Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and Dell 700M

So "netbook's" seem all the rage these days, so i thought i would dust off my old Dell 700m, it's not quite as small as a current netbook, but it is nice and tiny.

My plans include putting in a nice little 32GB SSD drive, and upgrading the processor to a 2.10Ghz when they are ~20 (no rush, not a big difference in speed over the current 1.8Ghz Pentium M)

Anyway.. i installed Ubuntu on it, and it's been nice for surfing and basic tasks... but ran into a problem of it not shuting down properly. More like X was crashing...

There are a number of tricks out there to try and fix it, this one seems to make it happen less than any others.

First i shut off the splash screen's (edit /boot/grub/menu.lst)

then, in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, change:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
EndSection
to
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
Option "ForceEnablePipeA" "true"
EndSection

it seems to make it better... we'll see!

EDIT: I'm including this link, as it has other options that might help on other hardware.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/208479

Win 7 Media Center + WMA 10 Pro + SPDIF

OK, so I've been working on a couple issues with my Media Center PC for about a week now. I have to say, MC7 is by far better than any other media center I've used. But I've run into a few issues I'm not too happy with.

I encode all my movies in WMVHD format so the kids can watch movies either the xbox 360 or on the HTPC. This gets me away from having them fight about who gets to watch what and when, they each get what they want.

So with MC7 it plays absolutely everything I've tried; WMVHD, DiVX, DVD...

DTS and Dolby Digital movies both output via SPDIF to my Yamaha receiver, play perfectly.

Now the problem; I encode my WMVHD's in WMA Pro 10 5.1 surround... my receiver does not nativly decode this, so i've always in the past used either FFDshow or AC3filter to "recode" the WMA Pro 10 to DD 5.1.

Well, this no longer works in MC7. I have applied numerous hacks from hack7mc.com (superb site BTW) and can get AC3Filter to load perfectly for everything except... WMVHD files. It works for mp3's, DVD's, DiVX, and Live TV.

If I load GraphEdit and have it render a WMVHD file, the flow looks correct, File --> DMO WMA Decoder --> AC3Filter --> Default Sound Device.

I've posted on numerous sites, but not come up with anything that actually works...

Latest thing I've tried is renaming the WMADMOD.DLL, but then nothing plays... even with FFDshow and AC3filter loaded... I also know that Windows 7 (along with Vista) actually have moved to a new "filter set" that is no longer DirectShow, it's now called WMF or Windows Media Foundation. I have yet to find any filters that have moved to this new format.