# Note: about 1.3GB of workspace was required to generate 170MB output, in this case a short slide show with sound track.
# 

yum install vobcopy mjpegtools dvdauthor
mkdir video_work
cd video_work
vobcopy -l
mkfifo stream.yuv
mplayer -ao null -noframedrop -vo yuv4mpeg VIDEONAME.vob &
cat stream.yuv|yuvfps -r25:1|yuvscaler -n p -O DVD |mpeg2enc -n p -f 8 -F 3 -o out.m2v
mplayer -ao pcm -vo null -vc dummy VIDEONAME.vob
# Note: 224000 bits per second (224kbits/sec)
ffmpeg -ab 224000 -ac 2 -ar 48000 -i audiodump.wav audiodump.ac3
mplex -f 8 -o ready-to-master.mpg out.m2v audiodump.ac3
mkdir dvdauthor_out
cat << EOF > dvdauthor.xml
<dvdauthor dest="/data_dir/video_work/dvdauthor_out">
<vmgm>
</vmgm>
<titleset>
<titles>
<video />
<pgc>
<vob file="ready-to-master.mpg" />
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>
EOF
dvdauthor -x dvdauthor.xml
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video dvdauthor_out

After a quick look around it appears the only LightScribe labelling software available for Linux is proprietary. LaCie provide the software in RPM packages which is nice if you are a Fedora user like me. (Apparently they have tested it with the other major distros, which is nice to see.) It installed fine under Fedora 10 beta, which was a nice surprise given that it was apparently written for Fedora 5. It didn’t install a menu entry, but firing up the “LaCie Lightscribe Labeller”, ‘4L-gui’, provided a reasonably nice experience.

I grabbed some DVD media artwork from the Fedora art team. There were two labels in each image file, so I had to pick one and chop it in half with the GIMP. I then cropped it to remove the alignment patterns, and then did an autocrop to crop to the edge of the DVD label. Then it was a simple matter of importing it in the 4L-gui and selecting ‘fit image height to disc’.

Writing the disc label took a bewilderingly long 15 minutes. I suppose it is effectively doing the same thing as burning a CD, but it’s a big wait for little reward. The inscribed label is a hazy monochrome image that is below the surface of the disc.

In future I think I’ll just use a pen. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to the see the improvement in the quality of Linux software provided by a hardware vendor. It would be even better if they would free the code. This would enable distros to incorporate the software into the main repos, making the experience a bit more streamlined and integrated.

import re
import rpm

def get_package_version(name):
    """Return version string of installed package."""

    # note: ts can take an argument that is the root of the installation
    #       typically with a var/lib/rpm directory underneath it.
    transaction_set = rpm.ts()

    versions = [header['provideversion'][0]
                for header in transaction_set.dbMatch('name', name)]
    versions.sort(cmp_versions)
    return versions

def version2sortable(version):

    parts = re.split(r'(\d+)', version)
    fields = []
    for part in parts:
        try:
            part = int(part)
        except ValueError:
            pass
        fields.append(part)
    return tuple(fields)

def cmp_versions(a, b):

    return cmp(version2sortable(a), version2sortable(b))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print get_package_version('kernel')

Output:

['2.6.23.8-63.fc8', '2.6.23.9-85.fc8', '2.6.23.14-107.fc8', '2.6.23.14-115.fc8', '2.6.23.15-137.fc8']


Note: Wordpress is screwing up the markup on the code blocks above. If you have any tips on how to fix this please drop me a line.
Update: Using pre/blockquote hack for now and will try out a code highlighter plug-in when I get the chance. Thanks Tim and Lindsay!

Wireless networking wasn’t working

Fedora 8 detected my Atheros-based wifi card, since it now includes the new freedomware ath5k driver. However I couldn’t get it to associate with my access point. The workaround was to install the proprietary madwifi package from livna: On a machine with Internet access, go to livna.org and download madwifi and the kmod-madwifi package corresponding to the installed kernel (do uname -r to find out). Then do:
su -
rpm -ihv madwiki kmod-wifi
modprobe -r ath5k
modprobe ath_pci

Go to Administration->Services and start/turn on NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher services. The NetworkManager applet should appear in the system tray. Click on this to configure a wireless connection.

1280×1024 resolution was not available

This resolution was working on my Fedora 6 setup, with an nVidia gforce2 MX 440 and Viewsonic E771 monitor.
To fix, add the following line to /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the “Display”/”Screen” section:
Modes "1280x1024" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1280x960" "1280x800" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1152x768" "1024x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "800x600" "640x480" "640x480"

Setting up the livna repository

The livna.org repository is a separate repo containing packages that aren’t included in the main Fedora repo for various legal, technical and ethical reasons. I need it for the madwifi driver and the gspca webcam driver among other things. Set it up like so:
su -
rpm -ihv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm


Installing the webcam driver

The driver for my Logitech Quickcam IM webcam is freedomware, however apparently it does yucky things like JPEG decoding inside the kernel, so is not included in the mainline kernel. It can be installed from livna like so:
su -
yum install gspca
modprobe gspca
Alternatively, you can install it from the GUI by going to System->Add/Remove Software and searching for gspca.
You can test that the webcam is working by running Ekiga (strangely filed under Internet->IP Telephony blah blah) and setting up video.

Using a home directory on a separate partition

I have my home directory stored on a separate ‘data’ partition. I was not able to log in when I configured my account to use this as my home directory. To fix this, I had to change the SELinux context on the root directory of the file-system on the data partition like so:
chcon system_u:object_r:home_root_t:s0 /data

Fixing broken icons in Evolution

It appears that the necessary dependency isn’t installed by default for a KDE install. Fix the icons like so:
su -c 'yum install nodoka-theme-gnome'

Installing Adobe Flash Player

To install the proprietary Adobe Flash player do:
su -
rpm -ihv http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
yum install flash-plugin


Note that a freedomware flash player, gnash, is in the works, but it only supports a subset of Flash v7 functionality.

Other issues

I’ve had problems with sound not being available upon booting from time to time. This seems to be due to the coexistence of the webcam’s internal microphone sound device, and my main soundcard sound device. I also get ‘artsd’ crash messages upon logging into KDE from time to time.

I hope to cover my impressions of the various Fedora 8 components in subquent posts, but we’ll see how we go.