HowTo: Installation of an Ubuntu Cloud Image at Home (on a Xenial – 16.04)

This HowTo describes an installation of an Ubuntu Cloud Image on a home-server running Ubuntu Xenial (16.04 LTS) with qemu-kvm. This will be done without the help of libvirt, which comes with an additional abstraction layer I don’t really need. This blog post is more about basic understanding of virtualization and how it is set up in a more or less simple way – unfortunately it’ll be more complex than I initially thought. But with this HowTo this shouldn’t be a problem anymore.

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Mplayer-vaapi on Oneiric (Ubuntu 11.10) for AMD/ATI HowTo

Mplayer-vaapi is an official branch from the mplayer project team and can be checked out via subversion. VAAPI is an video output device for hardware accelerated HD content playback (VC1, H264). VLC, Mplayer and maybe one day Xine can make use of it.
I’ve bought a ATI/AMD Redeon HD 5450 graphics card on a budget (35€/40$) so I can test the newest development going on. Installing Ubuntu 11.10 Server (Kernel 3.0.0.4-14-server) with openbox as window manager, I’ve been able to make mplayer-vaapi work, but don’t ask me how long it took me. If you know what to do, it’s quite simple. Actually the only thing one has to know is, that the current libva1 (version 0.32) driver is broken. And the ATI/AMD’s fglrx driver version 8.88.7 makes mplayer crash after a while. These two simple facts took me a few evening to find out.
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Avatar 3D For Nvidia's 3D Vision Glasses

Avatar for 3D Vision at TPBMonsters vs Aliens was the first movie I’ve seen at TPB, which was ready for Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses. But hardly anybody took notice of it, because the first comment was quite devastating, but very precise though. The file description itself laconically states: “3D” – that’s all. The subs were hardcoded on the left eye, the video was out of sync and the language was Russian. Continue reading “Avatar 3D For Nvidia's 3D Vision Glasses”

Cyrus2.2 after Lucid Upgrade doesn't start.

I’ve got running a Cyrus IMAP mail server with an EXIM4 as MTA [1]. Unfortunately after an system upgrade from Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 onto Lucid Lynx aka 10.04 LTS Server my Cyrus refuses to start. It prompts at the console:
Continue reading “Cyrus2.2 after Lucid Upgrade doesn't start.”

Windows 7 on a RAID

This is a documentation installation of a Windows 7 x64 on a Asus P5K motherboard using a RAID0. First of all I must say, that I’ve managed this RAID0 installation and the speed increase was very impressive, and I’d like to share my experiences on how to set up a hardware based RAID0 with Windows 7 x64, since it was all, but straight forward.
In advance: I do not use a RAID anymore, because I’ve noticed some ugly side effects, which urged me to drop this RAID idea again. FarCry2 and Crysis Warhead simply didn’t work on my RAID system. Maybe more titles are affected. Feedback welcome. Continue reading “Windows 7 on a RAID”

[HOWTO] Workaround for a broken AVCHD playback with VDPAU on Karmic

The release of Karmic Koala inspired me to upgrade to this new Ubuntu 9.10 version and also to install the latest My Media System (a light Media Center for Linux), wich is version 1.1.2 actually. All was fine, beside the playback of AVCHD footage from my Canon HF100 FullHD camcorder. I’ve noticed already some time ago, AVCHD footage doesn’t work with the ‘-fps 50‘ switch anymore. The solution for the problem, so I wrote, was to use ‘-correct-pts‘ instead. Continue reading “[HOWTO] Workaround for a broken AVCHD playback with VDPAU on Karmic”

VMware-server 2.0.x Installation HOWTO for Karmic Koala (x86_64)

[UPDATE]This HOWTO works also for VMware-Server 2.0.2[/UPDATE], but after all I’ve migrated my VMs to KVM: Here’s a detailed HOWTO

I was trying to install the VMware server 2.0.1 x86_64 on my new Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-13) server, but I’ve got a bunch of errors. Looking for an any-any patch haven’t been successful, but I’ve found an discussion thread, where the problem was solved. Unfortunately it sucks a bit going through the links and threads. That’s why here is a short and clear HOWTO with an already fixed patch: Continue reading “VMware-server 2.0.x Installation HOWTO for Karmic Koala (x86_64)”

New Mplayer slows down AVCHD footage

I’ve built the latest mplayer trunk (r29664) in order being able to play back 3gp videos with sound. All was fine and my 3gp videos had sound after I’ve installed the appropriate libraries, built and compiled the current mplayer version.
But after a while I’ve noticed, that mplayer, no matter how I’ve invoked it (with or without my mplayer-vdpau wrapper script for My Media System), played back my AVCHD footage from my Canon HF100 in slow motion (e.g. half speed), and the sound of course wasn’t in sync either. Continue reading “New Mplayer slows down AVCHD footage”

HOWTO: Missing Audio on Playing Back 3gp Video Files

I’ve recently reported about creating 3gp videos for playing them back with an average mobile phone. I’ve done this by using ffmpeg. Now – since my attention came onto 3gp video files, I was wandering if My Media System (MMS, a light Media Center unlike XBMC or MythTV), precisely speaking my mplayer-vdpau wrapper script was able to handle them also. To my surprise the video does play back, but audio is missing.

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Creating 3gp Videos with Linux

For the impatient: Read here the compendium.

Recently I’ve bought a mid-range mobile phone for my wife. It’s a Nokia 2700 Classic for about 100€. At this price level you don’t have a sophisticated video support regarding recording or playback. You don’t have avi, wmv or flv support. The only video format the mobile phone understands is 3gp. Continue reading “Creating 3gp Videos with Linux”