Potential NAS
Trying to build a NAS with the following requirements
- Gigabit LAN
- Low Power
- 4 Drives
- Compact
Looking at the following components
CPU – AMD Athlon™64 X2 4850e [5 U] Which is one of the 45W CPUs
Mobo – ASUS M2A-VM [ U] [ PC]
CPU Cooler – Cooler Master Hyper TX2 [.00 U] [.00 PCS]
PSU – Antec EarthWatt 380W [ U]
VID – Onboard
RAM – Kingston 4Gig DD2 667Mhz Registered ECC [$199 U]
HDD - 4 x 1Tb Western Digital Green Power [ 8 Each - 2 Total U] [5 Each - 0 Total PC]
Total so far $1468
Billion 7404VGP Optimisation
I have myself aBillion 7404VGP dsl2+ modem. I find it quite nice and full featured. Also, I’ve never had an isssue with a Billion after using them for about 8 years.
I recently decided to optimise the settings on the modem to improve call quality on the inbuilt SIP client and for various other needs. In searching for a solution to the problem I stumbled across a word doc by an unknown author. I found it quite good at explaining how things can work and since doing what was suggested in it I have had no problems with calls.
I’ve included the word doc with this post and if anyone knows who wrote it i’ll happily attribute them.
MX-760HD #2
I got NDAS working on my new toy last night using the winpcap method of scanning for the device keys rather than waiting for the email to show up telling me what they were. This morning I got the official keys by email. *shrug*
Anyway, NDAS on the MX760HD is horrible. It’s very very slow. I don’t know why it’s slow (if it’s a network issue with the device itself not getting full speed or if it’s NDAS). But everyone is reporting slow transfer speeds.
As they’ve already got the ability to read remote network shares why didn’t they just enable writing via them as well? a simple samba share or some such since they’re using a custom linux OS.
Meh. It works well enough so far. So I’ll see how it behaves as I try more things.
MX-760HD #1
I just acquired myself a new toy. The MvixUSA MX-760HD
It’s quite a nice little box. Basically it’s a mediaplayer that lets you play the majority of media through your TV. You can either stream your data from a network source or put an IDE drive inside it and dump everything onto that. Supposedly it also takes a USB thumbdrive and lets you play directly from that but I have yet to try it. I will be playing around with my camera tonight to see if I can get it to display the pics & mov’s directly from the camera.
I bought a 320Gig hard drive to put in side it (formatted as NTFS) and got it all working. You can put data on it via a USB link but when it’s plugged into your PC you can’t play anything at the same time.
It also supports NDAS which I have yet to get working (I’m waiting for a key to use it). Which should let me dump data on it via the network.
I did have a few issues getting the wireless working using the latest firmware (1.1.27). I use WPA2 AES encryption with a hidden SSID and the box refused to connect. When I dropped the wireless AP down to WPA1 TKIP & hidden SSID it connects without issues however. I logged a help request with Mvix and will see what comes of it.
Ubuntu Gutsy Bluetooth #2
After getting bluetooth devices connected and talking to the PC it was time to get them to connect and talk automagically. Using the power of teh internets and some trial and error I discovered how.
Firstly I added each device to the /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf file
device <MAC Address> {
name “Logitech diNovo Keyboard”
auth enable;
encrypt enable;
}
device <MAC Address> {
name “Logitech Mediapad”
auth enable;
encrypt enable;
}
device <MAC Address> {
name “Logitech MX1000 mouse”
}
I have no idea if the auth and encrypt lines are required. but it works and I’m lazy so I’m not going to go experimenting turning them off.
In the options setting in the same file I have the following settings.
autoinit yes;
security auto;
pairing multi;
passkey “12345″;
Then edit /etc/default/bluetooth
and set
HIDD_ENABLED=1
On reboot your pc should now automagically connect to the devices.
No idea what is or is not necessary. but this is working.
Note: Devices need to negotiate a connection so when you first move the mouse or hit a key it will start up a connection to the machine. This takes a second or so and means what you type wont show up straight away. You will need to wait a bit.
I want this to happen, rather than forcing a connection at boot every time, because I have a laptop. The laptop moves but the keyboard & mouse don’t always go with me.
I believe you can force a connection everytime by altering HIDD_OPTIONS
and putting in a -i <MAC Address> for each device. I think this will cause the laptop to time out if the device isn’t present and active on boot however.
Ubuntu Gutsy Bluetooth
Along with the WiFi issue there are also problems with Bluetooth from a usability side. There is no graphical manager to handle the installation/paring of bluetooth devices and you need to use the command line. Which is a pain.
To get my shiny Logitech DiNovo keyboard/mouse set working I had to figure out how to do it from the command line.
Thankfully there are a lot of others out there with the same issue.
First put your devices in discovery mode. At the command prompt type
hcitool scan
Which will try and find all the devices and give you their name & MAC address. To pair them you can then type
sudo hidd –connect <MAC Address>
Which gives you a decent keyboard and mouse to use other than the laptop keyboard (which in my case is raised and a pain in the bum to use in it’s normal home.
Ubuntu Gutsy WiFi
I decided to toss in the towel on Vista because it was giving me the shits. So I installed Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 4 on my laptop (Dell Latitude D620).
Installs fine. no issues discovered initially.
However, when trying to connect to my home wireless (802.11G WPA2 Personal with hidden SSID) I find that the built in wireless manager doesn’t work.
Turns out that this is a known issue. From previous experiences I know there are ways around this editing config files and getting the wireless card to connect on boot but I don’t want a static wifi link on the laptop.
Instead I just turned the hidden SSID off and it connected without issues.
GoTalk SIP Configuration
In setting up Asterisk to use GoTalks VoIP product. The SIP connection is specified as using dtmfmode RFC2833. However when you explicitly use that value you cannot use dtmf.
Trial and error found that it needs to be set to auto.
Tags: GoTalk