Posts

Showing posts from May, 2008

Command line to watch TV in Fedora

mplayer \ -framedrop \ -ao alsa:device=hw=1 \ -autosync 1 \ tv://7 \ -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:chanlist=newzealand :norm=1:alsa:adevice=hw.2:audiorate=32000:amode=1:\ forceaudio:immediatemode=0:tdevice=/dev/vbi0:\outfmt=yuy2:\ channels=2-TV1,4-TV2,7-TV3,9-C4,41-Maori,57-Juice,59-Prime,62-Chinese \ -nolirc \ -aspect 1440:900 Mplayer with the following command options set: -framedrop => hard framedropping -ao:alsa:device=hw.1 => Sound output ( what you hear ) alsa card number 1. To be clear: THIS IS THE SOUND OUTPUT - not the INPUT from the TV card. That comes later. -autosync 1 => Something to do with trying to get sound and video in sync. Works in small increments... ? tv://7 => Play channel 7 tv: => Followed by all the sub options for tv :driver=v4l2 => the Video 4 Linux driver v2 :device=/dev/video => the video device as enumerated by the kernel :chanlist=newzealand => specify New Zealand channels. This is how the tuner gets tuned. :norm=1 => P

Fedora 9 x86_64 Install Notes

I have now installed Fedora 9 x86_64 on my home pc. The RAM issue has been largely solved. I am still missing 64Mb of RAM due to some kind of setting that my motherboard does not support. So I did a pretty big install. Well at first it was a small one, but then in the end, I went for a more full install from the DVD. The new package manager is not all that great so I thought it would be better to have a fuller install from the DVD. Everything seems to work just fine except for NVIDIA graphics driver and FLASH in firefox 3. The first issue will just have to wait till it gets fixed. Its related to the NVIDIA drivers that are available not being properly supported by XOrg 7. The flash-in-firefox-3 issue can be easily fixed by installing the i386 version of firefox instead. I also had some trouble getting my head around the NetworkManager. Once I had it going it was ok. I turned off SELINUX. Too hard to have a home system and worry about such fine grained security. I have decided to us the

4 Gigabytes of RAM

I know - its an obscene number - but there it is. I now have 4 Gb Ram installed in my computer. Its the most the motherboard can handle but seeing as though it's mother's day - I thought I would treat her... :) Here is what happened: The bios had no problems finding and providing the ram. My Fedora kernel ( i386 => 32 bit ) could only see 3 Gb. I installed the PAE variant of the kernel and that enabled all 4 Gb in Fedora. Had to switch from Freshrpms to Livna because Livna has more support for different kernels. I use livna for the NVidia and KQemu drivers. ( KQemu is what provides hardware acceleration for my virtual machines. ) NVidia module for the PAE kernel installed fine and works fine. KQemu module for the PAE kernel installed and loaded fine, but the Guest machines just crash. So I did lots of research and found out that 32bit OS's simply don't have a lot of support for more than about 3Gb Ram. The only solution to that was to install the PAE kernel. Th

The History of computers.

The History of computers. This is a very interesting read. We have come a long way. http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/History.htm

1 Million Random Digits

Can anything be truly random. Definitions vary. One I have heard states that something is random if it is impossible to understand how the number was produced / derived. This definition introduces context and level-of-understanding. The debate continues... Look here for another slant on this fascinating topic: http://wps.com/projects/million/