Derek Hildreth’s Blog

Turn Fedora into a PS3 Media Server [Tutorial]

This tutorial will walk you through a successful installation of a Fedora Media Server for streaming pictures, video, and audio to your PS3. I would suspect that you will be able to complete these steps and be up and running in less than an hour. These are the steps that worked for me using Fedora 10 Linux, the PS3 with the latest updates, uShare, and a Linksys WRT54G Router. This guide is adaptable to other flavors of Linux as well including Ubuntu, Debian, openSuse, etc. Let’s get to it!

First, setup your PS3 to have a static IP address by following this guide:
http://www.orpheusinternet.co.uk/support/ps3/wireless.html

Second, setup port forwarding and enable UPNP in your router so that your PS3 will be UPNP enabled. I’m not going to explicitly list all instructions in this tutorial, but I will lead you to a great guide for the popular routers:
Linksys WRT54G Router
Netgear WGR614NA Router
D-Link WBR-2310 Router
Belkin F5D7230-4 Routers
All Other Routers (with some modems)

These are the ports you need to forward:
TCP port 80, 443 and 5223
UDP port 3478, 3479 and 3658

You will be forwarding these ports to the PS3’s IP address. For example:
“Port 80 forward to 192.168.1.110″

Also, remember to enable UPnP on your router.
Hint: Now you should get NAT2 with the NAT test on your PS3

Third, we’re going to open the terminal, sign in as root, and then install the necessary packages:

su -c 'yum install ushare ushare-freeworld libdlna'


Then, we will need to open the configuration file by typing in the following command:

gedit /etc/ushare.conf

Next, we will need to specify which network card uShare should use. If you don’t know, use the following as a guideline: If you’re using a cable to connect to your router, then “eth0″ or “eth1″ should work. If you’re using the wireless card, then chances are it’s going to be “wlan0″. Place this value into the “USHARE_IFACE” field like so:

USHARE_IFACE=network_card

Example using a wireless connection:

USHARE_IFACE=wlan0

Next, you will need to edit a few more lines in the “/etc/ushare.conf” file, namely the port number, the shared directories (notice the lack of spaces), and enable DLNA support like so:

USHARE_PORT=49200
USHARE_DIR=/path/to/your/media,/path/to/your/media/2,/path/to/your/media/3
USHARE_ENABLE_DLNA=YES

Then, you’ll need to edit yet another configuration file. Open this one by typing the following into the terminal:

gedit /etc/init.d/ushare

Find the line that has the “OPTIONS=” field and make it look like this:

OPTIONS=”d”

Next, you will then need to type this command into the terminal to start the service:

/etc/init.d/ushare start

Finally, you’ll need to configure the firewall in Fedora. This is probably the most dissapointing part of the tutorial because I can’t tell you exactly how to configure the firewall to allow uShare to communicate with your PS3. I can’t tell you because I don’t know how to do it other than disable the firewall completely. Once you do this, it will work. If anybody has any experience or know-how in this realm, please let me and everybody else know in the comments below.  Firewall settings can be found in “System ->Administration -> Firewall”.

You should now be sitting pretty enjoying all of your digital media! Have a lot of fun!  If you’re not seeing anything on your PS3, try restarting the service by typing this into the terminal and making sure the firewall is disabled:

/etc/init.d/ushare start

Tags: debian, fedora, fedora 10, media server, opensuse, ps3, tutorial, ubuntu, upnp, ushare

Bypassing Rubber Command in Gedit LaTeX Plugin [Tip]

This tip is for those, like me, who are having troubles getting the Gedit LaTex Plugin to function properly with Rubber.  The original problem is that an error will occur if you use whitespaces in your file names and folders.  It’s a known bug and is documented in the FAQ of the Gedit LaTeXPlugin homepage.  There is a patch for this, and if you havn’t tried to apply it yet, you should try.  If you’d rather not waste your time and/or the patch isn’t doing it for you (like in my case with Fedora 10), then you can completely bypass the command that causes the error in the first place.  So, here’s how (with a screenshot for reference):

1. Open Gedit (Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor).
2. Open the Plugins Window (Edit -> Preferences -> “Plugins” Tab).
3. Scroll down to the “LaTeX Plugin”, select it, and then click on “Configure”.
4. Click on the “Build Profiles” tab, select the “PDF” item, and then click the “Edit” button.
5. Under “Jobs” type in the following command (with two “-” before “interaction”) and then click the “Add” button when finished (I wouldn’t recommend a copy/paste because of how wordpress redoes text):
   • pdflatex –interaction=nonstopmode “%f”
6. Use the “Delete” button to delete the rubber -f -s –inplace -d “%f” command.  (You can chose to keep this as long as it is on the bottom of the list and you don’t mind your document being processed twice).
7. Enjoy!

Tags: error, fedora, fix, gedit, how to, latex, Linux, pdflatex, plugin, problem, rubber, tutorial, whitespaces

How To Enable Graphical Boot with Plymouth [Fedora Tip]

Thanks to this guide by axel, I was able to get rid of the simple blue/light blue/white bar loader and get the fancy graphical loader better known as Plymouth. Keep in mind that I am using it on a laptop that has Intel 945GM graphics.

I’m going to keep things basic without a lot of jargon. If you’d like more details on this, visit this page.

Type the following into the terminal to configure grub:

su -
gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

Then, within the grub.conf file, add the bold text below (this value will also depend upon which screen resolution you’d like. To get this value, visit this page):

title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686)
root (hd0,9)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=a61c8338-e373-4389-ae00-32942185f7c2 rhgb quiet vga=792
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img

If you’d like to add more themes, you’ll need to first download and install them and then set them as default. To do this, type the following into the terminal, replacing what’s within the {} with the loader of your choice):

su -
yum install plymouth-plugin-{fade-in,pulser,spinfinity}

Then, set your theme as default:

su -
plymouth-set-default-plugin pluginname
/usr/libexec/plymouth/plymouth-update-initrd

Source: http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/125/26/1/12/#plymouth

Tags: boot, fedora, graphic, Intel, plymouth, solar, theme

How To: Install VirtualBox on Fedora 10 [Tutorial]

Updated November 25th, 2008

This is a tutorial on how to get VirtualBox up and running on Fedora 10.  Also, this tutorial is for the 32-Bit version of VirtualBox, so you’ll have to customize a little more to get the 64-bit version running. Everything in the “code” sections should be copy/pasted/typed into the terminal. Right, let’s get to it:

PreStep.) Open the terminal and get into super user mode:

su -

1.) Get the latest VirtualBox package (as of now, 2.0.6) from the VirtualBox website for Fedora 9 and install it (generally, after a few months, the Fedora 10 link will be available).

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.0.6/VirtualBox-2.0.6_39765_fedora9-1.i386.rpm && rpm -ivh VirtualBox-2.0.6_39765_fedora9-1.i386.rpm

2.) Get the kernel-devel package:

yum install make automake autoconf gcc kernel-devel dkms


3.) Run the setup file for VirtualBox:

/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

4.) Add yourself to the “vboxusers” group and fix the SELinux Permissions:

usermod -G vboxusers -a username
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so


5.) Run, and enjoy!

VirtualBox

6.) To Get USB Support:

1 - create a new group called “usb”;
2 - locate file usbfs: in my case is /sys/bus/usb/drivers (I suggest to find the file with a usb device inserted;
3 - modify file /etc/fstab inserting a line containing the right path and the number corresponding the “usb” group :
none /sys/bus/usb/drivers usbfs devgid=503,devmode=664 0 0
4 - command mount -a;
5 - start VB and try…;

Source: Fedora Forums

7.) To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

8.) To Get Sound Working:

Highlight your virtual machine and click on the “Settings” button. Click on the “Sound” category, and then check the “Enable Sound” option. In the drop-down box, select “PulseAudio”. You should now have sound.

That’s it!  If you find yourself with problems, feel free to comment below or ask for assistance on the fedora forum thread that I have created located here.

Tags: .vdi, fedora, fedora 10, guide, how to, install, sound, tutorial, usb, virtualbox

How to Fix the Backlight Control Issue in Gnome 2.24 [Linux Tip]

A quick fix to the problem of not being able to control the backlight in Gnome 2.24 (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc…) is to run a simple command in the terminal.  By no means to I take credit for finding this solution, nor do I promise that this will work for you.  It just so happens that it worked for me when my computer would freeze, hang, and crash when trying to adjust the backlight brightness using the “gnome brightness applet”.  Also, I’d like to make a note that this was tested in Fedora 10.  It should be distribution independent as long as it’s running Gnome 2.24.  Here goes:

In the terminal, run this (you may need to run as root):

xrandr --output LVDS --set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL native

Now, if your luck is anything like mine, you should be able to control your backlight using both your function keys (FN+F5 or FN+F6) and gnome brightness applet. Good luck!

Source: Ubuntu Forums

Tags: applet, backlight, crash, fedora, fix, freeze, gnome, hang, how to, problem, ubuntu