r4ndom h4x

I’ve been busy building a media PC over the last couple of weeks. (yes.. weeks..) After much trial and error, I’d eventually settled on MythTV on Ubuntu as the best software for digital tv broadcasts. But the one thing left that I couldn’t ever get right was the video.

Basically, switching between SD and HD channels would corrupt the screen. I’m using an AMD motherboard with integrated ATI HD3200 graphics.

Well, the new ATI 9.2 catalyst driver have solved this issue! I can now unblock my HD channels! This is fantastic news because I know many people have exactly the same issue.

I don’t like the default Ubuntu boot splash screen. It’s boring and impersonal. Thankfully, it’s fairly simple to change.

Out of the box Ubuntu uses a package called Usplash to control the graphical boot screen. The simplest way to change it is to look for a replacement usplash image that someone else has made. If you don’t want to compile it yourself then you will need to get one that is pre-compiled and suitable for your particular machine’s architecture (32bit vs 64bit etc).

Take a peek here and see if anything floats your boat : ubuntu-art.org and gnome-look.org but make sure you only look for usplash screens.

1. To install a usplash screen that has already been compiled, check to see if you have “Startup Manager” installed. (System menu -> Administration -> StartUp-Manager) If you don’t have it installed (it’s not by default) open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

2. Download a usplash screen you like. It’s probably compressed via gzip or bzip2. Either let Firefox automatically open it up in the archive manager, or save it and double-click on the file to open archive manager.

3. The archive should contain a file that ends in .so.   For example, here’s a Dell one I grabbed from the above site:

Just Extract the file somewhere – I’d chuck it in /tmp because we only need it for a short time.
You only need the .so file – if there’s anything else there you don’t need it- it might be the source code or a Readme file.

4. Now, open up Startup Manager. It should look something like this:

Click on the Appearance tab and select the “Manage uspash themes” button. Now just click “Add” and browse to where you saved the .so file (/tmp perhaps?). Now the file will become available as a choice in the usplash themes drop-box.

5. Click Close to all the windows. Let the startup-manager finish! It will probably take it a little while. (All your initrd files are being regenerated with the new theme included.)

Done! But what do you do if you can’t find a theme you like? Well, you’ll need to compile one. That’s a subject for another day though.

I work in the IT department for a large national company. We use a fairly typical mix of vendors I guess – HP, VMWare, Citrix, EMC, Cisco, Microsoft.

So, more than 18 months ago I scored myself a new laptop. It came with Windows Vista Business. It took me six months or so before I finally couldn’t handle it any longer. And so it was settled. I would run Linux as my primary OS on my work machine.

(continue reading…)

I just had a need to convert an audio file from Monkey’s audio to something else on my Ubuntu 8.10 box. I tried Audacity, but it doesn’t seem to read Monkey’s audio. Then I came across soundconverter. Brilliant. It’s a simple to use and effective converter of audio formats.

I converted Monkey’s to MP3 with no probs at all. I would have used ogg but I’m encoding it for my PS3 so choice is limited

soundconverter main window