Vortex box tweaks

[davem]

Thanks so much for this. I stumbled on it while seraching for something else.

I have installed powertop and tuned and I have def improved things.

Well done.

I agree, having tuned as part of the VB distro would be a good move.

[davem]

Just as an aside, I am running VB on a ~5 year old laptop and tried the laptop-ac-powersave profile. I found that file transfers timed out partway through. /var/log/messages indicated that the NIC was bouncing...After looking at the profiles it seems that the only difference between default and laptop-ac-powersave is that the default does not have Net tuning.

No problems after moving to default.

[blownsi]

A question arose within the general forum about adding checkboxes to the GUI for backing up selected folders only. Anotherwords, some people only want to backup their movies, others only their flac, etc. Could this be added relatively easy?

[Ron Olsen]

A question arose within the general forum about adding checkboxes to the GUI for backing up selected folders only. Anotherwords, some people only want to backup their movies, others only their flac, etc. Could this be added relatively easy?

It all depends on one's skill with PHP scripts. Andrew is pretty good with PHP; I'm not. So it may be easy for Andrew, but not so easy for me.

[foxesden]

I have posted the test version of the powertuning utility on my web server

get it by logging into your vortexbox and type
wget http://www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk/wp...wertune.tar.gz

if you have problems getting it let me know

unpack tar -zxvf vortexpowertune.tar.gz

you can access the utility by typing

http://address-of-yourvortexbox/powertune.php

eg mine is http://192.168.0.21/powertune.php

you will see one button tuned-adm-utility.

Provided you have installed all the earlier utilities - when you press the button you should get a button list of all the profiles installed on the vortexbox.

click the profile you want and it will apply the settings

I have tested on chrome; firefox and ie 9. It works best on Chrome; the colour scheme is skewy in firefox but it otherwise works. in IE the button settings are wrong so don't use it there yet.

let me known if this is useful and I will tidy it up; and maybe add some more goodies depending on how bad the British Summer is..

[foxesden]

I have made a number of updates to the powertune tweaks above:

1 - The tuning set=up now works consistently across chrome; firefox and ie browser (tested in ie9)
2 - I have added an option to run a powertop report. This takes about 20 seconds to run. It is useful to identify processes that may be hogging power.
3 - Probably the one most people will find useful. I have added a facility to lock the order that your sound cards are ordered on reboot.

Simply put this option will allow you to lock the loaded cards in the current order. So if you replace a USB device simply re-lock. It will correctly identify and lock cards of the same type.

Tested With ESI UX24L and Audio GD digital interface

Now for the downer. This is not part of the Vortexbox build yet. The install instructions above need revision slightly.

login to your VB and change to root directory

cd /

download the tar
wget http://www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk/wp...wertune.tar.gz

if the above appears as a link you will need to copy the link location as the text may be abbreviated

unpack it
unpack tar -zxvf vortexpowertune.tar.gz

you can access the utility by typing

http://address-of-yourvortexbox/powertune.php

eg mine is http://192.168.0.21/powertune.php

Next steps.

Enable easier set-up of vortexbox player.

Andrew - do you mind checking the above utilities out. I think they would be a useful addition to the vortexbox web.

[Sully]

I have made a number of updates to the powertune tweaks above:

1 - The tuning set=up now works consistently across chrome; firefox and ie browser (tested in ie9)
2 - I have added an option to run a powertop report. This takes about 20 seconds to run. It is useful to identify processes that may be hogging power.
3 - Probably the one most people will find useful. I have added a facility to lock the order that your sound cards are ordered on reboot.

Simply put this option will allow you to lock the loaded cards in the current order. So if you replace a USB device simply re-lock. It will correctly identify and lock cards of the same type.

Tested With ESI UX24L and Audio GD digital interface

Now for the downer. This is not part of the Vortexbox build yet. The install instructions above need revision slightly.

login to your VB and change to root directory

cd /

download the tar
wget http://www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk/wp...wertune.tar.gz

if the above appears as a link you will need to copy the link location as the text may be abbreviated

unpack it
unpack tar -zxvf vortexpowertune.tar.gz

you can access the utility by typing

http://address-of-yourvortexbox/powertune.php

eg mine is http://192.168.0.21/powertune.php

Next steps.

Enable easier set-up of vortexbox player.

Andrew - do you mind checking the above utilities out. I think they would be a useful addition to the vortexbox web.

I'm getting the following error, is the link above still valid?

--2012-10-25 18:07:27-- http://www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk/wp...wertune.tar.gz
Resolving www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk... 66.96.147.101
Connecting to www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk|66.96.147.101|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
2012-10-25 18:07:29 ERROR 404: Not Found.

[foxesden]

Hi Sully,

first thanks for taking the time to try this out.

You are logged into the root directory of your vortexbox and running the command
"wget http://www.cityfoxsolutions.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/vortexpowertune.tar.gz"

n.b. do not type the quotes

The link should still work. I tried from work yesterday and at home today.

[foxesden]

I have just patched the code to be compatible with the latest version of the vortexbox code.

As I found that the latest upgrade of VB contains fixes that break my code

I have overwritten the old library. If this bothers anyone let me know and I will keep old versions available

[Sean_Middleton]

A very nice add on feature. I'm a Linux novice and managed to install it easily. Well done foxesden !

Sean