Well, I have tried 3.3.1, and – despite applying 2 patches – the DVB-S2 card (HVR4000) still doesn’t work reliably. I was going to try 3.4-rc2, but it seems there are ‘issues’ with this, according to LKML (the Linux Kernel Mailing List), and it can best be classified as ‘unstable’ at present.. So – I have reverted … Continue reading →
I had been using an old Hauppauge HVR4000 PCI card for watching and recording UK digital satellite (DVB-S2) ‘Freesat‘ programmes, but now needed something more ‘portable’ – that I could use with my HP6830 laptop as well.. I had also run out of PCI slots in my main Linux/Intel system.. I should mention that DVB-T (‘Freeview‘) broadcasts … Continue reading →
After successfully installing the Adaptec SCSI 320 card (and running out of PCI-E slots..) and connecting the ‘new’ HP LTO-3 tape drive, I have been enjoying the deja-vu feeling of using SCSI again, after many years… I remember the pre-USB and pre-Firewire days, when CD-drives and scanners (and expensive disks) were all connected using SCSI… Printers – … Continue reading →
Tried to join the Element14 ‘Programming-the-Pi’ Webinar this afternoon (April 4th), but although the java app started OK, all I saw was an ‘info’ window, and myself showing as the sole attendee! Tried with Firefox and then Chrome, but no joy… Maybe the Cisco Webex stuff they are using doesn’t work with Linux? (Oh, the irony…) (”Webinar” … Continue reading →
Kernel 3.4rc1 is out, and appears to be the new ‘mainline’ version, according to the website at www.kernel.org.. 3.3 is not even mentioned, any more..! I just updated two of my systems (x86_64) to 3.4rc1, and everything seemed to be working just fine (see Update below..).. There are already fixes available for VMware and NVIDIA to work … Continue reading →
Shades of the late-’90s and early-’00s again… I decided I needed a reliable and practical backup for my systems, and having an array of n-TB disks seemed complete overkill (and _expensive_).. So, I’m getting a reasonably-priced HP Ultrium 960 LTO-3 external drive, which is relatively expensive (£450), but the tapes (400GB / 800GB ‘compressed’) are not – … Continue reading →
I have been having continuing problems with yum ‘hanging’ on my Dreamplug – through several different versions of Fedora, and numerous kernel updates (currently FC17 and Kernel 3.3..) The Fedora rootfs image did not include any swap, so – after some digging around – I decided to add a ./SWAP file, and activate it… The results (so … Continue reading →
There still seems to be a persistent bug with the latest FC16 and FC17 versions of the bash rpm, which causes ftp logins to fail after you attempt to put in the password. The cause is that vital data is erased from the /etc/shells file, during the rpm update. The file should contain: /sbin/nologin /bin/dash /bin/bash /bin/sh … Continue reading →
The Raspberry Pi boot sequence is somewhat unique, due – amongst other things – to the binary code blobs necessary to drive the Broadcom CPU/GPU at boot time. The FAT32 boot partition looks like this: The three binary files arm<nnn>_start.elf provide varying allocations of the processor for CPU (compute) versus GPU (video) work. This effectively means that … Continue reading →
If you are in the habit of compiling your own kernel, don’t forget to stay up-to-date with the latest necessities! ACL used to be one of those ..’don’t select unless you know what you are doing’… options, but now is an absolute necessity for ‘newer’ versions of Fedora.. So.. don’t forget to select the tmpfs / POSIX … Continue reading →