Due to a few requests from the original post , I decided to look into why people are having trouble with installing ZumoDrive in Ubuntu 11.04.  While I don’t use this program anymore, I thought that seeing people were still visiting this site and take the time to comment and ask a question, I would try the best I could to help out.

Note: I’m using Ubuntu 11.04 32bit, clean install inside of VirtualBox.  So, your mileage may vary, if this doesn’t work for you, please post.

Update: According to commenter “Eduardo”, this method worked on 64bit as well

Read more to continue…

Step 1

Make sure you have a fully updated system.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Step 2

Download ZumoDrive for your architecture by going to http://www.zumodrive.com/download/zumodrive?platform=linux .  Keep in mind that I haven’t tested this for 64bit (but I don’t see why it would be any different) This has been tested on 64bit, and works fine.  NOTE: Save this to your folder, don’t launch it yet.

Step 3

Enable Canonical Partners APT repository by going to Applications -> Ubuntu Software Centre then select Edit Menu->Software Sources .  Enter your password, then go to the Other Software tab, and ensure the following line has a check in it:

Canonical Partners - Software packaged by Canonical for thier partners

Then click Close.  At this point, Ubuntu Software Centre will reload its repository, let that finish, then close it off.  Next, open up Applications->Accessories->Terminal and execute the following:

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

That will install Sun’s Java release.  Next, we need to fix some missing links that ZumoDrive looks for:

cd /usr/lib

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.24/jre/lib/i386/libjava.so .

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.24/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so .

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.24/jre/lib/i386/libverify.so .

Step 4

Next, we need to install an older version of xul-runner.  Why?  I haven’t the slightest clue, but it works…

sudo apt-get install xulrunner-1.9.2

Now, we need to set an environment variable that gets set whenever you login, I chose throwing this in /etc/profile so its system-wide.  So, open up that file with sudo nano -w /etc/profile and add the following at the bottom:

export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.2.17

Step 5

Finally, head back to the directory where you downloaded ZumoDrive and attempt to install it:

sudo dpkg -i zumodrive-ubuntu8-i386-0.989.deb

If you get any errors about missing dependencies, just run:

sudo apt-get -f install

That should install what’s missing and finish installing zumo drive.

Step 6

Finally, restart your computer.  You have to restart for this to take effect.  Just logging out and back in didn’t do the trick for me.

Let me know if this worked for you.  Good luck!

Update: Check out this article from Phoronix which runs benchmarks and compares Flash 10.1 with 10.2 on similar hardware (Atom 330 Ion system).

While I don’t really want this site to be about reporting new releases of software, I believe this is a special case because it directly affects the performance of Linux-based HTPC’s.  Believe me, I hate flash as much as the next person.  Its proprietary nature has left many platforms out in the cold over the years as we wait, and wait, and wait for Adobe to finally getting around to making a release.  Besides its traditional sub-par performance on the Linux platform, its lack of support on the mobile platform has infuriated many.  My Palm Pre, for example, was supposed to have flash support last year sometime, but as of right now, there is not even as much as a beta release, leaving many customers bitter.

Well, one piece of good news dropped yesterday.  Adobe has churned out release 10.2 p2 pre-release of the flash platform for Windows, Linux and OS X.  The one thing it brings to Linux that has been sorrowley missed is hardware acceleration support.  What this has meant in the past is that when watching high definition flash video on my HTPC in Chrome/Firefox has caused video to be choppy and laggy due to it using the CPU for video decoding.  Now, the decoding will be done in the GPU, leaving the CPU to do the rest of the usual work.  That means smoother video.

After making the install on my HTPC, I tested it with a website that I use to watch high definition hockey games.  In the past, the video has been so unwatchable, that I had resulted to plugging my Windows 7 laptop into my TV to watch the games.  Now, with the latest version of flash, the videos are smooth in window and full screen.  Finally I can say that Adobe has finally done something right, albeit slowly.  To upgrade flash is pretty easy, so SSH (or open up a terminal) to your HTPC and do the following:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo aptitude remove flashplugin-installer

htpc@XBMCLive: wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_2_p2_32bit_linux_111710.tar.gz

htpc@XBMCLive: tar zxvf flashplayer10_2_p2_32bit_linux_111710.tar.gz
libflashplayer.so

htpc@XBMCLive: cp libflashplayer.so /usr/share/ubufox/plugins

So, first we remove the currently installed flash, and then download and install the latest from Adobe.  Keep in mind that Flash will not be upgraded automatically now, so you should try and keep track of available updates when needed.

With regards to Boxee, I have been searching around and trying to find whether Boxee uses a built-in version of Flash instead of the system-installed Flash, and so far I can’t find a straight forward answer.  It may be that older versions of Boxee used a built-in version while newer versions have been using the system flash, which is hopefully the case.

There’s nothing better than going somewhere with your laptop and discovering an open wifi access point.  You open up your computer, do a quick scan and think to yourself “wohoo! Free internet!”.  Most people know that being on an open wifi access point can be potentially dangerous, but think what are the odds that someone around them is advanced enough in computers to do all that hacking stuff.  Well, that has changed.

There is now a plugin for Firefox (I’m not going to name it) that will allow someone to hijack any authenticated web session on an unencrypted (read: unsecured) network that is not using using ssl communication.  What does all that technical jargon mean?  If you’re Facebooking on an open wifi, someone can login as you from another computer with the click of a button. Yeah, its that easy.  Some stranger can immediately have access to every bit of information you have on Facebook, along with a picture of you to see who you are.  This will work for any online service that doesn’t use and maintain ssl communication (https:) when you use the website.  This is not to be taken lightly, this is a very serious breach of security.

What can you do about it?  Well, first off, you should never use open wifi for any authenticated web services.  Meaning, anything you got to give a password for, don’t do it.  If all you’re doing is browsing some news sites, you may not have much to worry about.  Next, if the open wifi is in a public place where you can talk to the owner, ask them to enable encryption.  If they don’t want to do that, see if they can enable AP Isolation which isolates each wireless client from the rest of the network so that they can’t connect to each other, which all open wifi access points should have enabled.

There are 2 other, more complicated solutions.  The first one I would highly recommend for people who tend to use the Internet on the go a lot, and that is private VPN.  A private VPN encrypts all data coming out of your computer no matter where you are, which makes it impossible for other devices on the network to access any of your data.  VPN’s are generally not free, the one I use is from AceVPN. Which simply puts an icon on your desktop that you double click and run before you do anything on an open network. The last option is SSH tunneling, if you don’t know what SSH is, you can safely ignore this. You can check out my article on my tech blog about Private Web Browsing with SSH Tunneling and Putty, if you want to check out information on that.

So, to summarize, it is now ridiculously easy to “hack” users on an open wifi network.  With that in mind, you should avoid any and all activity on unsecured networks that is personal at all (email, facebook, etc).  While some websites protect against this sort of hack (by using encryption), not all do, and its safer to avoid than take the chance.

If you’re plugging your HTPC into your HDTV Television, one of the things you might have noticed is overscan issues, that is, things not quite fitting on the screen correctly.  Programs like Boxee and XBMC have their own ways of dealing with overscan from inside their programs.  This, however, is not very useful if you do more on your HTPC than just watch Boxee and XBMC.  Luckily, its quite easy to fix the overscan issue using NVidia’s own built-in utility.

If you followed my guide Nvidia ION Media Centre with Boxee, XBMC, Chrome and More!, then you have an HTPC setup to run multiple programs inside of your desktop, that’s good. This guide is based off of that foundation.

First, exit out of Boxee. This should bring you to a blank desktop. Now, right click on the desktop and chose Terminal Emulator, inside of that type:

htpc@XBMCLive: nvidia-settings

You will get a screen like this:

On the left side, go down under GPU 0 – (ION) and click on your TV screen, in the image above its DFP-1 – (Panasonic TV).  On the right side, you will see “Overscan Compensation“, adjust this slider until the picture looks right.  If you’re unsure, launch Chrome through another terminal emulator and maximize it so that it takes up the whole screen.  Once done, on the left side, click on nvidia-settings Configuration and click on Save Configuration File.

At this point, you can close off nvidia-settings, switch to your console with Ctrl+Alt+F1, log in as your user, and stop the X service:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo service nodm stop

Now, have Openbox load up the nvidia settings on startup by editing the /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh and adding in the following towards the bottom somewhere:

nvidia-settings -l

That “l” is a lower-case L.  This will cause nvidia-settings to only apply the configuration file and not actually launch the GUI.

If you are using a different desktop environment, you will have to seek documentation on how to achieve this with your setup.

When I first went out and purchased my Zotac MAG HD ND01, I had an idea in my head about exactly what I wanted in my HTPC Media Centre. My ideal situation was to have a system that booted up into a default program, but gave me ability to launch other programs from the comfort of my remote.

With my current setup, I have my HTPC booting up a modified version of XBMCFreak running Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) into Boxee with options on my remote to also launch XBMC, Hulu and Google Chrome. As an added bonus for you non-Americans (I’m Canadian), we will also tie in the ability to connect to a VPN when launching our apps in case we want to use American content (Hulu, Boxee).

I’ll try to be as descriptive as possible, and as usual, if there are any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments, I tend to reply fairly quickly.

First off, I’ll give a quick run-down of my hardware:

• Zotac MAG HD ND01
• Windows Media Centre Remote and USB Transceiver
• Harmony Remote 550 (though any Harmony will probably do)
• USB Flash Drive (I use 2, 1 for Clonezilla and 1 for XBMCFreak install)
• Samsung 40″ LCD (Connected to HTPC via HDMI)

Notes:

• I don’t have any speaker system setup, I just run the audio to my TV for output
• Clonezilla is used to backup my install
• I strongly suggest that you store all your Movies and TV shows on an external drive.  Especially seeing the Zotac only has a 160GB drive.  But, backing up and restoring your system is much quicker without all your media involved.

Step 1 – Backup of Current Install

If you don’t have anything important installed, then you can skip this step.  For me, if I have a working system, I like to back it up with CloneZilla, that way, if anything screws up or doesn’t work, I can quickly revert back to a working state.  This is where the benefit of having an external drive really helps.  This is a fairly straight-forward program, and works quite well for our setup.

First, download the CloneZilla Zip Files. Now, following this guide, we can prepare one of our USB flash drives as the Clonezilla install, do this now for your Operating System. If you’re using Windows, this is as easy as extracting the ISO, copying its contents over to the newly formated USB flash drive, and then executing the /utils/win32/makeboot.bat batch files from the USB drive to make it bootable.  If you’re running Windows Vista/7, you will need to run Command Prompt as Administrator first.  Any questions, let me know, this should be straight forward.

Now, power off your HTPC and insert your Clonezilla USB stick.  Power it on and enter your BIOS (for my Zotac, its Del key).  Next, change your boot order so that it boots from your USB stick.  On my Zotac, you can only have 1 device in the boot list, so you have to make sure that the 1 device is your USB stick.

Step 2 – Install XBMCFreak (LiveCD 10 rc1)

While this setup could start with a standard install of Ubuntu 10.04, I prefer to go the route of XBMCFreak because its less messing around. So, first thing to do is download the latest live CD, which as of this writing is XBMCFreak-1000-msremote-rc1. This version is pre-configured for Microsoft remote, if you have an ASRock ION 330 with a nuvoton chipset, please check out XBMCFreak’s page listed above for a different download.

Once that’s downloaded, head over to UnetBootin and download that tool which will allow us to install XBMCFreak onto a USB flash stick for install in our HTPC. Once downloaded, run it, and select the ISO radio button and browse for your XBMCFreak iso you just downloaded. On the bottom, select your newly-formatted flash drive and click OK. (Note: This is a 2nd flash drive, I didn’t erase my Clonezilla one. If you only have one, then feel free to erase it, you may just need to re-make the clonezilla one later).

Caution: Its not essential, but, I would suggest you unplug your external drive before starting the install, this will prevent accidental destruction in case a wrong option is selected

Now, you should have a boot usb flash drive with XBMC Freak on it, so, power off your HTPC, insert the flash drive, and go into the BIOS and set your system to boot off the flash drive.  There is nothing special you need to do during the install, so just follow the prompts.  For partitioning, I let it use the entire disk, and for username, I chose htpc with the same password because I’m not that concern with security inside of my house.  You can set this to whatever you want.  When the install is done, reboot the system, at this point you can plug back in your External drive if you’ve unplugged it.

Step 3 – Configure XBMCLive

So, at this point, we have a running system and your install should automatically start up and boot right into XBMC.  However, we want more than just the basic install.  This is by far the most involved part of this setup, so I will be breaking them down into sections to keep it simple.

Step 4 – Getting out of XBMC

The rest of this tutorial will take place on the command line, so, I would suggest you exit out of XBMC by switching to the console with Ctrl+Alt+F1 and login as your user you created in the last step, which for me is htpc:

htpc@XBMCLive:  sudo service xbmc-live stop

Next we want to prevent xbmc-live from starting up in the future, where its an upstart script, all we need to do is rename it so it doesn’t execute:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo mv /etc/init/xbmc-live.conf /etc/init/xbmc-live.conf.noexec

Step 5 – Configure Wireless (if needed)

Now, this part is completely up to your situation and your own local setup.  I don’t use the built-in wireless that comes with the Zotac Mag because I found it performed poorly in my local wireless network.  So, I have blacklisted the ath9k module from loading on boot in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf, now when my system boots up, the only wireless device available (a Zonet USB wireless stick) shows up as device wlan0.

To configure your home wireless, I would strongly suggest you read this entire post on Ubuntu Forums.  My /etc/network/interfaces looks like this:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# Wireless
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid myssid
wpa-ap-scan 1
wpa-proto RSN
wpa-pairwise TKIP
wpa-group TKIP
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk mywirelesskey

After setting this up, and double-checking your settings, I would suggest a reboot to ensure everything is working.

Step 6 – Running Updates

Seeing that we now should have an active internet connection, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run our updates:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo apt-get update

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

…and reboot if needed.

Step 7 – Configuring Audio

One of the biggest issues people have with setting up their HTPC is problems with getting audio to work correctly.  As stated at the beginning of this guide, I do not use any external speakers (can’t afford it yet!), so, all my audio passes through HDMI and out to the TV.  If this is not your setup, you may need to check with other sources for audio issues such as Ubuntu Forums.

First, enter into alsamixer and unmute our audio device.

htpc@XBMCLive: alsamixer

Now, arrow over to S/PDIF 1 and unmute it by press ‘m‘. You can now exit by double-tapping the Esc key.  It should look like this:

Now, store your sound card settings for good measure:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo alsactl store

One more thing we need to do to get sound working properly is to customize our asoundrc file.  So, create the file if its not already there, otherwise overwrite it:

htpc@XBMCLive: nano -w ~/.asoundrc

and pasted the following into it:

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0660
slave {
pcm “hw:0,3″
rate 48000
channels 2
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_time 0
buffer_size 4096
}
}
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm “dmixer”
}

Save that file, and that should do it for our audio.

Step 8 – Installing Latest NVidia Drivers

Its always a good idea to install the latest graphics card drives, especially for ION-based systems.  So, first we add on the Ubuntu repository for updated Nvidia drivers, keep in mind that this is a different repository than older versions of Ubuntu:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
htpc@XBMCLive: sudo apt-get update
htpc@XBMCLive: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

That should update us to the latest NVidia drivers.  A reboot should now be in order.

Step 9 – Install Software

Next up is getting the software we will need.  First off, you will need to login to your Boxee account, and download the 32bit version of Boxee to your HTPC (I’m assuming you’re running 32bit because that’s what the XBMCFreak disk is).  Now, install it:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo dpkg -i boxee-X.X.X.deb

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo apt-get -f install

Now, the rest of our needed software:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo apt-get install chromium-browser nodm openbox

Also, if you’re going to go with HuluDesktop, you will need to visit the Hulu website and download the client and install it in the same manner as above.

Step 10 – Configure NODM and Openbox

The purpose of NODM is to give us a minimal login manager and desktop manager so that we can run multiple programs without having to stop and restart our X server all the time.  Seeing that we installed our software in the previous step, lets skip on ahead to the configuration:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo nano -w /etc/default/nodm

In this file, there are only two things we need to change:

NODM_ENABLED=true
NODM_USER=htpc

Obviously you will change NODM_USER to the username of your default login you created during setup.

Now, as for Openbox, there are some customize settings that I use to get the desktop just right.  First, lets open our autostart file:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo nano -w /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh

And at the bottom of the file, add the following lines and save the file:

xset -dpms &
xset s off &
killall irexec
irexec -d
/opt/boxee/Boxee &

Now, a little explanation.  First off, the script disables Energy Star features and disables screen saver.  I’ll let Boxee and my TV worry about screen blanking and screen saver.  Next, I kill any running irexec processes just to be sure, and then launch the irexec daemon for infrared control.  Finally, Boxee is launched as the default program in my setup.  If you want XBMC to be your default, you can make that change accordingly.

Step 11 – Remote configuration and Launch Scripts

First off, before we get into the remote control aspect of this, I want to explain what my setup does.  I have a set of scripts that get launched by remote control keypresses.  The idea is that when you press an assigned button on your remote, it launches a script that stops all other programs and launches your desired program.  For example, if you’re sitting in Boxee and want to get on Google Chrome, you press your assigned “Chrome” button, and the script kills all processes for Boxee, XBMC and Chrome and then launches Chrome.  This method ensures that, over time, you don’t end up with dozens of duplicate programs running.  I find this the best method, and rarely see a need to have more than one of the programs running.

There is probably a much cleaner way of doing this, I just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.  So, create this new script under ~/bin/htpclauncher.sh , and add the following:

#!/bin/bash

PROG=$1

killall Boxee &
killall xbmc &
xbmc-send –action=”XBMC.Quit”
killall chromium-browser
killall huludesktop

case “$PROG” in
“xbmc” )
/usr/bin/xbmc -fs &
;;
“boxee” )
/opt/boxee/Boxee -fs &
;;
“chrome” )
/usr/bin/chromium-browser -kiosk &
;;
“hulu” )
/usr/bin/huludesktop &
;;
esac

And now make it executable:

htpc@XBMCLive: chmod +x ~/bin/htpclauncher.sh

Next we need to configure our .lircrc file in order to map our key presses to the script.  Now, before I go any further, the following is setup for my harmony remote.  What I have done is that I have used the Logitech Harmony remote program to re-map my display buttons (the dynamic buttons with LED display) to other commands that aren’t needed in my setup.  On my LED display, mine has 4 options: Boxee, XBMC, Hulu and Chrome, which maps to RecTV, Home, LiveTV and Radio respectively.  You can choose any 4 buttons you want to remap, just be sure that those buttons aren’t already being used by XBMC/Boxee, or else you could come across issues.  I have just used these because they were on the front screen of my dynamic display on my remote.

Here is what my /home/htpc/.lircrc file looks like:

begin
prog = irexec
button = Radio
config = /home/htpc/bin/htpclauncher.sh chrome
end
begin
prog = irexec
button = Power
config = null
end
begin
prog = irexec
button = LiveTV
config = /home/htpc/bin/htpclauncher.sh hulu
end

begin
prog = irexec
button = RecTV
config = /home/htpc/bin/htpclauncher.sh boxee
end

begin
prog = irexec
button = Home
config = /home/htpc/bin/htpclauncher.sh xbmc
end

Step 12 – Attaching External Storage (optional)

Like I said early on, its a good idea to use an external storage device on an HTPC to make life a little bit easier.  At this point in the setup, I would advise attaching your external drive now so we can map it properly.  Ubuntu does have the ability to automatically mount your drive, but, I find it sometimes unreliable, and for a device that will be permanently attached, I’d rather tell it where to go.  So, first off, we need to obtain the UUID for our drive:

htpc@XBMCLive: blkid

/dev/sda1: UUID=”19fd710c-d664-4999-9c73-23423523523″ TYPE=”ext4″
/dev/sda5: UUID=”38ba1b8e-c5e9-4c63-8602-12352345234″ TYPE=”swap”
/dev/sdb1: LABEL=”Storage” UUID=”A640423B64522342B” TYPE=”ntfs”

As you can see from the output, I have 3 devices on my system.  The first 2 are my root and swap filesystems on my internal hard drive while the last one, labeled “Storage”, is my external drive formatted as NTFS.  The reason why its formatted in NTFS is for the off chance I need to access data on it by plugging into other systems.  At this point, it seems NTFS is more cross-platform than anything else.  Copy out your UUID because we’re going to use this in our fstab

Now, open up your fstab, and add a new entry for your external drive:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo nano -w /etc/fstab

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=19fd710c-d664-4999-9c73-581da13f908e /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=38ba1b8e-c5e9-4c63-8602-43f44caefce6 none            swap    sw              0       0
UUID=”A640423B64522342B” /media/Storage  ntfs-3g defaults        0       0

This may look a bit messy, but all you need to be concerned with is the last line where I added the external drive.  This maps it to /media/Storage , but you can map it anywhere.  On my last install, I had it mapped to /home/htpc/Storage , but, I found that to be trouble sometimes when doing backups.

At this point, I also find it helpful to symlink some folders on my external drive so that they’re mapped in my home directory:

htpc@XBMCLive: sudo mount /media/Storage

htpc@XBMCLive: ln -s /media/Storage/TV ~/TV && ln -s /media/Storage/Movies ~/Movies && ln -s /media/Storage/Music ~/Music && ln -s /media/Storage/Pictures ~/Pictures

Conclusion

Now, we should be pretty much good to go.  Now, restart your system.  On restart, you system should automatically start up and go into Boxee.  From there, you should be able to press the assigned buttons on your remote to launch the other programs. If you have any troubles at all, please post in the comments and I will do my best to help out.

Tips and Tricks

• If you’re outside the US, and you want to access content in Boxee and Hulu, you can use a VPN service provider.  Personally, I use Ace VPN which works perfectly in access Hulu and the like. Its only $5/month and you get damn good speeds, suitable for high quality streaming.  After signing up, you can download the files for Linux and configure it with your Username and Password.  Then, you can either have your HTPC always use the OpenVPN connection by configuring it to launch on bootup, or, you can add the start/stop to the launch scripts above.  If you’re interested in that, leave it in the comments and I will do a step by step guide on accomplishing that.
• You can also install SabNZBD+ on your HTPC and pair it up with an online RSS feed (sorry, you’re on your own here) to provide automated content downloading straight to your HTPC. This is probably the single greatest thing ever.
• If you’re feeling crazy enough, you could also incorporate other programs into your setup like game emulators, MythTV and pretty much anything else!
• If you are having any problems with overscan, that is, things not quite fitting on your screen like they should, please see my follow up quick guide on Fixing Overscan on Ion-based HTPC’s

For the most part, Boxee has been great with recognizing my TV Shows that I have stored on my external hard drive.  However, I noticed recently that a couple of new TV shows weren’t showing up under the standard TV show section (Outsourced and Shit My Dad Says) but were showing just fine under the Files section.  In order to resolve this, I had to go to Boxee Settings then System, and under there I went down to the Advanced section, and on the right side, I chose the option Clear media information from library (media files will remain intact)

Keep in mind, when you do this, you will be forcing Boxee to erase all meta data and to re-scan and re-download all information on all your media (TV, Movies and Music).  So, only do this if you have a bit of time to kill.  For me, I have thousands of media files and it took quite a while to scan, but, the missing shows started to show up afterwards.

After numerous attempts, I have finally managed to get Snow Leopard running on my eVGA X58  Micro motherboard-based system.  After finally managed to get this going, I have decided to try and write a guide.  Unfortunately, I didn’t write down everything step-by-step, so I will attempt to remember all the steps I used to get this going in the hopes that it will help at least one other person.  The items that you will need to get this going are as follows:

• Kalyway_10.5.2_DVD_Intel_Amd.iso  (Copy and paste the filename into Google)
• Retail Snow Leopard Disc (snowleopard_10a432_userdvd.dmg) (Need a Dual-Layer DVD to burn, or, put the image on an external drive and transfer it and mount it when needed.  once again, copy and paste filename into google)
• 2 SATA hard drives (recommended)
• My X58 OSX86 Files (slow mirror)

The process is fairly simple.  First we install Kalyway on the secondary hard drive.  It doesn’t need to be perfect, and doesn’t need to have all deviecs working, just enough so that it boots up.  From there, we will install Snow Leopard directly to the 1st hard drive, install the Chameleon bootloader,  copy over our drivers, boot the new system and update it.

Sound simple?  Lets hope it is.  Please keep in mind this:  I am not an expert.  I’m a newbie when it comes to OS X, I know very little about it, and very little about how all this works.  This guide is basically a “How I Did It” guide, step for step.  Good Luck!

First off, before I do anything else, I need to throw out some thanks.  Without these guides and the people that wrote them, I wouldn’t have standed a chance:

• xxxslayeriiixxx for EVGA X58 Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6.4 (10F569 Installation
• aquamac for GFX Strings HOWTO
• ihavearedcouch for Leopard 10.5.7 Vanilla Installation on EVGA X58 and X58 Snow Leopard Installation
• VoodooHDA Team for VooDooHDA
• Chameleon Team for http://chameleon.osx86.hu/

All of these people, in one way or another, contributed to the end result.  There may be more that I’m missing, but I will credit when I come across their names.

Ok, so lets get down to it.

Warning: All the data on your hard drives will be wiped, back everything up that you will need.

Step 1 – Install Kalyway 10.5.2

First off, I’ll say that it doesn’t have to necessarily be a Kalyway install, or 10.5.2 specifically.  We just want ANY version of Leopard up and running right now.  I just used Kalyway because it was the easiest and quickest to get going.  I suggest you go into your BIOS and enable AHCI mode, it should be found under the Onboard PATA/SATA Devices section.  I don’t know if this is needed or not for Leopard, but it will be for Snow Leopard.

My suggestion at this point is to only have 1 hard drive plugged in.  Before we boot our Leopard install, we will plug the second disk back in.

Boot the Kalyway disk (or whatever disk you use) and start the install of Leopard.  I don’t remember the exact options I chose under the Customize screen, but I went down through and disable and drivers that I knew I wouldn’t need for sure, and selected a few that looked somewhat familiar.  I have read that others didn’t select anything and things were fine.

If you have trouble with Kalyway install, please email me or comment on this guide and I will run through the install again on my desktop and write it down step by step.

After Leopard boots up, you can shut down the system and plug in your second drive that we will be using to install Snow Leopard on, then boot back up and then you can move onto the next step.

Step 2 – Prepare the Snow Leopard Disk

So now that you’re booted up into Leopard, and the second hard drive is plugged in, we can prepare it for Snow Leopard.  Open up Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).  Select the newly added hard drive in the list on the left (be careful not to select your currently running drive).  On the right side, go to the “Paritition” section, select 1 partition from the drop down (you can select more than one partition if you plan on dual or tri-booting later, its up to you).  Then press the Options button and choose “GUID Partition Table“, press OK, then select the first partition (or only partition if you only said 1), and set a name to it, I just called mine “Snow Leopard” as to not confuse them both.  Also, make sure you set the format to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)“.

Step 3 – Snow Leopard Install

Next step is the Snow Leopard install itself.  Now, for this, I had a DMG image that I transfered from my server to my Leopard install and mounted that using Disk Utility, it made it much faster and I didn’t need a dual-layer disk for it.  However way you did it, you can now mount the Snow Leopard retail dvd.  That will autostart an install window, if not, then double-click the icon on your desktop.  At this install window, execute the key sequence of [ Shift + Command + G ] and navigate to “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages“.  From there, you want to run the OSInstall.mpkg (please note the mpkg extension, there is another package file there that looks identical but is pkg).

Go through the install file, select your target drive as the “Snow Leopard” partition we made earlier.  When you go to Customize the install, uncheck all printer support!.  All I had checked on mine was “Essential System Software” and “X11“.  Selecting printer support will cause your install to fail.

When the install is done, close off the installer but do not reboot yet…

Step 4 – Chameleon Bootloader Install

From my package that you downloaded in the beginning, run the Chameleon Installer (unzip and double-click) and set the target drive to be the Snow Leopard drive again.  This install is pretty straight forward, not much else to it.

Step 5 – Copying my /Extra/ Folder

This is by far the most difficult thing with getting Snow Leopard going, having the proper Kexts for your install.  In my package that you downloaded earlier is the exact /Extra/ folder that I am using to have my hardware work as it should.  If this does not work for you, then you must have different hardware.  As for the Graphics Card, I understand you will probably have a different one, so we’ll get to that next step.

Copy the Extra folder from my package over to your /Extra, and make sure you overwrite what you have so nothing is left around.  To be sure, you can even delete your /Extra and move mine there.  We’ll make some edits to some of the files though to match your system.

Once that’s done, on to the next step.

Step 6 – Generating Graphics EFI Strings

This step may be a bit complicated, but its nessessary for you to get native resolution.  First off, go to Aquaman’s Post and find your graphics card in the list and download the file associated with it. For me, I have the “8800GT 512MB“, but this may vary with you.  (Side Note:  I will try and mirror all of Aquaman’s files here when I get a chance)  Next, I will pretty much copy and paste what Aquaman has for a guide because its well-written, and pretty straightforward.

Note: This only includes NVidia cards, I have never messed with Intel or ATi cards in OS X before, so you will have to look elsewhere for that info, sorry!

1. Extract the file you downloaded from the above link for your particular graphics card to your desktop

2. Open up the Terminal, browse to the location of the extract files and run:  ./gfxutil -f display . This will give you an output of something like “PciRoot(0×1)/Pci(0xe,0×0)/Pci(0×0,0×0)” , copy this for the next step

3. Open up the in.plist file, near the top of the file you should see a line similar to the output of the last step, replace that with what your output was.  Then scroll to the bottom of the file where you see the model name and replace it with your model so it looks like “<string>NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT</string>” or whatever.

4. Go back to the terminal, and execute the following command: “./gfxutil -i xml -o hex ./in.plist ./out.hex“, this will create an out.hex file that you can now open using TextEdit.  This is your EFI String for your graphics card.  So, copy all of the text for the next step.

Step 7 – Editing your com.apple.boot.plist

Open up the file /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist (you may run across permission issues, if so, you can copy this file to your desktop, make the edits, and copy it back to the /Extra folder).  You will see the boot file that I use for my system.  First thing we’ll do is replace my graphics EFI string with the one you generated in the previous step.  So, look for the “<key>device-properties</key> <string>loooooong line of stuff</string>” and replace the long line of stuff with yours.

Next, change the “<key>Graphics Mode</key><string>1680x150x32</string>” with whatever matches your monitors native resolution.

Finally, we need to change the UUID to match your system.  To find out your UUID, open up Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility), select the Snow Leopard hard drive on the left, and then click the Info button up top, and your UUID should be listed in the window.  Copy and paste this, over-writing mine in the file.

That’s it for the boot.plist file, so you can save and close it, if you get a permission error, save it to your desktop, and then close it, and drag-n-drop it to your /Extra folder again.

Step 8 – DSDT.aml File

If you’re using the same motherboard as me, you should not need to do anything with the DSDT.aml file that I have provided in my /Extra folder.  If this doesn’t work for you, you may need to seek out additional information on making your own.  There should be lots of info on various forums, or in a google search.  If you get stuck on this, email me or post in the comments and I will do my best to guide you into the right direction.

Step 9 – Customizing the smbios.plist

Next up, we need to customize your System Profiler information.  You will find this file inside the /Extra folder that I have provided you.  Open it up and lets make some edits:

• Change the SMUUID to the one we got from the Disk Utility UUID of our Hard Drive
• Change the SMSerial number towards the bottom to whatever you want.  I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere before, but using the default will cause some applications not work.  For example, TeamViewer wouldn’t connect to the TeamViewer servers because apparantly it sends the systems serial number when doing so.

Step 10 – Repair and Reboot!

I don’t know if this is even required anymore, but out of habit, I do it anyways.  Open up your Disk utility again, and run a repair on your Snow Leopard drive.  There probably isn’t a need for this anymore, but I like to be safe.

Next, shut down your computer, unhook your old Leopard hard drive, fire the system back up, and hopefully you will have a fully working Snow Leopard install.

If your system doesn’t boot, try booting with “-v -f” and see if that does the trick.  Otherwise, something went wrong somewhere along the ways, and you can post in the comments or on the forums.

When going through your setup, you can skip the registration by [ Command + Q ]

Step 11 – Final Words and Updates

After everything is all up and running and you’ve gone through the setup process, you can now update the system.

The beauty about doing a Retail Snow Leopard install is that its fully upgradable without doing anything special.  The first thing I did was downloaded the Apple Combo Update 10.6.4, updated my system, rebooted and ran the rest of the updates through the Preference pane.

If you don’t have any audio working, then run the VooDooHDA package I have included in my downloadable files, this got audio going for me perfectly.

That’s It! Hopefully now you have a fully running system.  Using this method, I have all my devices working properly.  I can run Steam and player Team Fortress 2 no trouble.  Networking, Audio, etc. all work fine.

If this guide worked for you, please take a moment and comment below.  I like to know if it helps people.  Also, if you notice any errors, ommissions, or want clarification on anything, let me know.  I’m not an expert at all, but I’ll help when I can.

This is basically an ammendment to the Private Web Browsing with SSH Tunneling and Putty article from earlier this year.  What I wasn’t aware of until today is that even when following the method in that article, your DNS queries were using its regular DNS servers to resolve domain names.  What this means is that if you were using the method to by-pass corporate web filters, they may still be able to see what you were up to by reviewing the DNS queries coming from your machine.  Obviously, if your purpose of tunneling your traffic was for privacy, this still allows you to be caught.

Luckily this can be fixed.  So far, I have only come across the method for the Firefox web browser, when I find methods for other browsers I will post it.  If you know of any, please post them in the comments.

After following the directions in the previous post, open up your Firefox web browser, and in the address bar, enter about:config . This will give you a warning about editing these settings may be dangerous, click I’ll be careful, I promise! .  Up on the top of the webpage, you’ll see a bar with “Filter: ” and a white text input.  In that input, type socks_remote .  This should filter the list down to one entry, network.proxy.socks_remote_dns .  If the Value field is False, then double click it so it says True.

That’s it, that’s all there is to it.  You can now close off that window, and from now on, all your DNS queries will tunnel through your SOCKS proxy as well for added security!

An actual overclocked Pre, flames not included

If there is one thing that us Palm Pre owners love, is the fact that Palm is pretty open to us hacking the crap out of their product.  While they warn from time to time that modifying things like the running kernel may void your warranty, for the most part they have been pretty supportive to the homebrew app scene, unlike some other mobile platforms.  Since the release of the Palm Pre and the WebOS operating systems, websites like PreCentral have burst out onto the scene gathering together many from the development community including the WebOS Internals Team and Jason Robataille, to create tools and utilities to make “hacking” (and I use that term very loosely) simple for even the basic of users.

While WebOS is probably the most amazing mobile Operating System I have ever used, its implementation on the Palm Pre is a tiny bit lacking due to the hardware in the Pre, mainly the 600Ghz CPU factory underclocked to 500Ghz.  What this means is that the interface can appear sluggish at times to the point where you have to wait several seconds for apps to load or do anything.  Palm have addressed the issue with each patch since its released, however many users want more speed.  And why not?  In comes WebOS Internals and user uNiXpSyChO to the rescue.

Currently there are a few different hacked kernels out there that you can install on your Palm Pre, in this article I will focus solely on the “UberKernel” due to the fact that, by most accounts,  has been proven to be relatively stable.  Also, it is the kernel that I have been running on my phone for the last few months with very little problems.  If you really have a need for speed, there is currently a 1.2Ghz kernel in somewhat functioning order, if you really want to drain your battery quickly.

The UberKernel has many different abilities and options that can be controlled by the program Govnah, which we will get into as we go along.  In its current form, UberKernel can allow you to clock your CPU in your Pre from 125Mhz all the way up to 1GHz.

Now, on with the fun:

Big Fat Waraning

We are going to be modifying your phone in a way that Palm may have not intended.  Because of this, anything you do from here out MAY VOID YOUR WARRANTY.  Though, there have been little reports on any of this actually voiding anyone’s warranty, we should still keep in mind that its possible.  You’ve been told.

Step 1 – Installing Preware

If you own a Palm Pre, and you don’t have Preware installed, what the hell are you waiting for?  Preware is your gateway into the world of homebrew.  Once installed, Preware fetches updated lists of homebrew packages from online repositories and gives you a nice graphical interface to add whatever you want from Apps, Themes, Patches, and yes Kernels.

First off, we need to put your phone into super-duper-secret-developer-mode by typing the following on your phone at the home screen (nothing open):

UpUpDownDownLeftRightLeftRightBAStart

If you are a fan of video games, you will recognize this key sequence as the Konami Code.  Yip, Palm is that geeky.  This will open up a screen that will allow you to set the phone into Developer Mode, just change the toggle to “yes”, and then select “Restart The Device”.  And then wait.

While your phone is restarting, you can head on over to Jason Robataille’s section on the PreCentral forums, and grab a copy of WebOSQuickInstall (at the time of this writing, current version is 3.14). Also, ensure that you have Java installed, because WebOSQuickInstall relies on it.

Now, launch WebOSQuickInstall.  At first launch is going to ask if it can download WebOSDoctor, say yes to this, and select the correct Carrier and Device for you.  This may take a few minutes, but eventually it will finish, and you will be presented with the QuickInstall main screen.  From the main screen, click on the blue down arrow on the right side which will open up the Ipkg repository viewer.  From the drop-down list on top, select “WebOS-Internals Feed (Pre)”, and in the list that appears below, put a check in the checkbox next to “Preware”, then click “Download”, when that finishes, click “Close”, bringing you back to the main screen. (note, the program may inform you it needs to install other apps along with Preware, this is fine)

Now, plug in your phone using the USB cable to the computer, and on the Pre, when prompted, select “Just Charge”.  Once your computer picks up the phone, go back to the WebOSQuickInstall screen and click “Install”.  This should copy the program over to your pre, and install it.  To verify that it has installed, check your Application Launcher for the Preware icon (or use the Universal Search).  At this point, if you do not see the Preware icon, then something has gone wrong, and you should go check out the WebOSQuickInstall thread on the Precentral forums linked above.

Congrats, you now have Preware installed, and access to thousands of more apps, patches, themes, etc.

Step 2 – Installing Govnah and UberKernel

Next step, we will use Preware to install the nessessary applications.  At this point you can unplug your Pre from the computer, we will no longer need it.  Open up your Application Launcher and launch Preware (or use Universal Search).  At launch, Preware will fetch the most updated list of packages from online, so make sure you have an Internet connection ready, or it will fail.  After everything is loaded, you will be brought to Preware’s main screen that lists the number of packages installed, available, etc.  You can search for packages from this screen, so, type out on your keypad “Govnah” and press enter.  Select the Govnah package and at the bottom of the screen, press install.  When that is complete, go back to the main screen again (swipe back), and type “UberKernel”, and press on the package “Uberkernel(Pre/Pre+)”, then press “install”.

When the UberKernel package finishes its install, it will ask to reboot the phone, carry on with the reboot.  This allows the new kernel to be loaded.

Step 3 – Configuring UberKernel with Govnah

The Govnah application is pretty complex, and can be used with different kernels other than UberKernel.  However, it does have some nice presets.  I will not get into fully customizing your running kernel, if you want to do that, then you can poke around yourself, and ask around on the forums.

With Govnah, you can choose from a few different presets, or, you can create your own.  What you select here is entirely dependent on your use and your needs of the phone.  For me, the preset I use the most is “Screenstate 500/800″.  What this preset does is, when the screen is on (ie, when you’re actively using it), the CPU overclocks to a speed of 800Mhz.  When the screen is off, it clocks back to 500Mhz, thus saving some battery when its not in current use.  This seems to be one of the more popular presets, but there are others there, as well as the ability to make your own.

So, launch Govnah, and click on the “Profile”  part on top (it is probably set to Palm default by default), and then select the preset you want.  You will then notice that the settings on the main page have changed, for example, with the screenstate 500/800, you will notice its now showing a speed of 800Mhz.  You can now close off Govnah, and your phone will be overclocked, even across reboots!  If you want to go back to default, go back into Govnah, and select UberKernel Default, or Palm Default.

Yip, its that easy.

Step 4 – Clean Up, Temperature warning, Battery Life, etc.

Remember, we are still in developer mode.  What this means is that you are currently running your phone without a firewall, so, you should really get out again.  Once again, enter in the Konami Code:

UpUpDownDownLeftRightLeftRightBAStart

And turn off the developer mode, and let the phone restart again.

Now, as I’m sure you know, overclocking the CPU in any device means it will generate more heat, which could possibly damage your phone.  Luckily, the smart people that put together Govnah and UberKernel have thought of this, and have built in temperature monitors so that if it ever hits a certain point where it may be a danger to the phone, it will shut itself off, saving your phone from possible damage.

There you have it, you have now overclocked your phone.  Now if you go about your usual activities, you will definitely notice the speed improvement.

Now, with regards to battery life.  Everyone knows that the Palm Pre’s battery doesn’t always last the longest, so you may think to yourself that overclocking your phone will only be worse on your battery.  Well, that may be the case, but, in my experiences, I have found just the opposite.  With the Screenstate 500/800 preset, when the phone is not in active use,  its clocked at its normal 500Mhz, which doesn’t drain any more battery than before.  However, when in active use, and running at 800Mhz, it will drain more battery while in use, BUT, due to the increase speed of the device, you complete the tasks you are doing quicker, thus, you don’t use the phone for as long as you would when it was slower.  When you think about it, it does make some sense.  But, as with anything, your milage may vary.  If you don’t like the battery use, then you can configure your own preset for better power saving, etc.

That is all, I hope it worked out for you.  If you have any questions, post it in the comments section, or check out the Precentral forums.

If you haven’t heard of MagicJack, its a device that plugs into the USB port of a Windows/OS X computer in which you can plug in any regular home phone and get cheap phone service to everywhere in Canada and the United States.  You can also (depending on location) get a local phone number so that people in your local area can call you without incurring long distance charges.  MagicJack is the first VOIP provider that I have found that offered a local number here in Newfoundland, Canada.  In total, for 1 full year of service, local Canadian phone number, taxes and shipping,  it cost me $63,85.  Not a bad deal.

After receiving my MagicJack, I got a loan of a crappy home phone from my girlfriend’s parents (I haven’t had a home phone in years!), to test it out.  After a bit of trouble with getting the installer to see the internet on my Windows 7 64bit machine, I finally got the MagicJack installed.  Went through the registration process, was assigned a local number, tested it out and everything went well.  I then went onto Kijiji and found someone selling a cordless phone set with 3 handsets for $20, so I went and bought them.  Hooked them up, and they work great throughout the apartment.

Now, the only problem I was having was that Caller ID wasn’t working on the cordless phones, only on the softphone on the computer (speaking of the softphone, it is rather annoying, but luckily can be removed, more on that in a later tips article).  After some Google searching, and browsing on MagicJackSupport.com (sorry, don’t have exact thread link here, email me if you know it so I can credit), I found out that you can get the caller id working with different hacks:

Method 1 – DSL Line Filter (Easy!)

The first method, which I found buried in a post, was to use an ADSL line filter.  While the technical differences between a DSL line filter and the 100k ohm resistor method mentioned below are a little different, it works.  I just happened to have one laying around here, so I tried that, and it worked perfectly.  Plug one end of it into your MagicJack, and plug your phone into the other end of the filter, and voila, it works.  This is by far the easiest method, especially if you have a filter laying around.  I didn’t see this method mentioned much online, so, it may not work for everyone, or every type of filter, but it worked for me and that’s why i’m saying its the easy way.  Let me know if this didn’t work for you.

Method 2 – 100k Ohm Resistor

The other method is to use a 100k Ohm resistor which you can get from any RadioShack (US) and wherever you can find it (Canada).  Next, you can get a phone jack coupler like the one pictured to the right, and add the resistor to the coupler as shown.  All you need to do is unscrew the screws holding in the red and green wires slightly, add in your 100k ohm resistor, and tighten them up again.  It appears that the majority of people who do this hack have the most success.

As I stated, I did not discover either of these hacks, the pictures I used are from one of the members on the forum, and if I can find the post, I will post credit to the user.

Any questions, please post below and I will try my best to answer them.