Category Archives: Computer Stuff - Page 2

Auto UnRar Script

Posted by on January 16, 2011 4 comments | 5,370 views

Ever needed a script that automatically extracts all rar archives in a directory and subdirectories, unrar them into their respective directories and then delete the archive files, but only if the extraction was successful? Well in that case, I wrote this little bash script today:

#!/bin/bash
if [ -n "$1" ]
then
    echo "Unraring from $1"
    find $1 -type f -name '*.part01.rar' -execdir rar x -y -o- {} \;
    find $1 -type f -name '*.part001.rar' -execdir rar x -y -o- {} \;
    find $1 -type f -name '*.rar' -execdir rar x -y -o- {} \;
fi

It takes the path of the folder you want to scan as argument: unrarscript.sh /path/to/folder

Edit Jan 31 2011: It seems the if statements checking if the extraction failed or not only checks if last extraction was successful. For it to work correctly the unlink should be nested inside the finds. I have not yet made any corrections to the script, but be aware of this weakness.

Edit Nov 11 2011: Just removed the unlink part as it wasn’t working properly anyway.

XBMC 10.0 (Dharma)

Posted by on January 10, 2011 Comments Off | 4,321 views

Finally, just before Xmas, XBMC released version 10.0 of this excellent open source media centre software, codenamed “Dharma”. I have finally gotten around to upgrade it on my media centre box. Some of the main new features I have been looking forward to is the option to use a MySQL server for the database instead of a local SQLite database. Now I can update content from my PC and have it accessible on my media centre box. I also have a database I can integrate into my media manager website which I have been working on for a while. All this is probably not what most people are after, but there are much more. The addon system have been significantly improved, the software now properly remembers files you have watched even if they’re not in the library and many more minor improvements and bug fixes. Still, XBMC is much as we’re used to, and why not? It’s an excellent piece of software!

I run XBMC on a custom built PC in a ChiefTec media centre box, all of which I wrote about in an earlier post. Such a box can be built fairly cheaply, it doesn’t require much hardware, I have pretty much just picked cheap items. Computers these days are made for computer games, playing video is piss easy, even HD. All my media is stored on a server in another room, but there isn’t necessarily a need for that since the ChiefTec box has room for 3 hard drives. Anyway, the system runs on Ubuntu Linux 10.04, which is also free and incredibly easy to set up. The box i use also come with a iMON remote control, which was a bit tricky to set up in Linux, but is fairly easy to configure in XBMC when that’s done. I have finally a setup that I am very happy with :)

Here’s a few screenshots (I use the skin Transparency! instead of the default skin):

Screenshot 1 - XBMC Media CenterScreenshot 2 - XBMC Media CenterScreenshot 3 - XBMC Media Center

 

Update 16.03.2011: Comments have been disabled, because this post receives an immense amount of spam.

Sun Java and Ubuntu 10.04

Posted by on August 5, 2010 No comments | 4,137 views

Sun JavaUbuntu decided to drop Sun Java from the latest release of Ubuntu, Lucid Lynx. However for me to get my internet bank to work, I need this package installed. A bit of googling turned up the solution, and here it is:

Add the Canonical Partner Repository:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"

Then all you need to do is run the commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin

And there it is :)

Ubuntu mdadm: “Device or resource busy” error

Posted by on August 4, 2010 2 comments | 7,916 views

I have been upgrading my old fileserver today with new hardware and 4 new 2 TB Hitachi disks. I thought I’d set them up in a Raid 5 array. This is a new installation of Ubuntu Server 10.04 running on an Asus Deluxe mainboard with a SIL SATA controller with 6 SATA ports.

Firstly: The array was created with the command:

mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sd[bcde]

This all went well enough, but after a reboot, I got this error when trying to assemble the array:

mdadm: Cannot open /dev/sdb: Device or resource busy

Looking about a bit on the net I find this blogpost which is quite helpful: Righteous Hack: Device or resource busy when using mdadm. However it doesn’t quite solve my problem as I already thought of these options and double-checked them. Some further searching revealed this helpful post on ubuntuforums: Raid stops after restart (SOLVED). That did the trick! Turns out that one of the raid-disks (was random on my server) is attempted assembled during startup when mdadm doesn’t know what raid to assemble from the conf file. The solution is running the command:

mdadm --examine --scan --config=mdadm.conf >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf

which produce this line in the mdadm.conf file:

ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid5 num-devices=4 UUID=eb001a5c:9a62bf3b:1b3376be:99c3df95
spares=1

Now the raid comes up as it should after reboot.

As for the RAID setup, I used this guide: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_setup

Firefox Page Setup and A4

Posted by on July 23, 2010 2 comments | 3,437 views

Firefox is a great web browser, but it is also insanely frustrating to work with sometimes. For instance will the Page Setup default to US Letter, possibly the two most annoying words you can come across in the world of printers and printing. How many times haven’t you seen some office printer stuck on “Please insert Letter” holding the entire print-queue back? Why the fuck the Americans can’t adapt to international standards however is another rant altogether.

Firefox Print DialogueAnyway, the issue in Firefox is that when you try to print a webpage to file, at least under Ubuntu (haven’t tested it elsewhere), the Page Setup tab is greyed out. You actually have to go to the Page Setup menu option to change this. The Page Setup menu option has no shortcut, so if you’re unlucky enough to have a window that is menu-less like in my internet bank when looking at a receipt after paying a bill, you’re basically screwed. There is no way you can change the paper format. Changing it in the main window doesn’t affect the other one, nor does it care about default settings when the print dialogue is called from JavaScript or Ctrl-P.

The solution to this is to change the default printing option in the config because you can’t change it under preferences either. Type about:config into the address bar, and change the setting named print.postscript.paper_size from “letter” to “a4″. That fixes this annoying issue once and for all. Of course this should be detected from the OS regional options, but as user friendly as Firefox is, it isn’t that user friendly.