Linux Computers

[critter]

The only way I've been satisfied thus far with the performance, et al, of digital movies is by having a dedicated computer (could be any computer with enough power to play hi-def videos and an HDMI out, mine is an older notebook) hardwired to the primary router though a switch (as is the movie server). This allows VLC to play whatever format movie from the server, over cat5, directly to any TV with an HDMI input.

Wireless is convenient, but nothing beats direct cabling wherever feasible. I have yet to own a TV which actually worked up to my expectations/standards using whatever built in streaming features it has except for streaming from Netflix or other streaming services. They've all been glitchy as hell streaming from a home dlna server.

[RJ]

Ok, just to wrap up on dlna and how this worked out for me.

I discovered that my Samsung TV is not able to "see" H.264 encoded media, apparently. I say this because I spun up the Acer on the Windoze partition, and was able to see all my media on the network from the windows client, meaning to me at least that Rygel was exposing all the files to the network and not just the *.mkv.

Second, I transcoded a couple more H.264 movie files to *.mkv using Transmageddon in Matroska / FLAC / VP8 and the output file was visible to the Samsung (and plays nicely.)

On a whim this morning I renamed one of the *.mp4 files I have to *.avi.

And it appeared on my Samsung under the "video" folder on the Rygel DLNA server location.

And it played fine on the Samsung TV.

LOL.

So I didn't/don't need to recode any of my videos; just renaming them was all I needed for the Samsung app to pick them up and display; they run fine on video.

Sometimes the obvious things are right in your face.

In other news, I ended up not getting along with the mechanical Reddragon keyboard, so I bought a Logitech K740.

[RJ]

I inserted a 2T usb drive I'd previously used on my windoze box to start a file backup utility.

I was a bit stumped when it didn't seem to work right away.

I followed the tutorial here to unmount the drive, then mount it:

http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/h...drive-in-linux

[RJ]

Back to the DLNA server.

I’d installed the Rygel server on the Dell Linux box, but did not have much luck with the Client on my TVs.

On a whim I downloaded an app called PlayerExtreme. It is a DLNA-compliant client that appears to access and play all my *.mp4 files, and at least for me work MUCH better than VLC.





Now I can use any iPad or iPhone to watch any of my video files anywhere in the house.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RJ]

Not exactly Linux related, but: I’ve become convinced that the Netgear R7900P Nighthawk router I bought two years ago loses its mind when a previously allowed device gets back on the network after a reboot.

Mrs. RJ returned from her trip and I immediately noticed crap performance and very weird delays in all kinds of normally stable web sites from the main office computer. I think her laptop came online and somehow there was an IP conflict that wasn’t handled well by the router and TCP/IP chaos ensued. I shut off WiFi on everything in the house, reset the router, then enabled all 20 or so devices I have one at a time.

No more issues.

I am running the latest software (V1.4.1.30_1.2.26) but am about ready to turn this thing into a speed bump.

Any suggestions for a good mu mimo home router at the $100 price point?

[SecondsCount]

Mrs. RJ returned from her trip and I immediately noticed crap performance and very weird delays in all kinds of normally stable web sites from the main office computer. I think her laptop came online and somehow there was an IP conflict that wasn’t handled well by the router and TCP/IP chaos ensued. I shut off WiFi on everything in the house, reset the router, then enabled all 20 or so devices I have one at a time.

No more issues.

I am running the latest software (V1.4.1.30_1.2.26) but am about ready to turn this thing into a speed bump.

Any suggestions for a good mu mimo home router at the $100 price point?

Myself and a friend with a small business have a Nighthawk and they have been great. You may want to check to see that one of those 20 devices isn't hammering the network with a lot of unneeded traffic.

[Mike C]

Not exactly Linux related, but: I’ve become convinced that the Netgear R7900P Nighthawk router I bought two years ago loses its mind when a previously allowed device gets back on the network after a reboot.

Mrs. RJ returned from her trip and I immediately noticed crap performance and very weird delays in all kinds of normally stable web sites from the main office computer. I think her laptop came online and somehow there was an IP conflict that wasn’t handled well by the router and TCP/IP chaos ensued. I shut off WiFi on everything in the house, reset the router, then enabled all 20 or so devices I have one at a time.

No more issues.

I am running the latest software (V1.4.1.30_1.2.26) but am about ready to turn this thing into a speed bump.

Any suggestions for a good mu mimo home router at the $100 price point?

Have you tried reflashing your Nighthawk with different firmware? I've been using Tomato by Shibby for about two years and it solved all my issues with the Netgear firmware. It really opens up a lot of options and seriously reduced the number of connection issues I had.

[RJ]

Have you tried reflashing your Nighthawk with different firmware? I've been using Tomato by Shibby for about two years and it solved all my issues with the Netgear firmware. It really opens up a lot of options and seriously reduced the number of connection issues I had.

Not quite there yet.

I’m familiar; I bought a couple cheap ($2) WRT54Gs at Goodwill and reflashed them with DD-WRT to turn them into WiFi repeaters for my RV.

Thanks I’ll look into that.

Actually rebooting the router usually clears up these problems. Stuff like this happens on a regular basis, hence the frustration. I’ll probably just live with it.

[Mike C]

@RJ, I stand corrected I just looked at my router. I forgot I refreshed to Advanced Tomato. It was a little more use friendly. If you reflash your router with Tomato you can set a reboot schedule as well. I also like scripts ability to split tunnel VPN and assign by IP or MAC address. It litterally took me 15 minuted to get everything dowloaded and flashed, another 30/40 minutes to config everything. Over time I figured out how to split tunnel and do a few other things. Best of luck.

[beenalongtime]

Not exactly Linux related, but: I’ve become convinced that the Netgear R7900P Nighthawk router I bought two years ago loses its mind when a previously allowed device gets back on the network after a reboot.

Mrs. RJ returned from her trip and I immediately noticed crap performance and very weird delays in all kinds of normally stable web sites from the main office computer. I think her laptop came online and somehow there was an IP conflict that wasn’t handled well by the router and TCP/IP chaos ensued. I shut off WiFi on everything in the house, reset the router, then enabled all 20 or so devices I have one at a time.

No more issues.

I am running the latest software (V1.4.1.30_1.2.26) but am about ready to turn this thing into a speed bump.

Any suggestions for a good mu mimo home router at the $100 price point?

DHCP on or off?
Do you have any set IP addresses, and are they set/removed from the available address range?
Sounds to me like this could be an issue.