Xubuntu Hardy 8.04.1, Fuj:tech DVB-T USB-stick and how to install drivers

Ha!

Some gizmos acquired as birthday presents and one of them happens to be a Fuj:tech DTV PRO DVB-T USB stick.

Obviously, as with oh so many devices, the driver side was worrying me. Surprisingly I happened to be clever and checked before purchase that it would hopefully work with Linux. One witty Finnish guy has apparently been working on a driver with his friends for this particular DVB-T USB stick, which is using af9015 chip.

Getting the driver and compiling it was not too hard, even though you have to install mercurial. Mercurial in fact is a source control management system. Don’t bother your head too much with that, just keep reading to get the driver package to your pc..

Now, for the actual driver acquiring and compiling part.

Make sure you have build-essential, linux-headers and mercurial installed:
$ sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) mercurial

Then, get the driver (Note that the following command will create af9015 folder to the current folder where you are!):
$ hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/~anttip/af9015

Change directory to the af9015 folder:
$ cd af9015

And start compiling the driver, typing:
$ make

If all goes seemingly well, in other words no errors:
$ sudo make install

Then, you need to get firmware and place it to the /lib/firmware/$(uname -r) folder for the stick so that it can be detected and initialized correctly. First cd to the correct folder:
$ cd /lib/firmware/$(uname -r)

Then get the actual firmware:
$ sudo wget http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af9015/af9015_firmware

Note that you need to issue that wget command with sudo, as your normal account (hopefully) doesn’t have privileges to write files to the folder in question.

Now, put the stick to free USB socket and wait a bit. Then check that the driver is loaded:
$ lsmod | grep 9015

Output should show dvb_usb_af9015 at few different lines.

And just to be sure, check that there’s some content in /dev/dvb folder:
$ ls /dev/dvb

If the output of ls command is adapter0, your stick is correctly detected. If not, then you might have the usbhid module interfering the detection. Remove DVB stick from USB socket and unload usbhid module:
$ sudo rmmod usbhid

Now place the DVB stick again to one free USB socket and check again that do you have the dvb_usb_af9015 module loaded and some content in /dev/dvb/ folder.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the IR remote to work “out of the box” and didn’t have enough time or motivation to fiddle around with it. At the end, I’m using the stick with Acer Aspire One (ZG5) or with some other laptop and I think I can switch channel and volume by hand..

After this, you need to work out channel configuration file or just start using the stick. depends on what program you are going to use.

I’ll work out the details of how to actually watch and record (read: use the stick) programs on a separate post. Just to annoy/simplify people/things.

I came across one page telling that when you compile the driver/module for af901x based dvb-t tuners you also break your uvcvideo device, for example usb webcam or Acer Aspire One (ZG5) builtin webcam. At first, this didn’t happen to my setup, but after having to compile the dvb-t stick driver/module again, it happened. When I figure this out, I’ll post a separate post of it with instructions how to get it fixed.

Xfce-panel, Xubuntu Hardy 8.04.1 and small problems

Some of you might have noticed that creating launchers to xfce-panel in Xubuntu Hardy is not as easy as in Gnome and Gnome-panel.

For example terminal server client and it’s panel-applet, woop-de-doo.

Another problem that popped in front of me was opening programs with a launcher from the panel. The command was luit -encoding ISO-8859-1 ssh hostname because the ssh server I’m using quite actively does not have UTF8 configured. However, my Xubuntu Hardy installation happens to come with UTF8 as default and I’ve intended to keep it as default.

I tried to put the command where it was supposed to bein the panel launcher properties, no luck. Tried to use xfce4-terminal shell-script-name to launch the command from panel launcher, no luck.

Finally, with help from few of my friends, I found out that I can use xterm -e luit -encoding ISO-8859-1 ssh hostname which solved the problem. -e tells that xterm should run the preceeding command IN the opened xterm window. But this created another. The font size was ridiculously small. After few moments of discussion, it was clear that one option for xterm execution was needed. The final execution command line is below:
xterm -fn 9x15 -e luit -encoding ISO-8859-1 ssh hostname

EDIT: or you can use xterm -fn 9x15 -en iso-8859-1 -e ssh hostname as xterm can use luit when you tell xterm to use desired encoding with option -en iso-8859-1

To check which font options you have available, check /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/fonts.alias file. 8×13, 9×15 and 10×20 should be there atleast. 8×13 is ridiculously small, 9×15 was my choice, 10×20 was too large for this Acer Aspire One screen.

EDIT: Also noticed that copying text or http links is not as easy as right clicking to get a menu and choosing copy. After consulting friends again, found out that when you press ctrl-left/right/middle mouse button you get xterm menus where you can set font size and other settings. Copying text to other window is done by selecting text with mouse (use left-click-hold normally or left click on beginning and right click at end) then paste text by middle click.

EDIT: Oh, and. If you need to use alt-number combination, it won’t work. Use esc+number instead.

Acer Aspire One (ZG5) Hands on experiences, part #2

Hey everyone,

I’ve been using this little bugger now for few days with Xubuntu Hardy 8.04.1 and thought that a part #2 post would be good. Otherwise the Edits to older posts will be unnoticed and important notes might “fade to the noise”.

So, those few things I’ve promised to try out:

Movie playback
Playing movie that has been ripped to .iso file from external usb hard drive works fine
Playing movie that has been ripped to .iso file from 8Gb SDHC card placed to Storage Expansion slot (formatted as ext2) works fine
Playing actual DVD from DVD-drive connected to usb – You need to install xubuntu-restricted-extras ($ sudo apt-get install xubuntu-restricted-extras – works fine

At this point some of you are asking “why/how is he using DVD movies ripped into .iso files?”. Quick and dirty answer is that I have most of movies backed up as .iso files, and I don’t have to carry an external DVD drive with me to watch movies.
To get the movies to .iso, I use dvd95 program to “compress” the original DVD to fit to DVD5 disc in case I need to burn the movies back to disk. Kids are quite efficient in destroying DVD’s.. and no, I’m not concerned about the quality. If I want top quality, I’ll go and buy full HD TV or projector and BluRay-player.
When I’ve moved the .iso file to the PC I want to watch it, I’ll mount it as loop device with command $ sudo mount -o loop /path/to/the/isofile /path/for/desired/mountpoint. remember to have the mountpoint folder created. Then open vlc and point it to open the DVD from the mountpoint you used.

Heat dissipation
Ok, this one I noticed yesterday late at night. I was sitting in bed with a small pillow under the laptop for some time. The laptop started to really heat up and the reason seems to be that almost all of the ventilation grille is pointing down and only small part of the grille is facing to the side from the case. As the pillow was blocking the grille facing down, the heat could not dissipate well enough. Not a big deal, but still something to bare in mind.

Touchpad
I’m not a fan of this kind of pointer device. Stick is much more user friendly, though it costs much more and replacement part price for keyboard with stick is ridiculous. First few days went on finding the correct setting to disable Touchpad tapping and scrolling. To disable tapping and scrolling, you need to modify xorg.conf file. Open terminal of your favor and..

$ sudo mcedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
now find the part that says
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"

Add the following line to the end of this section, above the EndSection
Option "TouchpadOff" "2"

Now log out and back in, result should be that touchpad is not scrolling anymore, and tapping is disabled.

External display settings
This I’m still working on.. I’ll edit this post as soon as I’ve got some solid settings/info gathered.

EDIT:
Screensaver and lock screen
As I use this computer at work, it’s vital for me to be able to lock the screen when I leave my desk. By default, Xubuntu seems to have a bug that prevents screensaver and thus screen locking to execute. To fix it, you need to add gnome-screensaver to autostarted apps under Settings – Settings Manager.
Click + Add then enter a preferred name, for example Gnome-Screensaver, description can be for example Gnome Screensaver Daemon and command is /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver and hit Ok. Log out and back in, modify screensaver settings to your desired choice, then right click the little icon for Quit-button in panel and click on properties and select action type as Quit + Lock screen.

Tsclient and tsclient panel applet
Again an work-required program/tool issue. As I work also with several Windows servers, I need to have terminal server client (RDP client) installed, with panel-applet so it’s fast and easy to open connections to remote servers.
Install tsclient package ($ sudo apt-get install tsclient) and try that it works. Create one quick connect entry as saving connection details for testing purposes. Now install xfce4-xfapplet-plugin ($ sudo apt-get install xfce4-xfapplet-plugin) and right click on panel – add new item. Browse to end of the list, click on Xfapplet, then Add, and then choose Terminal Server Client Applet. Terminal server panel applet should now show up on your panel.

Acer Aspire One (ZG5), Xubuntu Hardy 8.04.1 and Atheros WLAN

Short info how to get the Wireless card working in Xubuntu.

EDIT:Make sure you have build-essential installed! (Pointed out by friendly reader, thank you very much! My mistake that this was forgotten from the original post! Sorry for the possible trouble!)
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

Get the latest madwifi pack http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz and save it to your home folder for example.

Disable current Atheros Hardware Access Layer (HAL) and Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless lan cards from Applications – System – Hardware Drivers and then reboot as requested

Make sure that ath_hal module is not loaded in the future:

$ sudo mcedit /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

Add ath_hal between the quotation marks, for example DISABLED_MODULES=”ath_hal”

Unpack the downloaded tar.gz

$ tar xzvf madwifi-hal-yaddayadda.tar.gz

Cd into the new folder scripts under the new unpacked madwifi folder

Execute madwifi-unload and find-madwifi-modules.sh scripts
$ sudo ./madwifi-unload
$ sudo ./find-madwifi-modules.sh $(uname -r)

Drop one level back,
$ cd ..

and just to be sure, execute make clean to get rid of old crap
$ make clean

Then we check just to be sure that the Hardware Drivers does not show any drivers for Atheros wlan or HAL. If the window is clean, proceed to building the modules.

$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo modprobe ath_pci

Then, check that you have ath0 and wifi0 network adapters created, ath0 should be the first, wifi0 last. You might need to scroll back a bit
$ ifconfig

Now you should be able to see AP’s via panel’s network applet. You can also scan for wlan’s with command
$ sudo wlanconfig ath0 list scan

That’s it, happy networking!

When you get updates/upgrades that change kernel in any way, your wireless card drivers won’t work anymore. Just do the whole thing all over again and you’re wireless again.

EDIT: If the driver is not loaded automatically, you can add ath_pci to /etc/modules
Here’s the commands:

$ sudo mcedit /etc/modules
add ath_pci into a new LAST line of the document, save the document and reboot.
If you don’t want to reboot right away, you can type

$ sudo modprobe ath_pci

This loads the module(driver) and you should have wlan up and running then. Just remember when you reboot the next time that you added the module to “loaded at startup” configuration.

Acer Aspire One (ZG5) hands on experience

Hi everyone!

Got one of these little subnotebooks to my hands for a short period and here’s a small summary about it.

So far I’ve tried out the Linpus Linux preinstalled to the laptop very briefly, as it had to make way for Windows XP SP3. Yep, got that right and no, it was not pleasure. Pain would describe the experience more.

Biggest reason is the very slow SSD hard drive. It just isn’t even feasible with Windows. Not even if you try to use fast SD card on the storage expansion slot for swap. It’s quite easy to get devices work in XP, as Acer kindly provides drivers for the laptop.

So, that was covered fast. Then to the part that was more interesting for me personally. Xubuntu 8.04.1 in a very, very small laptop. I was a bit afraid how the keyboard would fit for me, as i’m almost two meters tall. So far, I’ve had at least decent experience with it.

Biggest problem with the laptop and Xubuntu is the wireless card. It won’t work “off the shelf” and little tweaking was needed. Installation instructions will be posted on a separate quide and I will also post a separate post about device technical spesifications and how I installed Xubuntu to it.

Everything else seems to work out of the box.

As the out of the box configuration has only 512Mb of memory, I did an memory upgrade also. Didn’t take any pictures though, so we’ll have to see if I come across dismantling the laptop again. Will take pictures then, I promise! Verbal instructions coming up in a separate post also.

After the upgrade, things seemed a bit faster, but that was when the XP was installed. Xubuntu was installed onto the laptop with the additional memory already in place.

Next things to try out include bluetooth connectivity to phone to gain mobile internet over GPRS/EDGE/3G and how well the battery lasts in usual work/everyday usage. Also thought to try out playing videos, I have some movies in MPEG4 H264 which should stress the video playback enough. More about those when I have some experience..

EDIT: Tried to get Bluetooth connectivity to phone and internet-access via that way, and was not too hard. Biggest part is to find out correct settings for your service provider and phone model. Rest is just finding out correct channel etc. (I think I need to dump a post about using BT and mobile phone as internet connectivity)

Also, video playback seems to work out fine, just remember to ditch Totem Movie Player and get VLC. Tried with MPEG4 H.264 clip. Still need to try out DVD-playback with DVD-drive connected to USB and .iso file from internal storage and external USB drive..

Battery life with 3cell version is weak. There’s few tweaks that should help out, just remember to keep backlight as low as your eyes can take..