Disorienting Yourself

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Disorienting YourselfLast week, for a moment, in the morning, I wondered if it was Wednesday or Friday. I wasn’t sure. Turns out it was Saturday. I like to check from time to time. Often I know the day of the week, but rarely the day of the month. After all, people’s moods and behaviors are influenced heavily by the day of the week, and that is good to consider when dealing with them. Never trust a person on a weekend. They may have the best intentions, but they are reeling in some bizarre fantasy existence. Or maybe it’s the other way around. That’s more up to them, than to me. All I know is you must target the right person of the person. That is, if you must.

My last written piece here was about an abdicating Pope, the textures of our personalities coming through the ringer of the Church, and mechanical organs. It took someone like the Pope, way back in the day, with power enough to decree that all the world has lost a calendar day. To fix things. I wonder who could get away with something like that now? Would it be the purview of astronomers or physicists? Do politicians decide the day, or perhaps some government agency? The monkey with the most money?

There is nothing really anything about a Tuesday, or a Sunday. Or 4pm for that matter. In one hour, or next year. I imagine around two weeks ago I decided to “go dark”. No messages. No calls. I imagine it was around two weeks ago, because it feels like… what I remember two weeks feels like in my memory. You know, week-ends are a fairly new invention – the last hundred years or so. And yet here we are now, everyone taking them for granted. I think it had something to do with industrialization and the labor movement.

Of course, weekends and days of the week, and the calendar, are illusions: pretty tick marks on a scale that measures something we didn’t always realize was the Earth’s rotation around the sun. An illusion much like money – which we give power through our collective belief and adherence.

Outside so many buried bulbs are sprouting up so beautifully unique within their bounds. Two yards of fresh manure compost still steams, nearly ready, being turned.

I wonder if we might inevitably embrace a metric system of time measurement if we manage to venture out into space, losing the baroque nature of an Earth-centric scale. Like so much has been lost and gained as we evolve into the creatures that we are.

I have been missing from friends for this time, and missing from those who rely on me to answer their questions and do things for them. There have been people who pay me each month to be always available to them. The last of these is gone. Perhaps it is like children growing up to move out of the house, both sweet and sad. There are others who have not paid me, but I’ve always been there for them. This will remain true, but on time scales that arise from my own organic flow. It will take a while to respond.

Being someone who creates, you are presented with interesting challenges. These challenges depend upon the landscape in which you create. Some people are most comfortable creating add-on bits to mostly already-existing structures, with already-existing tools. These are the craftsmen. It’s a different type who ventures into the dark void to create something utterly new. Here is your blank white page, with little or no context. Go!

These are the rare and courageous lunatics who make all new things possible. And they fail, or they fly. But always they are met with opposition, from others and especially themselves. This can’t be done. This has already been done. This is impractical. And the worst of all: nobody will care. It is a matter of constraints, those constraints that others place upon you, those you place upon yourself, and constraints we all experience as a natural course of being an being who exists within a social context, filled with collective ideas and beliefs.

That last piece I mentioned also spoke about transcendence. Moving beyond. Finding perspectives and vistas. Sewing seeds for next year. And sometimes to really do, you must first un-do. You know your pen. You see the paths. And here you are.

Radicalism is almost never right, because it is reactionary. Reactionary against something. This is fundamentally different from transcendence. Transcendence does not seek to destroy, though some things may fall away. Transcendence embraces more, beyond our current context. Even software developers can do it. Even with accountants and marketing people keeping their pen. Their world is fear, control and manipulation. Yours is truth. And no one will progress anywhere without you.

The common thread is order, and in that you are common brothers struggling against the always-present universal nature of entropy. To address the common fears, almost everything can be done, if you can imagine it realistically. The harder part is starting down the path, and bringing help along if you need it. And nothing has been done before, if you didn’t do it. So many times I have been asked to study what’s out there so I know what to do. That’s more limiting than a calendar, or clock. You know what needs to happen, and if you don’t know the full picture, find it out. Then create, and will never have been created before. And as for people not caring… well, I suppose it depends on what they care about.

What they care about on a weekday, I should say. But this is the weekend. Or rather, the day of transition, Friday – the portal into your weekend world. Where you can entertain such ideas as might become you. At least, in a sense.

Lunatics all, really. With your clocks and broken hearts. Something to keep you going. To keep you focused on. Til the weekend always comes. And the alteration of data represents more money to live. And the environment we choose and make, conducive to this long maintenance, or as an alternative, an acknowledgement: that void of the un-done whose shreds serve only fertilize the ground. For all that grows.

The Pope, You and I. And Gadgets!

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In recognition of an event that has not happened in more than half a millennium, the Bishop of Rome abdicating, here is a piece of music composed by Bach and played on a cathedral organ.

I am not a religious person in any traditional sense. However, I do recognize history. As much harm has been done in the name of God, so too has much benefit come.

Cathedral organs were, for centuries, the pinnacle of human technological achievement. The complexity, scale, craftsmanship, art and engineering was a major milestone. Cathedrals themselves are astonishing achievements.

While browsing through YouTube for a good video example, I ran across several submissions where the person taking the video within the cathedral could not help but continue panning around the vista continuously. Even today these structures manage to fill us with a sense of awe, whether we believe in any god or not.

The West has Christianity because of the Catholic Church. They brought education. And even today the Catholic Church strongly advocates academic achievement, even in deference to science, particularly amongst the Jesuit order.

I have never been Catholic. But if you are aware of our history in the West, you realize the significance – the impact the Catholic Church has had upon our most fundamental thought processes. It is our legacy, in many ways.

It was the first multinational organization, at a time, much like today, when all people were ruled by a very few individuals who held nearly all the resources and power. The Catholic Church brought a common sense of ethics and morality, and a respect for written law, that all Western nations, despite language differences, share in common. They became a force that dictators and rulers had to heed. And this helped bind Europe with a common identity that eventually transcended the notion of earthly rulers.

And that’s the key here. Transcendence. Moving beyond where we find ourselves. And this can be sad, painful and exhilarating. We look for a rebirth into something new. As individuals, and as nations. A rebirth into something kinder. Something better. Something wiser.

The Pontiff has abdicated his position, calling for someone who will be, perhaps, more open. But perhaps not caught up so much as us in all the fast-paced, momentary and superficial trappings we lap up. Perhaps while even being more open, he will still remind us of the importance – to look within ourselves.

God knows we need some good and big changes for the better. Or perhaps there is no being to know this. Perhaps we have to do this on our own. The harder route. The route where we must take responsibility for all that we say and do. And all that we do not say – and all that we do not do.

It is worth a prayer to something larger than ourselves. If only to our better selves that we aspire. May we all make wise choices in the time to come. And may we find peace and comfort in that.

What’s Inside with Giving and Taking

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Varada MudraWhen you do yoga, the last pose you usually do is called corpse pose or Savasana - dead man’s pose. You lay there, unthinking, allowing yourself body, mind, spirit, whatever or all, to form into whatever it will, afterward.

Often people will mediate afterward, allowing things to happen further still. Mudras are hand gestures, held in stillness. This one is Varada Mudra on the left hand. Open and outstretched it represents charity, giving, generosity and morality. It is rarely seen alone. The right hand is Abhaya Mudra, with the palm held up and facing outward. It represents protection, the dispelling of fear, or anything bad.

The pose is felt mostly in the chest around the heart. It is an opening and circular balancing. Giving and protection. Some would say an acceptance and balance of giving and receiving.

The real truth of it is only found inside.

This image came from Wonderland at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/3294979410/in/photostream

Google TV via the Vizio Co-Star – An Android Cord-Cutters Nearly Wet Dream

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I am a cable and satellite cord-cutter. All the content I view on televisions comes from free over-the-air broadcast stations or the Internet. Getting Internet video sources to play conveniently on televisions takes a little digging, but it’s well worth the effort. I find now that watching television, when I do, is more of an active experience than a passive one and it takes up a considerably less quantity of time.

For scheduling and recording over-the-air broadcast television I use MythTV. In fact, if you’re interested in using it for yourself, I have a little guide for building it from source code. Most Linux distributions come with it pre-packaged, though, and you’re probably better off with that.

For watching videos and television shows from the Internet I use the Boxee Box and have given my 80-year old father a Roku device, which he loves and has no problem operating. The Boxee Box is far more feature-full than the Roku, and I greatly prefer it. You can even link in your Twitter and Facebook feeds, and watch videos people post, which are all nicely organized for you. Also, you can subscribe to many television shows that are also made available for streaming on the Internet, and their app selection is huge and varied. The Roku is great for simplicity. The only downside of the Boxee Box is that it doesn’t support Amazon Video. You can even send your Boxee Box videos you see while browsing on your desktop or laptop computers.

I am, however, a big Google Android user and love the interoperability between their software services and just about any device you have. So I’ve been curious about Google TV. I haven’t heard the best reviews about it, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. A little while ago I ran across a device called the Vizio Co-Star which was incredibly inexpensive for a network-attached HD video box, rivaling the Roku in price and exceeding its hardware features. So I bought it, to give it a try.

The first thing the Vizio Co-Star did was connect to my Google account, which makes sense, since it’s an Android device, or rather Google TV device. Actually, I’m not sure why you’d want to call it a Google TV – it’s very much like any other Android device, except you navigate through organized menus instead of clicking big screens of icons. It even gives you access to the Google Play store, though with far fewer apps.

After I signed in, the Co-Star found an update, downloaded it, and installed. Navigating the menus and selecting things was slower than the Boxee Box, and even slower than the Roku. Since that time, the Co-Star has updated again, and now the navigation is even faster than the Roku.

It has Netflix, and it works wonderfully. It also has several other video sources, including Amazon. The big remote control (which has a great little keyboard on the back of it) has big shortcut buttons for Netflix and Amazon, too. Irritatingly, the Amazon application is really just a bookmark to the Amazon Video website. It works great, but I don’t like navigating a web page to watch a video. The Netflix app is great, though. Thankfully, the remote control has a trackpad that lets you move the mouse cursor around on the screen, and even scroll pages by moving up and down on the right-side of the pad, just like most laptops. The scrolling is a little wild, though – overly sensitive. I sure hope they come out with a proper Amazon Video app soon.

Of course, you get all your Google Play stuff – all your music that you’ve bought from Google Music or have synced to Google from other sources, is all available in your normal, and well-done Android music app. The same with videos and even your pictures. It’s very nice how integrated it is. I particularly love how they’ve integrated your YouTube account. You can literally just set it running on your subscriptions, and it will play them all on your TV one after the other, the newest additions in all your subscriptions, to the oldest. And it’s very easy to skip forward and back, too.

And in that same light, I love how you can be watching a YouTube video on your phone or tablet, and just shoot it off to your Google TV (Vizio Co-Star in this case). It’s a one key press operation, and you can pause or skip, all on your phone or tablet after that, like it’s a remote control.

Also, if you install an app called Able Remote, you can send any video at all, or even web pages to your Vizio Co-Star (Google TV). It’s a great little app that acts as a remote and a means to send stuff to the TV that goes beyond just YouTube.

Video and audio playback is great on the Co-Star. HD video is perfectly smooth, and it’s sharp and vibrant. It has wireless capability, but I plug it in – stuff always seems to work more reliably when it’s hard-wired. The Roku we have here doesn’t have an ethernet jack, though, and even though this Roku is 1080p capable, it doesn’t look as nice as the Vizo Co-Star, at least to my eyes.

Another nice thing about the Vizio Co-Star is that you can watch regular TV without having to change the TV input or AV equipment input. Google TV in the Co-Star will overlay right on top of your TV, cable or satellite picture, when you want it. This is accomplished by having both a HDMI input and HDMI output connector on back. Plug your normal TV, satellite or cable box into the Co-Star, and then plug your Co-Star into your television set, and you no longer have to change inputs. It even gives you PiP capability (Picture in Picture), so that you can watch your tv/cable/satellite show up in a corner of the Google TV screen while you’re using another Andoid app on the larger bit of the screen. Personally, I don’t use this feature much, but I imagine some people really might.

It’s not all love and glory, though. I’ve had the HDMI pass-through stop working a couple times. Just a couple times. It just won’t show video from the tv/satellite/cable source. Power cycling fixes this, though. Seriously, just a couple times out of a lot of use. Also, the app selection available to you in the Google Play store isn’t that great. There are a good number, but not a ton like I would love. There is so much potential in these devices. Popular ones like Twit.tv and Revision 3 are there, and Pandora. And they work beautifully. CNBC is great. Wall Street Journal. Lots of things, but not like the main Android app store. One of my favorites is a police/emergency scanner that lets you listen to local emergency channels. It’s kinda freaky. There was a guy they found passed out in a ditch near my house. I would have never known! ;)

Anyway, I just wanted to get this little description and opinion piece written and posted. Because when I was searching for a Google TV device, and found the Co-Star, there were no reviews that addressed just the common concerns an Android and Google ecosystem user might have. The Co-Star is a great, great piece of hardware, and wonderfully implemented in software. And for the price, it’s a no-brainer. I love it. I use it every day. My Boxee is sitting unplugged and unused. I may plug it in again, though, because it was much better at finding free TV show sources on the Internet.

I hope this helps someone, and let me know if you have any questions at all, and I’ll try to answer them. I’ve probably left out a lot. Here’s a picture of the remote and my dirty box. The Vizio logo really is a bit sinister-looking – every time I boot the thing I’m reminded of Cylons.

Howto Build MythTV from Source Code on a Debian Wheezy System with AMD’s Newest A10 APU and Catalyst Drivers

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I currently have a MythTV setup which records free, over-the-air HD broadcast television using an HDHomerun tuner hooked to an antenna. It works wonderfully. However, I’ve been using Intel Atom systems hooked to the televisions, running MythFrontend to view the shows. I hate Intel Atom processors. Yes, they use hardly any power, but they are also terribly, frustratingly slow and feature poor.

I considered replacing my Intel Atom boxes with new AMD E-series chipsets from manufacturers such as Zotac, which are also very low-powered while performing far better than the Intel Atoms. But I instead chose to build a little system of my own using a Micro ATX form factor motherboard, and having integrated graphics that performed well enough for HD decoding.

Another factor was that I wanted a processor powerful enough to run a web browser or an RSS aggregator, which my Intel Atom processors could do, but only painfully. So I was left with a decision between the integrated graphics choices offered by Intel in their Ivy Bridge lineup, or AMD in their A-series APU’s. I needed a quad core at least, because I wanted to make one of the MythTV devices a combination backend and frontend, just to save some power.

The choice was a lot easier than I thought, once I looked into it. The AMD APU’s are, by far, the best choice, not only performance-wise, but cost-wise. In fact, for comparable systems the AMD APU and motherboard turned out to be less than half the price of the Intel Ivy Bridge solution, while offering more capabilities, and much, much, much better video performance. In fact, the video performance can’t hardly be compared.

It’s a little surprising, the marketing Intel has, that makes me feel funny choosing AMD for a new system. But it truly is, objectively speaking, the best choice in this situation, by any criteria. I’m actually impressed with what AMD is doing – they’re creating some very compelling hardware at a great price that isn’t going to win any benchmark performance awards from the talking heads, but that somehow manages to work much better and give you more, for cheaper, in many situations. It’s very interesting to me, what they might be up to now. It’s smart design, and I appreciate that.

So anyway, I went with the newest, latest and greatest APU from AMD, the A10-5800K “Trinity”. You don’t need a big separate graphics card with these, and yet they perform like you’ve got one — unless you’re doing some hard-core high-end gaming. Which I’m not with these multimedia systems. But I could, on lower settings, which was one of the reasons I chose the AMD APU’s — I’ve never had a system to game with on a big TV monitor… ;) And occasionally, maybe I might want to… (especially with Steam coming out with Linux support for their games) (yay!)

I also chose to get the Gigabyte GA-F2A75M-D3H motherboard for this AMD APU. Mostly because it was a bundle deal at NewEgg and had the HDMI output port that I wanted, and supported 1866 speed memory without special overclocking considerations. Apparently the APU’s like faster memory. I chose to go with the AMD Hudson D3 chipset motherboard instead of a D4, mostly because I didn’t need so many SATA3 ports. By the way, it’s crazy how many SATA3 ports you get with AMD systems any more. You’re lucky to find just a few on Intel consumer motherboards, and usually with 3rd-party chipsets that give you any more. That was another surprise for me. This board has 6 SATA3 ports internally, and that was more than enough for a 128G SSD as the boot device and a big green mechanical drive for storing the video.

Once I received the parts and looked at the motherboard box, I discovered that it supports 3 simultaneous monitor outputs. 3! I accidentally got a multi-headed board, and it turns out the AMD APU’s handle it just fine, too. I paid about $80 for this motherboard. I’m sorry to harp on about this, but you just can’t get this kind of goodness from Intel.

Anyway, now to the problem. I bought the latest and greatest from AMD’s APU line, the A10 series “Trinity” chips. I had heard in passing that AMD was doing well by Linux lately, supporting always-improving graphics drivers in their Catalyst system for Linux. There is also a Free Software X.org driver that supports AMD APU’s that works quite well and is continually improving. Unfortunately, not well enough for my use case. This is the same problem you experience with Nvidia hardware in Linux – if you need the great hardware-accelerated performance, you have to go with the closed, proprietary drivers.

I had been using Mythbuntu for handling my MythTV stuff. It’s a simple install, with minimal bloat, and well-integrated with various MythTV ecosystem components. With their last release, they decided to stay on the Ubuntu LTS release (long-term support), which I like, mostly because I don’t want my TV’s breaking every 6 months. But this means they don’t support my newest AMD APU.

So I thought, ok, this is maybe good. I can go with a full-on recent Ubuntu install and have a fully-functional system, and just use the MythTV packages there. After all, this AMD APU is a full-powered system, unlike those nearly useless Atom chips.

So I did it – installed the latest Ubuntu 12.10. And you know what? These little APU’s are fast! I couldn’t tell any difference from my far more expensive primary workstation, which also is using SSD’s. But alas, no sound output using the HDMI audio. The optical sound worked great, and of course the analog outs… but I want just one cable running to the HDTV, damnit. I installed the Ubuntu-packaged, proprietary AMD (ATI) drivers (the Catalyst drivers), but it didn’t give me HDMI sound output (but silky-smooth graphics!).

So, sitting back with hand on chin, it started to smell like an Alsa issue. The Linux kernel version Ubuntu was running, an early 3.5 series, just didn’t have support yet for the newest AMD A10 APU’s sound over HDMI, or perhaps the motherboard’s implementation… ? I wasn’t sure. But I was sure that it smelled like Alsa. And now that Alsa is part of the kernel itself, it meant a kernel upgrade. Should I compile my own in Ubuntu?

No! I should try Sabayon Linux instead. They claim to be all bleeding edge, based on Gentoo, with a quick and easy install. This was the perfect opportunity to try them out. Now, installing Gentoo is an exercise in fire and suffering, where you emerge strong and cleansed of all impurities. But Sabayon was corn syrup, gliding in fat easy! Seriously, I didn’t have to do anything but boot from the USB stick and hit install. And HDMI sound worked perfectly! They were running the last of the 3.5 series Linux kernel, so some wonderful man or woman must have coded in Alsa support. Many blessings all over you, whomever you are! The AMD Catalyst drivers were also available, and installed flawlessly.

Sabayon (Gentoo) even had a MythTV package that worked perfectly. It was running MythTV version 0.25, which is the same version Mythbuntu packages, so it connected just fine to my current MythTV server without any hassle. Sabayon gave me the higher-performing proprietary Catalyst drivers, a newer Linux kernel that has Alsa support for the HDMI audio, and a working MythTV frontend. Perfect, right? I’d found a pre-packaged setup that works flawlessly from a bleeding edge distribution that I’d never tried before. Right? Ugh. Wrong.

Unfortunately, something was crazy with the graphics overlays. As soon as I went into the MythTV setup to adjust the video to use the better video drivers, the settings menus within MythTV stopped working properly. You could select entries, but you never saw the screen where you could change settings – it was as if those settings screens were covered up by the menu you just selected from. Pure madness! I could no longer navigate the settings menu in MythTV – I even tried a couple re-installations, doing things differently. This is where I actually researched online, too, trying all kinds of changes with GLOverlays and all sorts of stuff in the xorg.conf – enabling and disabling all manner of arcane stuff that springs from the Catalyst drivers. (Nvidia is no better with all their arcane stuff, either). Oh, and I’m grateful for the arcane, too. ;)

To make a long story short, I have a feeling after futzing about for a while that Sabayon’s bleeding edge X.org server version might be slightly ahead of what the latest Catalyst drivers can support. I can’t say that for certain, but it was my suspicion. So rather than jumping around from distribution to distribution, hoping to find the right combinations, I decided to just go with a solid distribution that was mostly there, and custom build the rest of it myself.

At first I thought I’d use Ubuntu, and just compile a newer kernel that has ALSA support the A10 APU’s (or Gigabyte’s) HDMI audio. But I don’t really want the damn thing upgraded every 6 months. So I turn to Debian. Ubuntu is built from Debian, and Debian has a few releases at once. Their current testing release is called Wheezy, and it’s mostly what Ubuntu is currently. But once Debian Wheezy is out, it’ll be a couple years before it gets a major upgrade, so my TV’s won’t break. ;) Since I’ll be compiling the Catalyst drivers myself anyway, and compiling the Linux kernel myself, and compiling MythTV myself (to get the latest release version 0.26), I can upgrade just these important parts any time I like, instead of a distribution doing it out from under me.

So I thought I’d document what I did to get a perfect MythTV setup working in Debian Linux for those who might like to as well. This is working in Debian Wheezy, which isn’t yet released (as of 11 Nov 2012). But they have beta install images you can download, which worked great for me. I put them on a USB stick and installed from that. You can get the Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) images from the Debian Installer developer’s website – just download the “netinst” image for the amd64 architecture. It’s at the beta3 version right now. Maybe you’ll be reading this later when it’s at beta4 instead. Or maybe wheezy has been released and you can download it from the main Debian site. The important thing is to get a Wheezy installer image. This is what works with things as they are today.

1. Make Your Install Media

For the output device (of=) make sure you use whatever device name you want to write the disk image to. In my case, my USB stick got named /dev/sdf – make sure you got yours right or you might overwrite your system disks!

wget http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/wheezy_di_beta3/amd64/iso-cd/debian-wheezy-DI-b3-amd64-netinst.iso
sudo dd if=debian-wheezy-DI-b3-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdf ; sync

Again, the URL might be different for you – this URL works for today. Just grab a wheezy install image. After this completes, you’ll have a USB stick that you can boot to, to install Debian Wheezy.

2. Install and Boot Debian Wheezy

Boot to the USB stick and install the system. I chose to install the standard desktop environment, using the full capacity of the SSD using LVM with all defaults. I also chose to format my big mechanical green drive as one big LVM partition formatted in ext4 with a mountpoint of /mnt/mythtv After the install, reboot into the new Debian Wheezy system. You should get GDM3 coming up just fine with the AMD A10 and Gigabyte motherboard connected via the HDMI cable. If you log in and check your audio devices, you’ll find that the HDMI audio doesn’t show up, though. A new kernel version with updated ALSA will fix this, though.

3. Compile your New Kernel

Debian Wheezy isn’t currently offering a 3.5 series kernel. I wanted it. You’ll need to download the source for it and compile it yourself. You don’t have any development environment by default, though. So you need to install the build system as well. I like using the text-based menu system to select kernel parameters, so I install ncurses as well. You can also install qt4-qmake along with qconf to get a GUI to select kernel parameters. We’ll build the kernel in /usr/src

apt-get install kernel-package libncurses5-dev qt4-qmake libqt4-dev qconf
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/linux-3.5.7.tar.bz2
tar -xjf linux-3.5.7.tar.bz2
ln -s linux-3.5.7 linux

Then, we’ll just take Debian’s default kernel parameters from their currently-installed kernel that we’re currently running, and make those our own for this new kernel build. This saves a lot of hassle. Of course you can go in and change around anything you want to after you make the xconfig. I left it pretty much the same as it was. Remember if you make any changes to save them…. ;) 

cd linux
make mrproper
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config
make xconfig

After this you should have a nice, valid kernel .config file. Then it’s just a matter of compiling it, or rather compiling it while at the same time creating Debian packages for it, thanks to the kernel-package goodness that Debian provides. The CONCURRENCY_LEVEL environment variable allows concurrent compilation which normally greatly speeds up the process. It’s usuall set to the same number of CPU cores you’re using.

export CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=4
make-kpkg --revision=20121110 --initrd kernel_image kernel_headers

Make sure you put in the kernel_headers parameter, as you will need the headers when we compile the AMD proprietary ATI Catalyst drivers. I use the current date for the “revision” parameter. Then just install the newly compiled kernel and headers and reboot.

cd ..
dpkg -i linux-*.deb
reboot

4. Install Proprietary Drivers (or not)

Now, this Gigabyte motherboard has a couple devices that can benefit from having more proprietary firmware installed. This includes the Realtek NIC. You have to enable the Debian non-free repository to get them, if you like.

emacs /etc/apt/sources.list

You don’t have to use the emacs editor – you can use gedit or whatever your poison. Then just add on the contrib and non-free tags to the deb and deb-src lines for the normal archives as well as the security update archives, to make it look like this:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

After you save that and get back to the shell, install the proprietary drivers. In my case with the Gigabyte board it’s this:

apt-get update
apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-realtek

5. Install and Build AMD Catalyst Drivers

Now it’s time for the AMD Catalyst drivers. This is where it’s messy, and I’m telling you to do something horribly wrong and evil. But I don’t care. I know you want the easy way. These drivers don’t build very nicely in Debian, or any other Linux platform pretty much, except for Ubuntu. Because everyone uses Ubuntu and that’s what they pay attention to. What I’m doing here skips the normal Debian packaging, in the interest of just getting these closed source drivers in place. So you’ll have to remember to rebuild them any time you install a new kernel. Of course, since we’re using a custom kernel anyway, that’s no big deal.

You can download the most current Catalyst drivers directly from AMD. Put the zip file in /usr/src. We’ll then just run it…

unzip amd-driver-installer-catalyst-12.10-x86.x86_64.zip
chmod u+x amd-driver-installer-catalyst-12.10-x86.x86_64.run
./amd-driver-installer-catalyst-12.10-x86.x86_64.run --install

What a filthy, wicked thing. But reboot again… and when you log in, check your Gnome sound settings, and you should see an HDMI output device, and it should actually work now. :)

Some people say you need to create an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file before you’ll get the fglrx driver to load. You can do this with

amdconfig --initial

if you like. I didn’t until later, after I made some more adjustments with the amdcccl tool, which is much like the nvidia-settings tool.

6. Compile and Install MythTV from Source

Once you have the system running with the proprietary AMD Catalyst drivers, it’s time to compile and install MythTV. The current stable release is 0.26, and the source code is available from their site. Download it, and the plugins too, if you like, and place the tarballs in /usr/src.

Here we run into a lot more library dependencies. I would have loved to have found this information myself, to have made the process easier. But here it is for you, because you’re a wonderful person. Right? Well, if not, then you’re obligated to be now.

This is how you can build MythTV 0.26 from scratch on a Debian Wheezy system, to use the AMD Catalyst drivers. For nVidia it’s just a little different. Also, I’m using a -j5 during the make because the AMD A10 is a quad-core APU. Use something greater or lower if you have more or fewer cores. The following will bring in the necessary libraries, configure the MythTV build for some nice stuff, and install it to it’s default place (which is evil again, in the Debian Universe).

apt-get install libxinerama-dev libdbd-mysql-perl libmp3lame-dev libx264-dev libvpx-dev libxv-dev libxvidcore-dev libsdl1.2-dev libass-dev yasm uuid-dev libxxf86vm-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev libio-socket-inet6-perl libnet-upnp-perl python-mysqldb python-lxml python-urlgrabber libfftw3-dev libvdpau-dev libxml2-dev libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev libcrypto++-dev gdb qt4-qmake qconf libqt4-dev build-essential
tar -xjf mythtv-0.26.0.tar.bz2
cd mythtv-0.26.0
./configure --enable-proc-opt --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-libvpx --enable-libxvid --enable-sdl
make -j5
make install

7. Create the MythTV Database

Everything should be installed and ready now. The two main components of MythTV are the backend daemon, and the frontend systems that people actually watch. I had hoped this AMD A10 APU would be powerful enough to run both the backend and a frontend on the same box, and it turns out to be true. Even when it’s recording two channels at once, I can watch another recording at the same time with no problems whatsoever. I even tried it with a second frontend watching, and it worked flawlessly. Plenty of power.

The first thing to do is set up mythbackend. You’ll need a mysql server.

apt-get install mysql-server

The database schema required for mythbackend is located in the source tree we just compiled, in the database directory. Just cat it into mysql. You’ll also need a mysql user for the mythconverg database this creates, and to define privileges. I chose to leave it accessible to every host on my home network, with the default password. Am I naif? Masochistic?

mysql -p < database/mc.sql
mysql -p
grant all privileges on mythconverg.* to mythtv@"%" identified by "mythtv"
flush privileges
exit

If you’ve got another frontend in the house that you’ll want to use to watch TV or recordings, you should make sure that MySQL will allow connections from other machines. It’s one thing to set user/host privileges like we just did, but it’s another to tell the daemon itself what network sockets can established or not.

In Debian, MySQL is by default configured to not accept connections from anywhere else but localhost. To change this behavior only one parameter needs to be changed. Here I have it listen on every address the machine is.

emacs /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Or use gedit if you must. We shall not speak of other “editors”. Locate the line that says bind-address and change the localhost to a 0 dot-quad.

    Find this
bind-address = 127.0.0.1

    Change it to this
bind-address = 0.0.0.0

After making that change, restart MySQL. You could probably just reload it instead. I can’t be bothered to find out.

service mysql restart

And one last thing you need to do in Debian Wheezy’s variation of MySQL is to make sure timezone information is loaded directly into MySQL. MythTV now requires it to be there and it will complain, then die without it. I don’t know why they don’t just go with Postgres, by the way.

mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -p mysql

8. Create a MythTV User

You don’t have to create a special mythtv user, of course. But I like to separate out my robots from myself. It will also keep the configuration files isolated and neat in their own home directory place. We’ll also place him in appropriate groups for his access.

adduser mythtv
adduser mythtv cdrom
adduser mythtv audio
adduser mythtv video

9. Run the Backend Server

Go ahead and log into GDM3 (Gnome) as the mythtv user we created. Make sure to set your sound preferences to use the HDMI device for sound output. Open up a terminal and start the backend setup process

mythtv-setup

I won’t go into explaining the steps to set up MythTV here, since it’s pretty well documented at the MythTV website on their Wiki. After you get it set up, you can start the backend process by opening a terminal and running it. It will, by default, fork as a daemon.

mythbackend

10. Run the Frontend Server

Make sure you have the backend server running before you try running the frontend. Open a terminal as the mythtv user and fire it up.

mythfrontend

Again, check the MythTV website for detailed instructions. One thing in particular you should set is the sound settings – tell mythfronend to use the ALSA HDMI device for sound. Although you can use the Pulseaudio device as well, and get some great volume control, you’ll also experience buffer problems which will produce horrific static when you get a hiccup in the digital broadcast signal. Going directly through ALSA is best.

11. Make the MythTV Backend Start on Boot

You’ll most certainly want mythbackend to start on system boot, without you having to do it. Otherwise you might miss some television recordings. I’ll include my init script here, which works just fine on Debian Wheezy. We’ll call the startup script mythbackend. You’ll need to do this as root.

cat > /etc/init.d/mythbackend
#!/bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          mythbackend
# Required-Start:    $all
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts the MythTV backend
# Description:       starts mythbackend using start-stop-daemon
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
# LOCATION=/usr/local/bin
DAEMON=$(which mythbackend)
NAME="mythbackend"
DESC="MythTV Backend"

test -x $DAEMON || (echo "mythbackend is not in $PATH or it is not executable" &&  exit 1)

set -e

USER=mythtv
RUNDIR=/var/run/mythtv
LOGPATH=/var/log/mythtv
ARGS="--daemon --logpath $LOGPATH --pidfile $RUNDIR/$NAME.pid"
EXTRA_ARGS=""
NICE=0

if [ -f /etc/mythtv/mythbackend ]; then
  . /etc/mythtv/mythbackend
fi

ARGS="$ARGS $EXTRA_ARGS"

mkdir -p $RUNDIR
chown -R $USER $RUNDIR

case "$1" in
  start)
        echo -n "Starting $DESC: $NAME"
##       For those with firewire this will reset things before the backend starts.
##       Should replace with keep_dct_alive.sh script at some point.
#       firewire_tester -R
#       firewire_tester -B -p 0 -n 0 -r 10
#       firewire_tester -B -p 0 -n 1 -r 10
#       firewire_tester -B -p 0 -n 2 -r 10
        start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile $RUNDIR/$NAME.pid \
                --chuid $USER --nicelevel $NICE --exec $DAEMON -- $ARGS
        echo "."
        ;;
  stop)
        echo -n "Stopping $DESC: $NAME "
        start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --pidfile $RUNDIR/$NAME.pid \
                --chuid $USER --exec $DAEMON -- $ARGS
        echo "."
        ;;
  restart|force-reload)
        echo -n "Restarting $DESC: $NAME"
        start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --pidfile $RUNDIR/$NAME.pid \
                --chuid $USER --exec $DAEMON -- $ARGS
        echo "."
        sleep 3
        start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile $RUNDIR/$NAME.pid \
                --chuid $USER --nicelevel $NICE --exec $DAEMON -- $ARGS
        echo "."
        ;;
  *)
        N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
        # echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
        echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

exit 0

Do a control_d to get out of that, of course. Then just make it executable and tell the system to run it at boot time.

chmod ugo+x /etc/init.d/mythbackend
insserv -v mythbackend

12. Update the Program Guide Daily

You’ll certainly want to have up-to-date program guide information. So you can run mythfilldatabase to pull information in from SchedulesDirect whenever you like. I decided to do it every 12 hours.

Just set up a cron job to kick off whenever, running as the mythtv user. Debian makes this pretty easy – a single line. Make sure you put in both of those “>” symbols and not just one! As root, do

cat >> /etc/crontab
8 5,17 * * *   mythtv  mythfilldatabase --quiet

End that with a control_d remember. After you do this, every day at 8 past the hour, at 5am and 5pm, mythfilldatabase will run as the mythtv user to update your schedule information.

In Closing….

So yes, there you have it. This is the systems level stuff you need to create a media server from scratch using MythTV on an AMD A10 APU. The details of MythTV itself are better left to the MythTV documentation.

One last point of concern is the remote control. I like using my Android device to control it. You can enable network remote control in your mythfrontend general settings. The Android app I use for it is Mythmote.

But if you’re using an infrared remote control, like one of my frontends is, you’re probably going to want to use lirc to gather the IR signaling data. A hairy mess. Ugh, I suppose I should include some notes about it.

Configuring Lircd for an MCE Remote Control

This is just some quick notes, and not really a guide. One of my frontends is using a USB IR receiver that accepts signals from a Windows MCE remote control. Setting up the Lirc daemon can be a headache. This is only done where mythfrontend is running, and you want an IR remote control. Here are the basics, but only for a MCE remote!!

Lircd takes signals and translates these numerics into human-looking commands. You need two mapping files for Lircd and MythTV. One mapping file (the Lircd one) maps these numeric codes into human-looking commands, and this file goes in /etc/lirc. The other file maps these human-looking commands into mythfrontend commands, which makes it look like your remote is controlling movement and commands in MythTV.

One problem is that when your IR remote sends, say, a down arrow, it can also think it’s a keyboard typing a down arrow, with the way that the lirc kernel modules are set up. This results in double key presses for any button that has a corresponding keyboard button. So you need to disable the kernel’s interpretation of lirc events that are not related to the mceusb kernel module. This is best accomplished by adding a line to /etc/rc.local up above the “exit 0″ line.

echo lirc > /sys/class/rc/rc0/protocols

This will disable all kernel interpretations of lirc events, except for what the lirc daemon is defined to deal with, effectively eliminating double entry.

You then need an lircd.conf file to be placed in /etc/lirc that defines your mceusb remote’s key codes and maps them to human-understandable commands. This is the one I’m using:

begin remote

  name        mceusb
  bits                 16
  flags  RC6|CONST_LENGTH
  eps                  30
  aeps                100

  header       2667   889
  one           444   444
  zero          444   444
  pre_data_bits        21
  pre_data        0x37FF0
  gap              105000
  toggle_bit           22
  rc6_mask    0x100000000

      begin codes

#seen on HP Pavilion dv3t remote  --Tim Mann, 3 Nov 2009
        Media         0x00007b7f
        PlayPause     0x00007b91

#unused by HP remote
        KEY_BLUE              0x00007ba1
        KEY_YELLOW            0x00007ba2
        KEY_GREEN             0x00007ba3
        KEY_RED       0x00007ba4
        Teletext      0x00007ba5

#ba6 - bae unused 
        BA6           0x00007ba6
        BA7           0x00007ba7
        BA8           0x00007ba8
        BA9           0x00007ba9
        BAA           0x00007baa
        BAB           0x00007bab
        BAC           0x00007bac
        BAD           0x00007bad
        BAE           0x00007bae

        KEY_RADIO         0x00007baf
        Print         0x00007bb1

#bb2 - bb4 unused  
        BB2           0x00007bb2
        BB3           0x00007bb3
        BB4           0x00007bb4

        KEY_VIDEO        0x00007bb5
        Pictures      0x00007bb6
        RecTV         0x00007bb7
        KEY_AUDIO         0x00007bb8
        KEY_TV            0x00007bb9

#bba - bbf unused 
        BBA           0x00007bba
        BBB           0x00007bbb
        BBC           0x00007bbc
        BBD           0x00007bbd
        BBE           0x00007bbe
        BBF           0x00007bbf
#bc1 - bca unused 
        BC1           0x00007bc1
        BC2           0x00007bc2
        BC3           0x00007bc3
        BC4           0x00007bc4
        BC5           0x00007bc5
        BC6           0x00007bc6
        BC7           0x00007bc7
        BC8           0x00007bc8
        BC9           0x00007bc9
        BCA           0x00007bca

        KEY_EJECTCD         0x00007bcb
        SlideShow     0x00007bcc
        Visualization 0x00007bcd

#bce - bcf unused 
        BCE           0x00007bce
        BCF           0x00007bcf
#bd1 - bd7 unused 
        BD1           0x00007bd1
        BD2           0x00007bd2
        BD3           0x00007bd3
        BD4           0x00007bd4
        BD5           0x00007bd5
        BD6           0x00007bd6
        BD7           0x00007bd7

        Aspect        0x00007bd8
        Guide         0x00007bd9
        LiveTV        0x00007bda
        KEY_DVD           0x00007bdb
#NoGap
        KEY_BACK          0x00007bdc
        KEY_OK            0x00007bdd
        KEY_RIGHT         0x00007bde
        KEY_LEFT          0x00007bdf
        KEY_DOWN          0x00007be0
        KEY_UP            0x00007be1
#NoGap
        Star          0x00007be2
        Hash          0x00007be3
#NoGap
        KEY_AGAIN        0x00007be4
        KEY_NEXT          0x00007be5
        KEY_STOP          0x00007be6
        KEY_PAUSE         0x00007be7
        KEY_RECORD        0x00007be8
        KEY_PLAY          0x00007be9
        KEY_REWIND        0x00007bea
        KEY_FORWARD       0x00007beb

#NoGap
        KEY_CHANNELDOWN      0x00007bec
        KEY_CHANNELUP        0x00007bed
        KEY_VOLUMEDOWN       0x00007bee
        KEY_VOLUMEUP         0x00007bef
#NoGap
        More          0x00007bf0
        KEY_MUTE          0x00007bf1
        KEY_HOME          0x00007bf2
        KEY_POWER         0x00007bf3
#NoGap
        KEY_ENTER         0x00007bf4
        KEY_CLEAR         0x00007bf5
#NoGap
        KEY_9          0x00007bf6
        KEY_8         0x00007bf7
        KEY_7         0x00007bf8
        KEY_6           0x00007bf9
        KEY_5          0x00007bfa
        KEY_4          0x00007bfb
        KEY_3         0x00007bfc
        KEY_2           0x00007bfd
        KEY_1           0x00007bfe
        KEY_0          0x00007bff
      end codes

end remote

You’ll also need a file that lives in your mythtv user account for your frontend system. This file is ~mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc which maps those lirc mappings above into corresponding MythTV commands. Mine is here, yours may be different, depnding on your remote.

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_1
    config = 1
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_2
    config = 2
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_3
    config = 3
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_4
    config = 4
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_5
    config = 5
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_6
    config = 6
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_7
    config = 7
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_8
    config = 8
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_9
    config = 9
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_0
    config = 0
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_BACK
    config = Esc
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_HOME
    config = M
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = Guide
    config = S
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = More
    config = I
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
    repeat = 1
    config = [
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_VOLUMEUP
    repeat = 1
    config = ]
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_CHANNELUP
    repeat = 3
    config = Up
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_CHANNELDOWN
    repeat = 3
    config = Down
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_UP
    repeat = 3
    config = Up
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_DOWN
    repeat = 3
    config = Down
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_LEFT
    repeat = 3
    config = Left
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_RIGHT
    repeat = 3
    config = Right
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_PLAY
    config = P
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_OK
    config = Return
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_ENTER
    config = Return
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_MUTE
    config = |
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_REWIND
    config = <
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_FORWARD
    config = >
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_RECORD
    config = R
  end

  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_STOP
   config = Esc
  end

  begin
    prog = mythtv
    button = KEY_PAUSE
    config = P
  end

  # Use for backwards commercial skip
  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_AGAIN
   config = Q
  end

  # Use for forward commercial skip
  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_NEXT
   config = Z
  end

  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_TV
   repeat = 3
   config = ALT+L
  end

  # Toggle subtitles (closed captions)
  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = Teletext
   config = T   
  end

  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_BLUE
   config = W   
  end

  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_YELLOW
   config = Alt+F7
  end

  begin
   prog = mythtv
   button = KEY_GREEN
   config = O
  end

begin
 button = Power
 prog = irexec
 repeat = 0
 config = sudo /usr/sbin/hibernate-ram
end

Bye Bye

Ok, that’s all from me on this for now – I’m sick of writing! I hope this helps someone wanting to set up MythTV on the new AMD A10 APU’s – or really anyone looking at what’s required for an up-to-date MythTV install.

Now, there is a Debian multimedia repository that has a MythTV compiled, but if you add that repository, it also comes with a lot of other stuff, and some of that stuff has been claimed to overwrite the standard Debian stuff. So I steer clear of it.

Best of luck!