Technical Bedtime Stories

nce upon a time I wanted to switch the OS of my Plex Media Server from Windows to Ubuntu. I ran into issues right away because my media is on an external drive attached to my ASUS router and exposed on the network as Windows (SMB) shares. Out of the box Ubuntu would not mount my SMB shares. Here are the steps I took to be able to mount these folders automatically, so that I could then install and configure Plex Media Server and add my libraries. (The key items are the smb.conf parameters and adding ver=1.0 in fstab. ASUS router firmware only supports SMB 1.0.)

UPDATE (12/19/2019): The old solution did not survive a reboot, so I’ve updated. The key items now are using x-systemd.automount and uid/gid in the fstab line. I also discovered that installing asuswrt-merlin firmware enables ASUS routers to use SMB 2.0.

Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, update and login as the plex user, then

sudo apt install smbclient cifs-utils
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

and add this to smb.conf in the [global] section

WORKGROUP = MYWORKGROUP
client use spnego = no
client ntlmv2 auth = no

Then

sudo nano /etc/hosts

and add the IP and servername of your fileserver (router) to hosts

192.168.1.76 servername

Then

sudo mkdir /home/plex/movies
nano /home/plex/.smbcredentials

and add your username and password to .smbcredentials

username=plex
password=plexpassword

Then

chmod 600 /home/plex/.smbcredentials
sudo nano /etc/fstab

and add the share you want to automatically mount as a line in /etc/fstab

//servername/movies /home/plex/movies cifs nofail,x-systemd.automount,vers=2.0,uid=plex,gid=plex,credentials=/home/plex/.smbcredentials

Reboot to test that the share automounts.

Install Plex Media server. I like this guide: https://www.linuxbabe.com/ubuntu/install-plex-media-server-ubuntu-18-04

Sources: How to connect to Samba share on an ASUS router, Does asus only support Samba/SMB1? Is it possible to enable SMB2 or higher?, Why is mount.cifs not working in fstab any more after upgrading from 16.04 to 18.04?, No write access to destination Ubuntu, Ubuntu 18.04 Cifs Mount not showing files on boot, fstab, CIFS automount using systemd getting read only

nce upon a time I bought a used workstation from work for 50 bucks. I didn’t want to spend twice the cost of the computer for a legit copy of Windows 7, so I tested out a few Linux distributions on it. I tried Fedora and loved the default Gnome 3 interface, which I found simple, clean, and productive, but discovered that hardly anything worked out of the box. I tried Ubuntu and almost everything worked out of the box, but the Unity interface drove me batty (the Unity bar shows on both screens of a dual monitor setup, with no easy way to disable! Amateurs.) For me the perfect solution was to put Gnome 3 on Ubuntu and now I couldn’t be happier. The workstation has become my main computer. Here are the instructions I followed, they are for Ubuntu 12.04, but work for 12.10 as well:

http://www.filiwiese.com/installing-gnome-on-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin/. (Thanks Fili for that post, you the man.)

I also went to https://extensions.gnome.org/ and installed the “Alternative Status Menu” extension (to make it so you don’t have to press Alt to see the Suspend option) and the “Remove Accessibility” extension (because I don’t need the Accessibility features).

s my trusty (mostly) laptop approaches its 4th birthday, I’ve been thinking about the possibility of finally switching from Windows 7 to Ubuntu on a permanent basis, as a way to get more out of an aging device. This is because I won’t ever be buying another laptop. I buy my gear for the long haul, and don’t see the point in investing in anything without a touch screen, whether it be a tablet or some future tablet/laptop hybrid. Touch tech is mature and useful, and the software to support it has arrived (Android, iOS) and will be arriving (Windows 8).

I tried several ways of testing out Ubuntu: live CDs, virtual machines, and hard drive swaps. I settled on booting off an external hardrive. This gave me the chance to test on my actual hardware, with the convenience of making no changes to my Windows 7 hardrive. I spent a few weeks using Ubuntu as my primary system with my mind open, and have come to the conclusion that although it has come lightyears in usability, Ubuntu still isn’t ready for prime time. The value proposition still lands in Microsoft’s favor: it’s worth 100+ dollars for an operating system that supports my laptop hardware.

Most of the time I was able to use Ubuntu just as I would use Windows 7. The browsing experience in Chrome is the same, and local networking functions well out of the box. What got me was the little annoyances. The things that don’t work that should just work. Here’s my list that I plan to keep updated until Ubuntu does catch up:

• No Netflix – Ubuntu needs to throw their weight behind this one. Netflix is supported on set-top devices, smartphones and tablets that all run on Linux, so don’t tell me DRM is the issue.
• Power management issues – Ubuntu won’t automatically dim my screen when I unplug the AC. That’s just one of the symptoms of poor hardware resource management.
• Battery life – I got half the battery life I get when running Windows. This had to do with the system not managing the display as I mentioned, or managing the CPU. The fan was in operation constantly.
• No Logitech Setpoint – I use a very common Logitech mouse that has extra buttons. I want to be able to use those buttons, but I can’t.
• No pretty graphics – Windows 7 Aero Glass looks good, don’t deny it. Ubuntu has some transparency, but still maintains a solid grey bar a la Windows XP for task management. It looks very last decade.
• Webcam support – I got my webcam working by using drivers that a savvy ubuntu user had packaged and published. I would expect this to work out of the box.

nce upon a time my Ubuntu test machine (with an Nvidia GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU) wouldn’t resume from suspend or hibernate. It would turn back on, but only display a blank or purple screen, depending on its mood, and require a hard reboot (holding down the power button for 5 seconds). Turns out there is a simple fix. Of course I tried all the complicated fixes before finding this one, but let my experience save you time. Add this to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file in the “Device” section:

Option     "NvAGP"     "1"

This does not work for Ubuntu Natty 11.04, which ignores the xorg.conf file.

To take the edge off of my hard fought victory, I found that when I did successfully resume, the system prompted me for a password to get back in. This wasn’t expected behavior, as I have auto-login turned on, and screensaver password turned off. I discovered that this is indeed an unresolved bug, stretching way back to old versions of Ubuntu. No matter what settings you change in various conf files or gnome-editor, the system ignores them. The only thing you can do is simply disable the lock screen. (I know, for some people that won’t be a good option, but I’m more concerned with convenience than security for this machine.). In the terminal:

gconf-editor

Go to desktop/gnome/lockdown, and check disable_lock_screen.

Sources: NvidiaLaptopBinaryDriverSuspend, Disabling the suspend and hibernate locks via gconf-editor doesn’t do anything (from Intrepid to lucid included)

UPDATE: To also make sure the system will resume by pressing any key, ensure that feature is enable in the BIOS, and then add this to /etc/rc.local before exit 0 and restart:

echo "USB0" > /proc/acpi/wakeup

Source: Ubuntu Suspend / Wake

nce upon a time I had a week’s worth of difficulty getting Ubuntu 10.10 to install on my ancient nforce2 based motherboard (Nvidia GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU). There were two main issues, 1) the installer couldn’t see all of the hard drives, and 2) the system would only recognize 640×480 as the maximum resolution.

Fix #1

Boot into the liveCD (or liveUSB). Open a terminal and issue the following command:

sudo apt-get remove dmraid

Now when you run the installer, it will see all hard drives.

Fix #2

After the install, run update manager to get up-to-date. Then run the Additional Drivers (System/Administration) to activate the Nvidia video driver. After rebooting, edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to look something like the following and reboot again:

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Monitor0"
	Device		"Default Device"
	DefaultDepth	24
	Option		"AddARGBGLXVisuals"	"True"
	SubSection	"Display"
		Viewport 0 0
		Depth	24
		Modes	"1280x1024"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Monitor0"
	VendorName	"Unknown"
	ModelName	"Unknown"
	HorizSync	24.0 - 80.0
	VertRefresh	49.0 - 75.0
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load	"glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Default Device"
	Driver		"nvidia"
	Option		"NoLogo"	"True"
EndSection

Use the following to get info about your monitor:

sudo apt-get install hwinfo
sudo hwinfo --monitor

Sources: [SOLVED] Display limited to 800×600 screen resolution on Ubuntu 9.04 on LG Flatron L1718S, Installer does not detect hard drive partitions, Stuck in low res after Nvidia driver install (Ubuntu 10.10)

UPDATE: Just as a note to my future self, when you reinstall Ubuntu and are trying to get your 500GB software raid stripe back up and the Disk Utility is telling you “Not enough components available to start the raid array”, just reinstall mdadm (sudo apt-get install mdadm), reboot, and all will be well.

UPDATE 2: This resolution fix will not work on Ubuntu 11.04 because it ignores xorg.conf, and the current Nvidia 96 series driver (GeForce), does not support xorg 1.10.

Source: [natty] nvidia binary packages for older cards – dependencies not met