Connect Windows To Linux The Easy Way

This guides about a little piece of windows software but i feel its usefull for linux users too because if like me youv spent ages messing around with samba trying to allow your windows partition to see the files and folders in your linux partition and no matter how many guides you follow still cant get it to work then this is deffinetly for you.

The reason i want to be able to see my linux partition when im using windows is to transfer files back and forward without having to resort to my usb flash stick all the time, so heres the easy way to do it you just need to install a little program into windows called "Ext2 IFS". Once you install the program then click start, control panel and you'll notice a programe called IFS Drives, just open that program and it will show you all the drives on your PC, your linux drive should be the one thats marked with the Ext2 file system all you have to do is assign a drive letter to it from the drop down list and voila you can now see your linux partition when you go to "My Computer".

Please remember though that by doing this you could be allowing any viruses you have on you windows box access to your linux partition so be sure to change the drop down box in IFS Drives to none when you dont need access to you linux box.

Heres a download link for Ext2IFS
http://www.fs-driver.org/download/Ext2IFS_1_11a.exe

and heres the homepage for more info
http://www.fs-driver.org/

Install VirtualBox In Hardy

I recently switched back to using Hardy Heron because after upgrading to 9.04 jaunty i didnt have any sound on my pc, iv hit the same problem before when upgrading my kernel but as i didnt blog it i cant remember how i fixed it so just decided to go back to what works for me, the one thing that didnt work for me straight away in ubuntu 8.10 hardy was virtualbox so im blogging how i solved it to keep for future referencing.

Firstly install virtualbox from the repositories by opening the terminal and entering;

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox

Ok all that went fine for me but then when i created a new virtual machine and tried to run it i got an error

VBox status code: -1908 (VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED).

so after a little searching i found the answer which was that you need to install modules for your kernel version, so back to the terminal again and enter;

$ uname -r

to find your kernel version, mines was;
2.6.24-24-generic

so in the terminal i just entered;

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.24-24-generic

(You need to change the kernal numbers at the end to match your output from your uname -r command)

Then restart virtualbox backend with the commands;

$ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv restart && sudo /etc/init.d/virtualbox-ose restart

Then at the top of your desktop go to
System >> Administration >> Users and Groups
click unlock then manage groups and scroll all the way down near the bottom where youll see a group called vboxusers click properties and make sure your username has a tick beside it and click OK.

Now you just need to reboot the pc and virtualbox should be running perfect for you to install any other OS's inside your ubuntu.

Loads of nautilus scripts

A nautilus script is a bash script that when placed in a special nautilus scripts directory will add extra menu items to the right click menu under scripts when you are using the nautilus file manager.

open up a terminal and type;

$ cd ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts && wget http://g-scripts.sourceforge.net/nautilus-scripts.tar.gz && tar zxvf nautilus-scripts.tar.gz && rm nautilus-scripts.tar.gz

and thats you done.

You can see the scripts by right-clicking on you desktop and go to scripts, nautilis scripts, to see the full list of scripts youv just added.

Convert Video To An Mp3 Audio File

Heres how to convert a video file to an audio mp3, first open a terminal and install ffmpeg

$ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

now cd in the terminal to the folder your video file that you want to convert is in then simply enter

$ ffmpeg -i YourVideoFile.flv -ab 160k -ac 2 -ar 44100 -vn YourAudioFile.mp3

and wait for it to convert :) yep it really is that simple.

the -i simply means your input file, the -ab indicates the bit rate, -vn means no video ouput, -ac 2 means 2 channels and the -ar 44100 indicates the sampling frequency.

You can edit these to suit your needs

Transfer files to and from your nokia in ubuntu

Transfering files to and from your nokia phone is easy under linux if you use the correct tools, im going to show you how to do it using obexftp, obexftp-frontend, DKU-2 cable and my old Nokia 7600, this will work with any Nokia phone it doesnt have to be a 7600, You could also transfer files by mounting your phones system onto your hard drive but ill leave that for another blog :)

OK firstly we need to get the tools so fire up the terminal and enter;

$ sudo apt-get install obexftp openobex-apps

now we could use just these tools to transfer our files but whats the point in that when theres a nice GUI frontend available for obexftp.
You need to have java runtime installed to run the GUI so if you have java installed then skip the next step and if you havent got java installed then install it now by going to the command line and entering;

$ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-bin

Now well download the obexftp-frontend, its not available in the repositories but you can download extract and move it to your /home directory by entering;

$ wget -c http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/obexftpfrontend/obexftp-frontend-0.6.1-bin.zip && unzip obexftp-frontend-0.6.1-bin.zip && sudo cp -r obexftp-frontend-0.6.1-bin /home

Now we need to set our permissions to allow us to access and transfer files to and from our phone, go to the terminal and enter;

$ lsusb

and we should see a line similar to;


Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0421:0400 Nokia Mobile Phones 7600 Phone Parent


Now iv marked the important numbers above in red, the first number is the;
VendorID: 0421
and the second number is the;
ProductID: 0400

Your numbers will differ slightly but just remember that the first is the VendorID and the second is the ProductID.

Now in the terminal enter;

$ sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules

and add the following to the end of the file that opens;

BUS=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="VendorID", SYSFS{idProduct}=="ProductID", GROUP="plugdev", USER="yourUserName"

replacing VendorID and ProductID for your actual id numbers from before and put your own username where it says yourUserName and save, for example mines looks like this;
BUS=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0421", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0400", GROUP="plugdev", USER="mark"

Now we're almost finished just right click on the desktop and select "create launcher", name the launcher whatever you want and in the "command field" type;

java -jar /home/obexftp-frontend-0.6.1-bin/OBEXFTPFrontend.jar

Now all you need to do is click on the launcher you just created and it will open the ObexFTP-frontend for you to configure and the last step are to add;

/usr/bin/obexftp

where it asks for the ObexFTP Path:
Change Transport to USB and set Value to 1 then press Test connection and thats you done, you can now just use the launcher to start transfering files to and from your mobile phone.

Convert kaffiene .m2t or any other video file into images

A quick "how to" convert kaffeine dvb-t recordings which are stored with the file extensions .m2t or any other video file eg; mpg,avi etc into .png files,

First things first create a new folder where you want the images to be stored and remember there can be a lot of images depending on the size of the video.

To convert to small pictures which are 768 x 576 pixels (1.3 mb) simply open up the terminal cd to the new folder you'v just created and enter,

$ mplayer /Path/To/Your/File.m2t -aspect 16:9 -mc 0 -fps 30000/1001 -delay -0.222 -ao null -vf pullup,softskip,scale=768:576 -vo png

changing where iv wrote /Path/To/Your/File.m2t to your actual path and watch as your file converts into images.

To make the images bigger in size change scale=768:576 to scale=1440:1080 to make the images bigger in size 1440 x 1080 pixels (4 mb) make sure you have plenty of space on you hard drive if its a large file

example:

$ mplayer /Path/To/Your/File.m2t -aspect 16:9 -mc 0 -fps 30000/1001 -delay -0.222 -ao null -vf pullup,softskip,scale=1440:1080 -vo png

Geniatech T328B dvb-t usb freeview stick on ubuntu

Update 8/1/2009:
Changed the hg clone source and added a different firmware


Yesterday i got a Geniatech T328B usb freeview stick deliverd and decieded to try set it up on ubuntu and after some searching on the internet i managed to get it working and this is how i did it, i think this should work with any usb freeview stick with the Af9015 chipset, if this works for you then post what stick your using to let others know.

Ok here we go, first up open the terminal and enter;

$ lsusb

now we should see either

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 15a4: 9015

or

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 15a4: 9016

in our results, if you see either of these then you can use this tutorial to get your TV up an running in ubuntu.

Now we are going to install all programs and libraries needed to compile the drivers to make our usb stick work.

In the terminal enter;

$ sudo apt-get install mercurial linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential gcc make

Now we'll download and install the Firmware;

$ wget http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af9015/af9015_firmware_cutter/firmware_files/4.95.0/dvb-usb-af9015.fw

Onced downloaded we need to move this file into our kernel folder in the directory /lib/firmware/YourKernalNumber-generic , to do this enter;

$ sudo cp dvb-usb-af9015.fw /lib/firmware/$(uname -r)

Now we will download the drivers by entering into the terminal;

$ hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

Once finished enter;

$ cd v4l-dvb

Now we will compile and install the drivers by entering;

$ make && sudo make install

Now to load the module at the begining of each session we need to edit the modules file by entering;

$ sudo gedit /etc/modules

now add;

dvb-usb-af9015

at the end of the file and save and close it.

probe dvb module;

$ sudo modprobe dvb-usb-af9015

Now you dvb-t stick should be working but if its not reboot the system and when its reloaded your dvb-t stick will be working.

:)

Updated 8/1/2009: changed the hg clone source and added a diffrent firmware