Ubuntu + Card reader + iboot

[Gone_Fishing]

Just in case anyone is interested I installed ubuntu and seem to have no problem in backing up iboot and images etc

Tried deleting one then putting it back just by drag and drop and seemed to work fine

I've backed up a clean iboot install and iboot plus images and just images with emus settings installed, just need to get
another card to see if I can clone it and make sure permissions are still the same

Using Akasa AK-CR-01-BK card reader highly recommend this reader ;)


TNT

[sonic1]

Thanks for the info TNT:D

[echelon]

hmmm , never had the bottle to try linux os`s ( or the new vista either ) :)

what version of ubuntu was it ?

is it easy to install or do you need special drivers etc ?

thanks

[Gone_Fishing]

Its easier than any windows to install only driver I had to install was graphics driver because my monitor is 85hz, every thing else just works including network

I installed Ubuntu 7.04 onto another hard drive so I'm now dual booting XP and ubuntu but from different drives

You can do it that way and instruct grub (boot menu) to install onto the MBR on that drive leaving XP untouched

Theres a guide here

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing

The ubuntu forum has pretty much everything covered

Going to try and install beryl next lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPtpWZQkax4


TNT

[zad]

sorry ot but how do you uninstall ubuntu! i have this on all of machines dual booting with xp pro.
i no longer need ubuntu on one of the pcs and wish to remove it and make the partitioned drive all one again without the extended section (ie 1 partition all ntfs for windows)

do i have to totally format the dire and remove partitions using the windows xp installer or is there an easier way?

i tried doing this a little while back using partition magic under xp, i formatted the ext3 partition and the swap file partition too and then joined them all together, all seemed to go well until reboot when i got a screen stating that something could not be found, all i could do at this point was re-install windows from cd

[Zurawski]

Boot from the XP installation CD, select repair, and once at the prompt, type: FIXBOOT then restart your comp. If that didn't work try again but type: FIXMBR this time.

[Gone_Fishing]

@zad

Yes do what Zurawski said or just google fix MBR

Thats why its best to use two drives and keep Grub off the windows MBR


TNT

[echelon]

whenever I use more than one drive with multiboot , I always do the following

insert hard drive A and install windows of whichever os I am using , as normal

when finished , remove hard drive A and insert hard drive B

now install the os of your choice to hard drive B

when finished , remove hard drive B and insert hard drive C

install hard drive C , remove , keep going until no more hard drives left or no more drive letters ;)


this means you have separate bootable drives with os,s on each boot partition


now select the drive you want to boot from in the motherboard bios , save and reboot

this means each drive is separate and independent of each other , and uses the mobo bios boot order to boot , and not any boot menus or tools

[Gone_Fishing]

Yeah you can do it that way even easier if your bios have a drive boot selection screen at startup,
you can also do it that way and still add them to grub which is kind of what I did

If they are already installed grub just adds them automatically


TNT

[zad]

cheers guys!

[echelon]

just downloaded ubuntu v7.04 and installed it onto a spare 20 gig hard drive in a compaq evo d500

it seems to boot up ok and the graphics and sound seem ok

also checked the cd reader and that works ok , as does the floppy drive

then I plugged in my 1 gig usb memory stick into a usb socket and that was seen ok too

then tried a 23 in 1 usb2 card reader and that was also seen ok

not tried networking yet but I havent seen any problems and not needed any drivers yet , so looking good so far ,

so thanks for the heads up as it was interesting and may help now that we have a linux receiver , as you say it may help cloning the sd or mmc cards etc

I probably would not have tried it if you hadnt posted , and I have some small hard drives floating about in the garage that may come in handy for this

will now check if I need a virus killer and firewall etc before trying a net conection ;)

[Gone_Fishing]

Reading ubuntu forums hardly anybody uses antivirus or firewalls with linux !

If your graphics card is working fine then you should be able to use Compiz to get the 3d destops etc its already installed on 7.04


https://help.ubuntu.com/7.04/desktop-effects/C/

Just one thing you need to know if you want to do anything with your memory card you need to have root access
otherwise it will tell you that you don't have permission as your not the owner, that includes when they are on your PC HDD

So you need to run Terminal and type gksudo nautilus then your be able to do what you want ;)


TNT

[zad]

dont think there is any need for antivirus under linux as most viruses are windows based and will not do anything even if you get infected under linux.

im running the linux ultimate edition that has autmix (think thats how you spell it) this allows you to download a host of software including firewalls

[Gone_Fishing]

7.04 has add/remove programs which is like automatix plus you can install most things from repositories


TNT

[Gone_Fishing]

Just thought I would post an update just to say using a linux OS to backup and restore images works pretty well for me its
got me out of trouble a few times now when I've got a corrupt image from testing skins and plugins :)

Found its best to install your image, settings and emu then back it up before you run anything
otherwise you run into problems with symlink etc

All I can say is its much easier to click delete and then drag and drop your image to restore it
instead of using iboot again and then manually installing everything


TNT

[gretchen]

using Ubuntu since few months and it is really a nice operating system. Mail, Skype and other programs works perfectly. One nice programs I can recommend is Synergy which enable you to share a mouse and a keyboard between pc's on the same network. Synergy have a " server" and client versions for both Linux and Windows, so you can share the mouse and keyboard between a Linux and a Win pc's.
VLC works also great and the video streaming from the Dreambox is even better than the Win version ( at least to my taste).

The one thing I didn't succeded until now is to make my sat Hauppauge Nova S card to work in Ubuntu , this is the only reason I am still using Windows..

[Gone_Fishing]

I found the same with streaming and VLC stream starts a lot quicker :)


TNT

[echelon]

been struggling all day for what seemed a simple task ( cloning an sd card ) , something that would take me a couple of minutes in windows !! ;)

anyway , been using the terminal tool and adding that command and using that window , but then it says that only root is the owner , so getting these files to be freely shared and permission to copy and paste was a nightmare , and delting stuff wast simple as explorer as it stayed in a deleted folder I couldnt see and wasnt in the trashcan so the sd card appeared full when it wasnt ( couldnt empty the trash )

also couldnt find an easy way to format the sd card in ubuntu so did it oon the pc using telnet commands with the sd card in the tm9100

so I eventually formatted the card using telnet on the pc , then copied the backups from the hdd with ubuntu on it onto the newly formatted sd card , booted it and it worked

I also bought a new usb2 wireless g adapter but cant find linux drivers for it so still no net access either

now I am the first to admit I dont know ubuntu or linux but there must be easier ways and tools to format and clone these cards


so yes it is a great idea but I found it hard and I am sure linux users would know all the easy steps to take , but I certainly dont

but it would be great once we knew our way around ubuntu and also if there were easy tools to format the cards in ext3 , and easy ways to clone the cards using copy and paste without worrying about owners permissions and rights etc

anyway , its still a good idea but not for newbies like me :)

looks like we may need a guide for this similar to the ones we have for the tm9100

[Gone_Fishing]

Hopefully I can help with a few of those

First in terminal type "gksudo nautilus" and it should ask for your password then
pop up a file browser so now you have root access

On the left click "File System" then select the "media" folder in there should be your MMC if its inserted, click on that and your be in your memory card with root
access

Now still using that file browser click File in the menu and select "open new window" now you have two file browser windows open with root access,
locate where you want to put the files using that new window, you should then be able to just drag them off your memory card in one window
straight into the other window without any access problems because both have root access

It sounds like to delete stuff you have used the "move to the deleted items folder" on right click you don't want to use that, instead when you use the
gksudo nautilus and the window opens click on Edit > Preferences then click the behaviour tab, at the bottom your see deleted items,
check the box "include a delete command that bypasses deleted items folder" that will give you delete on right click, its a hard
delete so be sure you want it deleted

To formate your card go to Applications > add/remove select System Tools on the left and then find "Gnome Partition Editor" in the list select it click apply and
let it install

Your find it once installed at System > Administration it should be top of the list

When you run that program you select the drive/MMC from the drop down box top right then you can just right click on them and format to anything you want


TNT

[echelon]

thanks m8

you are right in your assumptions there and I will copy , paste and test the above text as it sounds right in what I was trying to do when I was in root access mode :)

[Gone_Fishing]

M8 I faced exactly the same problems as you thats the only reason I know :rolleyes:

GParted will make formating your card or anything for that matter easy :)


TNT

[echelon]

the part editor needs internet access in order to install , and I cannot get the usb wifi working so at the moment that part is not going to happen unless I can add ethernets together to get to my router hub

so this may well apply to other program installations too

[goodolddad]

@echelon, try this site for drivers may have what you need.
_h**p://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Gone_Fishing]

You can install things manually tar.gz but I've not done this yet as most things can be downloaded using the repositories

I'm using ethernet that just worked with no help from me so cant help with wi fi

Gnome Partition Editor (GParted) is on the live CD as standard so you could probably use it from there

You can probably do most of this from the live cd but I didn't
see much point as you need a drive with ext3 on anyway to back up the mmc


TNT

[echelon]

thanks

I downloaded those wifi usb drivers but couldnt work out what to do with them and the help files included were gobbledegook

so I have run 2 combined ethernet cables to the router and added it directly so its now installed

[Gone_Fishing]

Should be easy from here on then lol :D

You can install VLC now does seem to stream better from linux

Its only two command lines in terminal and its done info is on the VLC site


TNT

[goodolddad]

gobbledegook

Thats Linux for you, try wearing an anorak:D while you are using it:D

[zad]

its a bit late to tell you i know but there is software for linux to alow you to use windows drivers for usb wifi in linux!

but wires are faster anyways!

[echelon]

tried installing vlc and found it a nightmare as I am not familiar with linux , repositories etc

I got some sort of password failure with the command line

tried the gui to install it and think I got it in but have no idea how to stream to it or how to set it as a default player to accept the stream , and I cannot even find the program on the drive although I know its there somewhere

as for linux software to run xp drivers , you have to realise that until I saw this thread I had never tried linux but have use amigados , amiga software , ms dos , windows 3.1 through to win-xp ( but never used vista ) and yet I still find this ubuntu a struggle

luckily TNT has also struggled and with his help I have managed to clone the sd card by saving it into folders in ubuntu using the gksudo login , then drag and drop onto a newly formatted 1 gig sd card from a second window using his explanations above

I did find I couldnt remount the sd card after formatting , so unplugged and plugged back in again for auto recognition

so whilst most of it is still geekspeak , I can say that his idea works and keeps everything in ext3 format

as for the tm9100 , I have no doubt that keeping the standard firmware on the box and using these cards instead , and using drag and drop onto the cards , file or folder deletion etc is a useful way to keep the box working with causing flash problems etc

so 10 out of 10 for the idea , but linux is hard to grasp as it seems to be made by geeks for geeks


ps:- it also looks like you may have to change the ownership of the files to no-owner or else it seems to give problems

[Gone_Fishing]

I said in another post you might get problems with owner permissions etc but I have not cloned a card yet

What I have done is delete images on MMC when they've become corrupt and then drag and drop the copy I made
with just emu and settings and have had no problems so far

Linux does get easier once you get familiar with it but does require some reading, I nearly threw my PC out the window installing beryl :eek:

My fault for saying install vlc the command way I remember I used the repository graphical way oopps ! shouldn't post
when I'm tired :rolleyes:

You can find VLC under Applications > Sound and Video, to stream its the same as windows just start it from firefox
using the web interface


TNT

[zad]

silly question but does anyone know where the sat setting information is stored on the mmc.

its a pain to do a full scan every time i put a new image on the card.

so what im saying is what are the files and is it as simple as copy and paste?

[echelon]

I had a small hard drive on yesterday and cloned the card after setting the permissions as best as I could find , and that card works ok so cloning is possible

changed the hard drive to a 20 gig for more space and been setting things up on it as best I can remember

formatted an sd card in ext3 , and dragged and dropped the files onto it using 2 windows as you said , all seemed ok

but it locks up the receiver if you try to update the keys and tells me there is no space either before the lockup which card 2 doesnt do , so I have a problem with cloned sd card 3 ( all identical cards )

card 2 was formatted in the tm9100 using telnet from the pc

its a shame we cannot save files onto the pc on say an ext3 partiton using ftp , then just use the tm9100 or a card reader and standard windows tools

as for vlc , I can get it running from the menu or the desktop , but if I start the enigma interface then I get a window on the screen asking if I want to use the default player or another , so I assumed another = vlc but couldnt find out how to make it use vlc , and as there is too much going on to take this in I left that part as it sidetracks me from the main issue of cloning the cards ( as does the wifi issue etc )

I am sure ppl will crack it eventually and we may have the instructions to make it easier too , but at the moment its like struggling with an unfamiliar car

ie:- I have been driving manual petrol cars a long time but would struggle with say an automatic diesel car as I have never driven one before

and whilst learning to drive the new car I would have to avoid crashing it etc too

[echelon]

silly question but does anyone know where the sat setting information is stored on the mmc.

its a pain to do a full scan every time i put a new image on the card.

so what im saying is what are the files and is it as simple as copy and paste?


if you use dreamboxedit and save a channel list , you normally just load it into the newly booted image and dreamboxedit knows where everything goes

just boot each image and load it in

[Gone_Fishing]

@zad

Yes do as echelon said, if you want to know where channels settings go they are in

/var/tuxbox/config/enigma/

satellite.xml

/share/tuxbox/

@echelon

Think its going to be a case of trial and error :)

When I backed mine up I saved a new iboot install with no images, a iboot with images and images on there own with
settings emu and keys installed its the later thats working well for me

I've got a 32mb memory stick somewhere so might give the cloning a try at some point

VLC you will find in USR/BIN thats where binaries (programs) go a bit like emus on the 9100 so just locate vlc in there when firefox asks

There are a number of ways to access ext2/3 partitions form XP I didn't try this as thought you may get more problems with permissions etc but who knows

One way is using a system driver


http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/ext2ifs.htm

Edit forget that its a read only driver I'm sure theres a read/write method I read somewhere


TNT