steam/plex/htpc box 2015

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So I am back with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for the moment because I figured out what was wrong with audio all this time. (multiple things)
can’t wait for the next ubuntu LTS or will go back to Fedora, I swear… the lack of proprietary driver support is the only thing I dislike there. the rest is awesome.

1) Pulseaudio is just shit without a proper systemd implementation (works like a charm for fedora 23)
2) HDMI passthrough has to be specifically enabled in plex settings
3) Nvidia prorietary driver needs to be used for proper hdmi audio passthrough
4) pulseaudio fix needs to be uncommented in /usr/bin/plexhometheater.sh to disable it
5) alternatively apt-get remove pulseaudio < -- after setup, will try again in April 2016 6) HDMI passthrough on your amplifier is counter-productive / sets itself to the wrong source when you sleep the media center / wake without amplifier enabled 7) HDMI-CEC needs more work, now it is just fuckign things up when enabled so DISABLE for now (once I have playstation 4, chromecast and more HDMI stuffz I can re-enable it. after a lot of testing and playing around with it I can now watch AAC, DTS and Dolby surround 2, 5 and 7 channels - everything works and survives reboots. Continue reading →

DNS caching resolver for home

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Preface: the fortigate I am using at home sucks at DNS – in fact it sucks at many things when you are used to a FritzBox – but I am stubborn and I will do this because I work with fortigates and want the learning experience. (and because I am stubborn)

somehow the big models can all do forward DNS services but the FortiWifi40C somehow can’t even act as a DNS gateway / proxy without bringing the internet experience to a grinding halt here.
(I run a small network, about 5 devices and 4 mobiles and if I can feel it I don’t want to know what a small office will experience…)
But: I have this Raspberry that receives audio via zeroconf and is connected to the network and to my amplifier.
Why not have it act as a caching DNS resolver, too?
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fedora 21

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so after 7 years I decided to give fedora another try
after ubuntu kinda lost its advantage by being
– as complicated as windows (or windows stopping being annoying?)
– requiring me to tweak it for hours till I like it turns out fedora is no different – it’s either Apple or suck it up and customize :)
– just too old / ancient package manager (as if I know anything about that)

anyway – let’s try it!
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ipv6 between fortigate and fritz box

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EDIT: AVM is not parsing /var/flash/debug.cfg anymore :(

so it turns out the IPv6 ready devices AVM fritz box 7360 and FortiWifi 40c are not so IPv6 ready as they claim they are…

both can not handle prefix delegation so I have to hack static routes to make it work.
(I tried it all, it seems the fritz’s firewall blocks IPv6 when it was assigned via dhcp6 (“adminstratively prohibited” even when Prefix delegation is enabled and the firewall is set to “exposed host”)

so let’s do it the hard way:
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ubuntu 14.10 testing

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gnome3 – why not? :)
installing ubuntu gnome and broke it in less than 24 hours.
I really need to find a way to transfer home and all config data without breakage – or better: what not to transfer…

– do not install encrypted home – let’s do that later
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wget

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wget… just as user-friendly as tar ;)

wget -r -N –no-parent http://server.tld/directory/ –level 1 –accept “*.mp3” -nd -e robots=off -U “custom user-agent” -b

downloads all files in the remote directory without creating a hierarchy, without traversing links and only getting mp3 files – rewriting the timestamp, ignoring robots.txt and listing itself as my custom user-agent – runs in the background and logs all activity to a file in the directory

raspberry as status screen / wall calendar / mpd player

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I need fridges all over the house. Why? Because fridge-magnets are the secret to getting things done. However, in the morning I often don’t go to the fridge. Also it isn’t magnetic
So I want a whiteboard/magnet thingie at the door so I see it before I exit the house.
Now this does not match my philosophy of “we need modern things” so let’s build it using a raspberry and hang it to the wall.
Obviously, it should look nice, too so lets not have error messages, mouse-cursors or other stuff that distracts from what is important!
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summer ending

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today is the last beautiful day in this summer, they say – the weather man calling it the last day where we will have sun and 20+ degrees celsius
From tomorrow on it will be truly autumn and more rain is going to come
How nice of my depression to chose this day to creep back on me – because I have the feeling that I _have to_ go out today and enjoy this day I am developing all kind of aversions against going out.
Oh, how I hate this..