Hackintosh: Fixing Radeon HD 6770 after updating to MultiBeast 4.2.1

I recently ran into some trouble on my hackintosh after updating the MultiBeast package.  I updated to MultiBeast 4.2.1.  After rebooting, I discovered that my Radeon HD 6770 card stopped working leaving me with a black screen.

 

Work-Around

Luckily my onboard display (Intel HD3000) still worked under Mac OS Lion 10.7.2.  For a work-around you can enable your onboard display in the BIOS and physically remove your Ati card.  Keep reading, and I’ll show you how I got my Ati card fully working again.

Here is my hardware list.  If you have the same hardware, this solution might work for you.

OS: Mac OSX Lion 10.7.2
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3
Display: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6770
CPU: Intel i5 2500K

MultiBeast 4.2.1 contains an updated bootloader (Chimera v1.7.0.r1394).  The HD 6770 display card is not being correctly identified anymore.

Solution

You need to give the kernel some extra parameters  so it will know the correct Ati config to use.

To get your workstation to boot up cleanly, hit the spacebar during the bootloader and give the following parameters to the bootloader.

AtiConfig=Bulrushes AtiPorts=3 PciRoot=0

If you were able to boot successfully using those parameters, you should now update your bootloader config file–so that those changes will be lasting.

Add the following items to the file /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist

<key>AtiConfig></key>
<string>Bulrushes</string>
<key>AtiPorts</key>
<string>3</string>
<key>PciRoot</key>
<string>0</string>

Save those changes and now your hackintosh should boot cleanly every time without you having to manually add parameters at boot time.

Using bind mounts on my music share

I love simple solutions.  I share my full music collection to multiple devices on my LAN using a samba.  I also have  some seasonal music which I only want to be available during the holiday season.  I decided to create a bind mount for my seasonal music.  Creating a bind mount allows you to remount part of your file system someplace else.

I keep my seasonal music  in the following folder.

/files/christmas-music

I keep my entire music collection minus the seasonal music under the following folder.

/files/music

I am sharing my music folder using samba. I have multiple devices on my LAN which mount this as a CIFS share.

[music]
 comment = music
 path = /files/music
 admin users = +admin, musicrw
 read list = music
 write list = musicrw
 read only = No
 create mask = 0775
 directory mask = 0775
 guest ok = Yes

Under my music folder I have many subfolders that are filled with  music files.  Here is but a few.

/files/music/_Chill
/files/music/_Classic
/files/music/_Metal
/files/music/_New_Wave

When I’m ready to make my seasonal music availabe.  I create a subfolder for it. Then I mount my seasonal music using a bind type of mount.

mkdir /files/music/_Christmas
sudo mount -t bind /files/christmas-music /files/music/_Christmas

I add this to my /etc/fstab

/files/christmas-music  /files/music/_Christmas bind defaults 0 0

That makes the seasonal music available to my devices that already have my music folder mounted.  When the holiday season is over, I unmount the bind mount.  The bind mount works perfectly in this situation.  Why didn’t I use a symlink?– Because symlinks are disabled by default on samba.

I hope you enjoyed this simple example of using a bind mount.

Fedora 16 missing H.264 decoder plugin (fixed)

If you installed Fedora 16 and added the RPM fusion repositories and you still can’t watch .mkv videos because of a missing H.264 decoder plugin.

Totem Movie Player gives you this error message

Here is how to fix it.

You are still missing a required package.  Add the following package…and you should be good to go.

sudo yum install gstreamer-ffmpeg

However, If you need full instructions for enabling the RPM fusion repositories here they are also.   The first two lines add the necessary repositories.  The last line installs the necessary plugins for variety of video formats as well as viewing DVDs.

sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

sudo yum install gstreamer gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg libdvdread libdvdnav lsdvd

Enjoy.

Alternatively, you can also install and use vlc or smplayer to view mkv videos–both can decode H.254 .

Ubuntu 11.10: Unity Desktop Poll

Ubuntu 11.10 getting wireless BCM4311 working

I have an HP laptop model nx6325 with a Broadcom BCM4311 wireless card.  After installing Ubuntu 11.10, I find that my wireless doesn’t work.  The reason, Ubuntu detects the wireless but then loads the incorrect driver for this card.

I use the lspci command to display the details about my hardware. It will display all of your PCI connected hardware. I edited the output to show only the relevant information.  The important information here for  matching your hardware with mine is this indentifier [14e4:4312].

$ sudo lspci -v

30:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
        Memory at c8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [d0] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
        Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
        Kernel modules: ssb

$ sudo lspci -nn
30:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)

The Solution

I am  going to install the correct driver for this wireless card. Then I will remove the “incorrect” driver (bcmwl) which Ubuntu installed by default.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
$ sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source
$ sudo reboot

Hopefully you found this useful.

If you have this same type of wireless chip in your laptop, these instructions might also work for you.

Fixing Problems with Gnome Indicator Applets

If you are using gnome 2.x and you have problems with your indicator applets not displaying properly after login.   I often do.   I don’t know the reason.  It occurs sporadically and more often than not.

A simple fix is to restart gnome-panel.  You don’t need to use sudo.  Open a terminal and run the following command.

$ pkill gnome-panel

That was easy–and is usually all you need to do.

However, if that didn’t solve your problem.  You can try reseting your panels and get pristine panels again.  WARNING:  If you have customized your panels by adding application launchers and etc, you will lose those setttings and have to customize them again.

Now that you have been warned, here are the steps to reset your panels.

$ gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/panel

$ rm -fr ~/.gconf/apps/panel

$ pkill gnome-panel

I hope you found this post useful.

Configure Ubuntu to start in text mode

In my previous post I showed you how to add the gnome desktop to your Ubuntu server.   Suppose you want to configure Ubuntu to start in text mode rather then automatically starting the gnome desktop.  It is an easy change to make.  Here is how.

1) Edit /etc/default/grub.  Locate and change the following line.

change:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”

to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash text”

Then save your changes.

2) Run

sudo update-grub

The next time you reboot, Ubuntu will boot to text mode and you will see the console login screen (cmdline).  You can start the gnome desktop manually after loggging on by running “startx“.  When you logoff from the gnome desktop, you will be returned to the cmdline again.

Install a graphical desktop on Ubuntu Server 10.04 (without alot of extras)

Sometimes I find the need to install Ubuntu Server with a gnome desktop like the one that you get with Ubuntu Desktop.  You can install Ubuntu Server and then use apt-get to install the package ubuntu-desktop.  However, if you do that you will end up installing almost everything that comes with a Ubuntu Desktop installation.  This is not what I want.

What I really want is a  gnome graphical desktop running on top of Ubuntu Server and very little else.  Here is what I do.

Step 1:

Install Ubuntu Server

Step 2:

Logon and install the following packages.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop –no-install-recommends

You will want the indicator applets.

$ sudo apt-get install indicator-applet-complete indicator-applet

If you want a web browser, a good choice is chromium.

$ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Step 3:

Reboot and enjoy.

That is all.

Fedora 15: Enable your laptop fingerprint reader

If your laptop has a built-in fingerprint reader, here is how to enable it for logins under gnome3.  In this example, I’m using a Lenovo T60 laptop.

Start the Authentication application.

On the advanced options tab,  enable the fingerprint reader.

Next open a terminal window.

Run fprintd-enroll with your username.  To record your fingerprint scan, it will ask you to swipe your index finger three times successfully.

That is all.  You can test by logging out and logging in again.  On the gdm login screen, select your username and select the icon for the fingerprint.  Then scan your right index finger and it should log you in.

How to prevent a Debian or Ubuntu package from being upgraded

Recently, I wanted to hold my virtualbox software at version 4.04 and prevent it from being upgraded.  If you use the gnome update-manager, you can always deselect the virtualbox  package in the GUI each time.  If you don’t like having to do that each time, I will show you two additional methods.  The first method using aptitude and the second method using dpkg/apt-get.  Choose one method or the other, the two methods are independent.

Method 1: Aptitude

Use aptitude to place a hold on a package and this will allow aptitude to upgrade everything else except packages that you have “held back”.

I’ll show you how to place a hold on the virtualbox package (virtualbox-4.0).

Start aptitude.

$ sudo aptitude

Your first action should always be to update your repo cache.  Hit the “u” key.

Next, search for virtualbox.  The “/” key will bring up a search box.  Enter virtualbox and hit enter.

If virtualbox is installed, aptitude should find it.

Hit the “=” key to place a hold on the virtualbox package.

You should see the flags “ih” now associated with the virtualbox package.  This means that virtualbox is installed and there is a hold placed on it.  It won’t be upgraded while it is held back.

Whenever you want to clear the hold flag, search and select the virtualbox package again and hit the “:” key.  That will remove the hold.

To upgrade your server.  Use the arrow keys to go to the top of the list and select the Upgradeable Packages.  Then hit the “g” key.

Hit the “q” key to quit aptitude.

Packages that are held back will still show in the Upgradable Package list whenever there are upgrades available for download.  If you try to upgrade it, it will be skipped.  As shown below.

If you prefer to use the cmdline, this is how to do everything that I just talked about, place a hold on virtualbox and upgrade everything (except virtualbox).

$ sudo aptitude update

$ sudo aptitude hold virtualbox-4.0

$ sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

And when you are ready to remove the “hold” placed previously on virtualbox and upgrade everything

$ sudo aptitude update

$ sudo aptitude keep virtualb0x-4.0

$ sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

Method 2: dpkg/apt-get

To place a hold on virtualbox and upgrade everything (except virtualbox).

$ sudo apt-get update

$ echo “virtualbox-4.0 hold” | sudo dpkg –set-selections

$ echo apt-get upgrade

To remove that hold on virtualbox and upgrade everything.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ echo “virtualbox-4.0 install” | sudo dpkg –set-selections

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Summary

Whichever method you choose, please remember that each method is independent of the other.  In other words, if you use aptitude to place a hold on a package, then apt-get won’t see that hold.  If you place a hold using dpkg, then aptitude won’t see that hold either.   So remember to be consistent with whichever method you choose.  Yeah, it’s a bit nuts.