Monthly Archives: May 2007

Zattoo for Linux (x86-64)

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zattoo Just got back from a long weekend, and I saw a nice news item waiting for me in my email box, the Zattoo client is now available for Linux. The Zattoo client is a peer-to-peer client that allows the user to select a Live TV channel (out of a growing selection of television channels).

While only released so far for Linux in a x86 (32bit) format for 3 different distributions : Ubuntu 6.10, Fedora Core 6, and OpenSuse 10.2, it can quickly be adapted to other distros. I’ve been able to get it running without much trouble (just had to add 2 libraries) on my Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (x86-64). Here are the few steps needed to get it running after having downloaded the binary from the Zattoo download pages.

 

Create two Symbolic Links:

ln -s /lib/libssl.so.0.9.8b /lib/libssl.so.0.9.8
ln -s /lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8b /lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8

In addition it requires two additional libraries that where not on my configuration The gtkglext library for i386, which I found already compiled for rhel5-i386 and the libfaad library found in the faad2 package for i386. In addition I also created a ldconfig entry for Zattoo to find it’s libraries. Under RHEL5 I use the ld.so.conf.d directory.

 

Edit /etc/ld.so.conf.d/zattoo.conf :

/usr/lib/zattoo

When I didn’t do this, I was getting the following error code:

 

zattoo_player: symbol lookup error: zattoo_player: undefined symbol: faacDecOpen

Another list of people making comments about Zattoo on Linux is available on this more official blog.

Enabling Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) in VMware Workstation 6.0 & Ubuntu 7.04 (i386)

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The Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) that is provided in the VMware Workstation 6.0 work currently only with the Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 distro. But it requires the i386 version, not the x86-64. To check if you’re kernel has VMI paravirtual kernel support enabled, you can check the kernel compile config.
Code:

# grep VMI /boot/config-2.6.20-15-server

CONFIG_VMI=y

There isn’t much showing inside the virtual machine when it’s running with the paravirtual kernel support. The only quick way I’ve found so far, is to check the APIC timer interrupt. In the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) enabled machine you have to check the following

Code:

# grep VMI /proc/interrupts

0   74    IO-APIC-Edge            VMI-alarm

The normal APIC timer function has been replaced by a VMI-alarm function.

It goes without saying that you need to activate the VMI paravirtual kernel support in the config of the virtual machine in the Options/Advanced section.

VMware Workstation 6.0 for Linux

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VMware LogoVMware has released VMware Workstation 6.0 yesterday. It is the sixth generation of the Workstation virtualization product. This version brings enhancements on the virtual devices and connectivity for the virtual machines (USB 2.0 support, more network cards, multiple-display). Seemlessly run both 32bit environments and 64bit (x86-64) on the same host. Supports running virtual machines in the background with headless operations. Enhanced support for developpers.

Up to this point nothing earthshattering right. Well two new features that VMware Workstation 6.0 brings to virtualization are :

  • Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) support (experimental): VMware Workstation 6.0 is the first virtualization platform to allow execution of paravirtualized guest operating systems that implement the VMI interface. Please note that VMI configuration is only available in i386 kernels for the moment. x86-64 will come.
  • Continuous virtual machine record and replay (experimental): Users can record the execution of a virtual machine, including all inputs, outputs and decisions made along the way. On demand, the user can go “back in time” to the start of the recording and replay execution, guaranteeing that the virtual machine will perform exactly the same operations every time and ensuring bugs can be reproduced and resolved.

Having taken part of the two beta releases and the release candidate of the Workstation 6.0 product, I immediately upgraded my Workstation 5.0 for Linux license to the new version last night. This is an amazing product !!!

Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU 3.3 Improved performance

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HTC TytnI’ve purchased last year a Swisscom XPA v1605 (HTC TyTN, HERMES or Qtek 9600) PocketPC Phone. It’s a PocketPC sized phone that supports GSM & UMTS communications. It came with Windows Mobile 5.0 and had a few Service provider installed applications (F-Secure Anti-Virus, TomTom Navigator 5 for Switzerland, SBB Timetable) and the Swisscom Mobile Assistant tools. While the phone looked good, I have not been too happy about the performance of the user interface. Additional programs like the SPB Pocket Plus also gave me lots trouble, and the worse, was the high quanity of missed calls.Swisscom has made available on their support pages an upgrate to Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU 3.3 (Update V2.08.170.1). After having installed the memory card software for the XPA v1605 on a brand new 2GB MicroSD, I upgraded the Swisscom XPA v1605 to the latest firmware version. I added the two excellent versions of SPB Pocket Plus and SPB Diary.

The result is a Windows Mobile 5.0 device that feels a lot more snappy at usage, faster loading, using smaller memory footprint and supports the latest Direct Push Technology from Microsoft.

Warning: A small note for SPB Backup users, the backup created on the previous version of Windows Mobile 5.0 didn’t load up properly under AKU 3.3, I had to retrieve all my original contacts from an old Outlook contact list.