Monthly Archives: December 2014

mythtv tweaks dec 2014

1.
mythlounge with ubuntu 14.04 shows xfce4-panel (menu bar) in top:

panel properties:
choose: ‘Automatically Show and Hide the panel’ and ‘ Don’t reserve space on borders’

2.
Shutdown and reboot commands no longer work in mythtv. Edit sudoer’s list

sudo visudo to edit the file:

user_name ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/poweroff, /sbin/reboot, /sbin/shutdown

See also http://askubuntu.com/questions/168879/shutdown-from-terminal-without-entering-password

Above makes reboot, but not shutdown work?

Adding ‘sudo poweroff’ to custom halt command in mythtv—>setup—>general sorts this.

Tip:
have a look at frontend logs whilst using:

tail -f /var/log/mythtv/mythfrontend.log

3.
x11vnc not working from startup:

4.
dvd drive not working within mythtv:

in frontend playback settings specify location of dvd drive:
/dev/sr0

5.
Get Airplay working:
probably gonna need to have mythboxes and wifi on same subnet for this.

6. Fine tuning of mythsunroom:

nvidia overscan settings=50
mythfrontend gui doesn’t resize: adjust pixels of gui in settings: appearance to 1831×1031

x11vnc from startup:
http://robot.wpi.edu/wiki/index.php/Setting_up_an_XUbuntu_VNC_Server#Automatically_start_the_server

mythserver rebuild dec 2014 – Completed!

Purpose: try to get new mythserver done by Christmas!

Current issues with present server:
live tv has to be ‘recorded’ not to crash
mythweb not working
mythbackend flaky and not autostarting
grub issue – only boots on hot reboot

Installed mythbunutu 14.04 64bit on 160gb drive; something about the ISOs now means that some m’board BIOS won’t boot form the disks. Using pendrive instead. mythserver boots fine from it.

recordings (etc) live at: /var/lib/mythtv/ on their own separate 1tb drive.

Using rsync to copy recordings from old var to new one (temp mounted on old machine):

sudo rsync -a –progress /var/lib/mythtv/recordings/*  /media/a0907e07-74fe-4bdb-b2b3-c6bf2ae58ab1/lib/mythtv/recordings/

backup mythtv using:

markp@mythserver:~$ sudo /usr/share/mythtv/mythconverg_backup.pl –verbose

this creates a sql backup file in /home/mythtv
 copy it to the temp /var (on the new system db_backups is by default the place for the backups)

the following is supposed to change the location of the backup. can’t see how it works.

echo "DBBackupDirectory=/home/mythtv" > /var/lib/mythtv/db_backups

copy the backups to what will be the new /var:

sudo rsync -a –progress /home/mythtv/*.gz /media/a0907e07-74fe-4bdb-b2b3-c6bf2ae58ab1/lib/mythtv/db_backups/

New server – tweaks and issues:

After installing the proprietary TBS drivers (not the new Opensource ones) the Hauppage cards are not seen.

The ‘make’ has probably caused an issue with the existingdrivers. The TBS forum advises: “You’ve got some old modules mixed in with the new ones”.

sudo mv /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media ~/media.bak

cd to where I unpacked the TBS drivers ( /home/markp/Downloads/tbsdrivers/linux-tbs-drivers/ )and remake:

sudo make install
sudo reboot

Trying to restore:
markp@mythserver:/usr/share/mythtv$ sudo ./mythconverg_restore.pl –verbose

--drop_database --create_database --directory /var/lib/mythtv/db_backups --filename mythconverg-1317-20141215131639.sql.gz

don’t know why when I used the backup regime the ./ wasn’t needed, restore needs it? Yes.

Remote Frontends can’t connect:
Edit /etc/mysql/conf.d/mythtv.cnf
remove the hash from the “bind-address 0.0.0.0” line

Now working.

Backend runs out of disk space after a few days. Probably an issue with permissions in /var/lib/mythtv/ as previous mythbackend had to run as root.

chown to mythtv:mythtv and chmod to 666 in both recordings and livetv folders. probably everything in here should be owned by mythtv.

John Deere Model A spluttering

Note about the throttle linkage to the govenor: The linkage needs to be “1/2 a hole short”, i.e. when the throttle is wide open, engine stopped, take the linkage out of the arm on the carb. The gov. spring should pull the linkage 1/2 of the hole dia. past the point where it will go in. There are no springs inside the gov. housing, about all that can happen in there is a thrown weight or the sleeve stuck from sitting.

from here:
http://www.smokstak.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22799