Category: My Hardware

Troubleshooting: Playing DRM Videos from Amazon

digitaleagle Amazon Instant Video, Firefox, My Acer Media Laptop, Uncategorized, Video Leave a comment

This is the second time this has happened.  I keep getting:

Sorry we were unable to stream this video.  This is likely because your flash player could not be updated.

I had just reinstalled my media laptop with Linux Lite OS (a flavor of Ubuntu), and I was trying to watch a video from Amazon.  It was one of the Prime Instant Videos.

To fix the issue, I followed McDougall’s instructions.  Basically, it was just installing the “hal” package and deleting the .adobe and .macromedia settings directories:

sudo apt-get install hal
rm -r ~/.adobe ~/.macromedia

Finally, I rebooted and retried.  It all worked fine after that.

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Ubuntu 12.10 and Discrete Video Card

digitaleagle My Inspiron 17R, Uncategorized, XWindows Leave a comment

One of the main driver things that I have to install is the video card.  My laptop has a discrete video card.  Without installing the driver, the graphics seem to work pretty well, but with the driver, I get a very noticeable improvement in power consumption.  After installing the driver, the battery lasts significantly longer.  Also, glxspheres does a nice job of showing the graphics performance difference with and without the acceleration.

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Sound for Inspiron 17R

digitaleagle My Inspiron 17R, sound, Uncategorized 5 Comments

alfC got me into researching how to get the SubWoofer working on my laptop.  I didn’t buy my laptop for high quality sound (as long as Skype works for teleconferencing with co-workers, I’m good), so I didn’t even notice that it wasn’t working.  So, here’s my research…

The Problem

On Ask Ubuntu, the question was asked: How to activate subwoofer in Inspiron 17r?

Here’s the issue.  The subwoofer control is disabled:

The sound works fine to me.  The subwoofer is just a bonus feature, at least in my opinion.  Still, it would be cool to get it to work.

About My Soundcard

I found my driver was snd-hda-intel:


skp@chestnut:~$ lsmod | grep -i snd_hda_intel
snd_hda_intel 33491 3
snd_hda_codec 134212 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm 96580 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd 78734 16 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
snd_page_alloc 18484 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

Here are the details on my card:


skp@chestnut:~$ lspci | grep -i "audio device"
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)

I read in the documentation that you can find the model like this:


skp@chestnut:~$ cat /proc/asound/card0/codec* | grep Codec
Codec: IDT 92HD91BXX
Codec: Intel PantherPoint HDMI

Alsa-Base.conf Attempt

I found a Debian system that seems similar: Installing Debian On Asus UX32VD.  Just to try, I added this line to the end of the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file.

options snd-hda-intel model=alc269-dmic

To test, I found from Ubuntu documentation, that I could use this command to restart just this sound:

sudo alsa force-reload

Unfortunately, it didn’t work!

Default.pa Attempt

So, on to trying another solution from here and here.

Next, I added a line to the /etc/pulse/default.pa file:

load-module module-combine channels=6 channel_map=front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right,front-center,lfe

After restarting alsa, it seemed to work. I got a new Output device that had the Subwoofer enabled:

I still can’t hear the output in the Test sound window.  But, at least I have the front and back speakers working:

HDA Analyzer Tool

I found an HDA Analyzer Tool in this question.  You can see the instructions here.

Here’s how I downloaded it:

wget -O run.py http://www.alsa-project.org/hda-analyzer.py

It needed root access, so I ran it like this:

sudo python run.py

Possibly Related

My Server Configuration

digitaleagle Custom Built Server, Java, ssh, Uncategorized Leave a comment

These were the steps that I went through to configure my server after installing Ubuntu.  (just to help remember)

Installing SSH

My first requirement for a server is that I be able to get to it from my laptop.  SSH will allow me to both open remote terminal sessions and copy files from nautilus.

I simply installed this ssh metapackage from the Software Center.

My first attempt to connect brought me this message:


@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.

This was because I was reinstalling my server, and I had connected to the previous installation with my laptop.  The fix was easy (it was actually in the message):

ssh-keygen -R israel

To set it up to where I could connect without a password, I ran this command:

ssh-copy-id israel

Printing

I have an HP printer, so I chose to install the HPLIP Toolbox from the Software Center.

I could launch it through ssh with the command “hp-toolbox”.  Then, I chose the Setup Device option off the Device menu for my printer.

I selected USB:

Then, I selected the device:

Then, I entered the information about the printer:

This added, the printer.  Next, I made it the default printer:

To make the printer accessible over the network, I had to tweak the cups configuration.  I edited the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.  I added a Listen line with the machine’s hostname.

I also turned “Browsing” on to make it easier to discover the printer.

To make the network name resolve correctly, I removed this line from /etc/hosts:

Finally, I restarted the cups service with the command:

sudo service cups restart

That gave me some access, but I still had issues.  Then, I found an easier way to do it.  I ran the the printer configuration:

system-config-printer

On the printer dialog, there is a Server > Settings option.

There, I checked the sharing options to open things up for my private network.

Java Installation

I have a personal application that I use at home, and Java is a requirement for that.  I took the easy route and installed Java using Web Upd8’s method.  That just meant running these three commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

I confirmed that it installed with:


skp@israel:~$ java -version
java version "1.8.0-ea"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0-ea-b55)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 24.0-b22, mixed mode)
skp@israel:~$ javac -version
javac 1.8.0-ea

Finally, I needed to add a mysql user.  I don’t need to install mysql because it’s embedded into my application, but I do need the user.  I used this command:

useradd -r mysql

Resources

First Install on a New Dell Inspiron 17R

digitaleagle Install Help, My Hardware, My Inspiron 17R, Ubuntu, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Ok, I have finally retired my old laptop to light duty in my wife’s service, and I have a nice brand new Dell Inspiron 17R.  (Inspiron 7720)  This post was originally intended to document how I initially set it up.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t as straightforward as I wanted.  It took me a bit of experimenting to figure it out, and this post might be a little crazy.

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