +1.57 V)
CPU: +1.25 V (min = +1.14 V, max = +1.26 V)
MB Batt: +3.26 V
CPU Fan: 1638 RPM (min = 1400 RPM)
Case Temp: +57 C (low = +40 C, high = +70 C) sensor = thermistor
CPU Temp: +52 C (low = +40 C, high = +70 C) sensor = diode
CPU volt: +2.050 V
Just for fun here is the SMBus version from lspci
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
Posted by
Eric – September 26, 2008
The Shuttle PC arrived today! At this moment, I’m doing the Gentoo install. The first issue I had to figure out was the exact sequence to make the machine boot from my usb key. Pressing Escape during post brings up a screen to change the first boot device.
LS120
Hard Disk
CD-ROM
ZIP100
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP
USB-CDROM
LAN
None these options worked, however. The correct option was found buried deeper in the BIOS options.
- Boot the Shuttle PC with the thumb drive plugged in and press delete during POST to enter setup.
- Select Integrated Peripherals
- Select USB Device Setting
- Under the “USB Mass Storage Device Boot Setting” section there will be an entry for the USB thumb drive.
For my thumb drive I had three choices “auto”, “FDD only”, and “HDD only”. Choosing “HDD only” causes my thumb drive to show up as a standard hard disk in my boot options.
