Ramblings of a Linux Geek.

If you have an Andoid based device and you run XBMC you need to check out the android-xbmcremote project.  I have been using it on my Verizon Droid for a few weeks now and while it is very beta when its done it will be the perfect accompaniment to XBMC.  You will need to change settings on your Android device to allow for apps not in the market.   The developers have said that they will be submitting the app to the marketplace once the app is more mature.

Taken off of the website.

Current Features

General

* Remote control with the look of the Xbox’ DVD Dongle
* Control XBMC’s volume directly with your device’s volume buttons
* Fast access to items in list via hard- or soft keyboard (long-press Menu)
* Manage multiple XBMC instances
* Live view of currently playing playlist
* Notification bar shows what’s playing with direct access to “Now playing” screen (can be disabled)
* Large screen (854×480) support, while maintaining 1.5 compatibility
* On incoming call, display who’s calling on TV screen and pause video until call is over
* On incoming message, display on TV screen
* Setting that prevents your phone locking the screen. You can apply it either for remote control only or all screens (or disable it completely)
* Tabs looking and behaving like HTC’s Sense UI, also check out the Gallery.

Music Library

* Cover art is shown where available
* Now playing screen allows skipping, seeking, stop and pause
* Browse by album, artist, genre
* XBMC’s “Hide artists who appear only on compilations” setting is taken into account when listing artists
* Within a genre, browse by albums, artists and songs
* List all albums and songs of an artist
* Browse compilations only
* Browse files directly
* Sort by album, artist, title, track number etc..
* Play and queue albums, songs, genre selections and much more directly without having to turn on your TV. For instance it’s possible to queue/play all songs from an artist but of a certain genre.
* Primitive listing of current playlist with options to jump to another song or remove a song.

Movie Library

* Browse by title, actors, genre.
* Display all movies of a genre or with an actor.
* Displays movie poster and actor thumbs where available.
* Play trailer from details page where available.

TV Shows Library

* Use the movie library’s file mode for browsing TV shows. A special TV shows library will soon be implemented.

I have not run into a lot of issues while using this app on my phone, there were some issues pulling down all the album art for my music collection but eventually all that synced up.

Ok now that I have you interested follow the link.

http://code.google.com/p/android-xbmcremote/

Note to the Developers:  Love this app keep up the good work!

This is a short review of XBMC 9.11 Beta 1 live CD.  I will admit that I have booted the new live cd on my spare HTPC which is a bit outdated and does not have an Nvidia card that can do VDPAU.  I also only spent a few hours with the beta as it is the first beta and I figure the team is busy polishing the details.   This should be noted this is just a first observation review of a beta version of software!

List of highlights

• Update Nvidia drivers 190.42
  Nvidia’s change log for the driver is located here http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_190.42.html
• New theme, Confluence, which looks very nice
  I really like PM3.HD but after using Confluence for a little bit it is quickly becoming my new favorite.  I am really looking forward to checking out the final version along with some of the other new skins that are out.  Screen shots of the new Confluence skin are located here http://xbmc.org/skins/confluence/
• New boot splash screen
  Just a little more polishing to add to how well rounded XBMC Linux port is getting.
• There are a ton more features too many to list here the ones listed above are what jumped right out at me.
  A full list of new features can be found on the trac page http://xbmc.org/trac/milestone/9.11.

List of annoyances

• Seems to be missing a way of setting default username/password for smb shares
  I am hoping this gets added back in as its a real PITA to enter in username/password over and over again with the remote!

Wish list

• Nice upgrade path from 9.04 to 9.11

So far all I can say to the XBMC team is please bring back default username/password for the smb shares and keep up the amazing work!

This is a follow up to an earlier artical I wrote about installing XBMC on the ASRock 330.  I want to thanks the XBMC team for porting their wonderful application to Linux.   In my opinion it is almost up to par with the xbox version.  Following is a list of issues am currently having with an XBMC Live install on my ASRock 330.

1. HDMI Audio takes a little while before anything is output.  Now I will admit this could be my reciver taking a while to decide what kind of signal is being sent to it.

2. Cannot play 5.1 DTS Audio CD’s over HDMI I get an error saying something like cannot initialize the audio device.  Again I have not looked tons into this and I still have yet to try switching over to Toslink connection.

3. When starting out playing .mkv files sometimes there is a pause of about 5 seconds before the file starts to play.  This is really just an annoyance but would be nice to have some sort of feedback that something is going on.

4. This is not an XBMC issue but is more of an XBMC Live or lircd issue as on reboots sometimes the remote completely stops working.  I have found several people complaining about this issue in the ubuntu bug trac, so I am willing to say this is an lircd issue.

All in all I would like to say XBMC on Linux rocks and just becuase I have this issues doesnt mean you will.  According to the XBMC roadmap 10/25/2009 is the date that version 9.10 drops and I cannot wait for that to happen.

The 330 got her on last week Wednesday, I was a little busy last week so I am just getting around to doing the write up now.  I have some unboxing pictures, setup tips and overall review of the device running XBMC.  I do have to say I love this device!

(more…)

I stumbled across this FUSE module that converts you use to transparently convert your FLAC files to MP3’s. The module does not decode your music and make copies of it, it does however convert the FLAC to MP3 when the files are accessed.

Why I wouldn’t I just encode the files to MP3 in the first place? Well that has been a great point of discussion I have had with lots of my friends and it requires the understanding of lossless vs lossy compression algorithms. I will admit I am a little bit of an audiophile and I like my music to stay in the highest quality and MP3’s just do not do that. A few people out there would argue you cant tell the difference, I would agree when listening to an iPod, but when listening on a high end home audio system there is a huge difference. Flac lets me keep my music on my file server to be played when ever I want at CD quality and now with MP3FS i don’t have to reconvert those files to MP3 to put them on my iPod.

Heres the link if you are interested.
http://mp3fs.sourceforge.net/

Just ordered myself a ASRock Ion 330!!!  I cant wait to get it and have XBMC up and running, of course I will be doing a full write up along with how setup your own.

For now you will have to be satisfied with these links.

ASRock Ion 330 @ Newegg

Nice blog post about the 330

In the process of moving to a new host and possibly picking new blogging software.

• 1 cup cold soy milk
• 1 banana, may have to slice depending on your blender
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• honey to taste

Some recipes say to save a slice of banana and some crushed peanuts for garnish, I do not bother with this as I am just making it for myself.

This isnt my recipie I found it somewhere on the web but I dont know who to give credit to.

I have been pretty busy lately, switched to a new department where I am back doing research.  I have a few things I want to write about and hopefully I will have time to do that this weekend.  I would now but I am off to read more about Django, pretty good book on it here www.djangobook.com

Add the following to vi /etc/inet/ntp.conf

driftfile /etc/ntp.drift
server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 1.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 2.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 3.north-america.pool.ntp.org

Then run following commands

touch /etc/ntp.drift
svcadm enable svc:/network/ntp
svcadm refresh svc:/network/ntp
svcadm restart svc:/network/ntp

To make sure the ntp daemon is started run the following command “svcs | grep ntp” if the service is running you should see something like the output below.

online 20:42:57 svc:/network/ntp:default

Also the output of “ntpq -pn” will show what time server you are using by the * next to it.

bash-3.2# ntpq -pn
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset disp
=========================================================
+216.237.126.10 132.239.1.6 2 u 10 128 377 61.31 -0.120 1.08
*217.160.254.116 209.51.161.238 2 u 78 128 377 61.33 0.359 0.50
-217.160.252.91 64.142.103.194 2 u 90 512 377 62.55 8.937 1.10
+207.5.137.134 192.168.1.114 3 u 71 128 377 75.55 4.623 0.12

Link to the ntp pool group http://www.pool.ntp.org/