I went to the CCC (32C3) gain this year. As always it was great, a really interesting mixture of people geeking out with LEDs and activists trying to save the world. I always leave with mixed feelings. Glad that there is a community of people that are trying to keep a check on our privacy rights, and the freedom of the press etc, but also depressed about the direction that the world seems to be going in. Anyway, below is a machine that makes Crepes to cheer you up.
Author: phil
Complex Systems Scientist.
Liquid Cooling
So my main home desktop machine needed some TLC. Firstly, it was caught in a power surge before I got a UPS system and that damaged the power supply. The result would be that it would instantly restart after shutdown. I checked everything, from the BIOS upwards. This was definitely a hardware problem. The other issue was the machine would run hot under heavy load. Pushing about 70/80 degrees C.
So I eventually got round to fixing the two issues. I got a new 850Watt PSU and installed that. This solved the restarting problem. I also got a refurbished Corsair H90 Hydro cheaply for the replacement cooling solution. The CPU is a Intel i7 3930K, which has a TDP of 130Watts so a air cooling solution wasn’t really up to the job. The H90 is very easy to install, there was plenty of room in my case for an extra fan/radiator at the top. So it was a simple matter of installing the fan at the top, and then screwing the retaining bolts for the cooler on to the CPU socket. There is then a fixing ring for the pump/heatsink assembly that attaches to the bolts. I think it took me longer to unplug all the wires from the back of the motherboard than it did to install the cooler. Result, it has knocked about 8+ degrees of the idle temperature and about 15+ degrees off the load temperature. Which is a big improvement. Now I should really do something about the cooling in my old dual quad core Opteron system… Pictures below.
DV and Hi8 Video Decks
I think I already said, I have an interest in video and audio. I enjoy recording and filming things. My interest in all things capturing sound an image extends back to my childhood. Where I loved cameras, and not just what they could do but the physical objects themselves. So now an adult with a bit more money and access to eBay i can feed this obcession. Last week I bought a Sony DV deck, which accepts both DVCAM and miniDV tapes. The unit is great, old school with lights button and knobs. Also an LCD screen that shows the video and a menu. Its a boadcast deck, so well made and solid. I have just bought, but not yet receive, a Hi8 editing deck also a Sony. This also looks awesome, it plays Hi8 tapes but has basic editing fercilaties. My intention is to connect them both to my (one of my) computers. The DV deck has firewire, not sure if my computer does anymore… the Hi8 doesn’t. I will have to connect that either via s-video or component connectors. I am not sure yet, I will need to get hold of some sort capture card. Back to eBay, i will have to get a VCR too.
Technology
I have decided to admit that i am addicted to technology. I love it. I like the way it looks, i like the way it smells, and i like messing about with it. This is a fact brought home by my resent eBay activity. I have just bought a Sony digital video deck. Why? I like playing around with video. I am planning to buy a Hi8 deck too. My interest in technology centres around audio and video. These are my favourite things. I have got into film making for my job, and i have always been into photography. This obcession costs me a fair amount of money, but i am running out of things to buy. So thats good. Plus, it’s a hobby and it makes me happy so why worry. I will post some pictures of my expanding kit soon. Maybe both the sound and video kit…
Remapping Mouse Buttons
I have recently bought a vertical mouse for work. This is to help combat a bit of RSI in my arm. Its great, make things much better. So good that I got another one for my other office. Then I hit a snag, the two mice are slightly different versions, one is a Evoluent 4 and the other a 3. This means that mouse buttons mapped differently to functions, and neither of them mapped how I wanted them to map. So… remapping mouse buttons.
First find out which button maps to which number. Easy with a little problem called ‘xev’.
xev | grep button
The command above pops up a window which you can click in, and then filters the output to the command line.
Next look at the output from xinput
xinput -list
This will tell you the ID number of the device you want to remap.
xinput –get-button-map Device_ID
Outputs the button map, you will get something like this:
> xinput –get-button-map 9
1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Then you just remap the buttons that wrong by switch them over, in my case 2 and 3.
xinput –set-button-map 9 1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Finally to make this happen every time you log in put the following in your ‘.bashrc. file in your home directory.
MOUSE_ID=`xinput list | grep -i Evoluent | awk -F= ‘{ print $2}’ | awk ‘{print $1}’`
xinput set-button-map $MOUSE_ID 1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
The first line finds the ID of the device, just in case it changes. The second line maps the keys using the ID.
Easy!
Private VPNs
I travel a lot with my job, and therefore I use a range of different wifi networks. These are often secured in different ways and to different standards. Or they aren’t secured at all. I recently suffered a fairly major credit card fraud, and I don’t really know how they got the details. This has made me think that I need to be able to secure my internet activity on my own terms at times.
I have therefore set up my own cloud hosted VPN that I am currently testing. This allows me to encrypt my internet traffic between a cloud server and my laptop even if the network isn’t secure. Once tested I will post up how I have done it. My plan is to have three private VPNs, one in the UK (my home server), one in the US on a Rackspace cloud server, and one in Iceland.
Opensuse 12.3 KDE login/nvidia issues
I updated Opensuse 12.3 the other day. Caused a few issues, one was repeated crashes on login to KDE. I seem to have fixed it by adding my user to the ‘video’ group. These is also a fix for the following error.
GL applications report that they can’t operate /dev/nvidiactl.
I have had this error with certain applications trying to use the binary Nvidia drivers. Not sure if the fix is complete yet as the system seems to be a little bit sluggish and if I try to open nvidia-settings it doesn’t work. I will update when I have more info. I might re-install the nvidia drivers and see if that helps.
Update: So nvidia-settings does work, it just takes ages to open.
Minor Brainwave
I had a minor brainwave to reduce the power consumption of my home server. Take out the GPU and use the on-board GPU. This was only recently made possible by the fact that I changed my monitors and the new ones have VGA connectors as well as HDMI and DVI. Something I had failed to connect with the possibility of reducing the home servers power consumption. The upshot is that I would be unlikely to recover the cost of upgrading it to newer parts for a long time as its power consumption is like to be pretty close to any upgraded kit.
Opensuse 12.3 KDE Audio Problems
Having issues with audio on my new computer. It has HDMI output and an on-board sound card. KDE decided that it would stop playing sound and grey out all the devices. Arrrgh! Sound is frequently a sticking point with Linux. I use Opensuse 12.3 and this is how I force KDE to take another look at the system config to get sound going again.
I re-named the following files:
- ~/.kde4/share/config/phonondevicesrcmv
- ~/.kde4/cache-hostname/libphonon/hardwaredatabase
Renaming them makes KDE regenerate them, that got the devices back for me.
The control of the volume is still a bit flaky. it occasionally deafens me. 🙂
Computer Spring Clean and Updates
Every now and then you have to take things in hand and sort out computers. Its like spring cleaning, its also about as interesting as spring cleaning. I have recently got a new work computer. Long time overdue, but it was worth the wait. Should prove things massively. So, time for a computer inventory and some sorting out.
Retiring the old work machine means that I have an excellent case for my home server. It also has a much better power supply. The old PSU was having trouble starting all the HD up at boot and I wanted to add another 2TB. The new PSU and case is better, quieter and has enough power.
Possible upgrade to the server is on the cards. I think it would benefit from a new m’board and CPU/Ram. I am thinking a low power Celeron (35W). This would have a two fold effect on power consumption, as it would remove the need for it having a GPU (as it does currently), and the CPU would be less. Its main jobs are backup and music server, so its not over taxed. In the future I think it I will move some database tasks to it.
Current machines:
- Work: Intel i7 3930K, 64GB, 120GB SSD, 2TB HD.
- Home WS: 4x Opteron 8360SE, 32GB Ram, 150GB HD, 750HD.
- Home Desktop: AMD Phenom II 1090T, 8GB Ram, 30GB SSD, 500GB HD.
- Server: AMD Athlon 4050 (45W), 4GB Ram, 150GB Sys. 4TB Storage.
- Windows Box: AMD Athlon 6000+, 4GB Ram, 320GB HD.
Possible upgrades. I have 3 500GB HD that I think I will add to the Home WS, I also have an ATI 6850 GPU that could go in that. The Home Desktop could do with a CPU boost, perhaps an AMD FX 8350. The Windows box is long overdue for an upgrade really. I just don’t use it very much at all. I am thinking of moving the GPU out of the WS into it. If I get back into music production then I might upgrade. That or I might save up for a Mac Mini. 😛