Hi. There's a very versatile multimedia converter named Hybrid available at http://www.selur.de/ which is basically a GUI for all of the great freely-available conversion tools, and which used to work fine with Wine. Unfortunately, its developer decided to get creative, adding a double-precision feature to the 'percentage-complete' of various tasks and broke it! Older versions of Hybrid continue to run flawlessly on Wine.
While Hybrid works fine on WinXP, when run on Wine, whenever it indicates about 99% (it varies, depending on size of the multimedia-file) complete, it halts, thought with zero CPU-load, as if it's waiting for 'Sox' to complete. Thing is, sox is working perfectly - I can run the exact list of commands (got after un-checking Hybrid's "minimize job command lines") from the Wine-shell and the entire series of jobs will complete perfectly.
As intimated, the 'broken' part of Hybrid revolves around sox. It seems clear (to me) that the developer is using the output delivered from sox's '--show-progress' option to decide when sox has finished its job in order to proceed, and while it works for WinXP, it doesn't on Wine - and ends up just sitting there! But earlier versions of hybrid also had the 'percentage-complete' feature but work perfectly - the problem seems to have been introduced with the (imo unnecessary) 'show to two-decimal places' enhancement.
And to the point of this post. I'm presuming that Wine's 'cmd.exe' is returning a slightly non-standard output from the sox --show-progress option - is there any Windows dll that I can use to get around this? I have tried 'shell32.dll' but it just crashes Wine-Hybrid.
Hybrid media converter.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
According to the app's download page, there is a Linux version. Why do you need Wine?
Re: Hybrid media converter.
What the Hybrid-Linux small-print fails to make blindingly obvious is that no builds of the main components (sox, x264 etc.) are available, just the Hybrid-GUI itself. So it's akin to advertising a snazzy-looking car, but refusing to supply an engine!dimesio wrote:According to the app's download page, there is a Linux version. Why do you need Wine?
As it happens, someone has in the last few weeks provided Ubuntu-based builds of Hybrid - info available on Hybrid's forum - but I've had no luck with it at all. I tried to get it going on Mint 17 and failed miserably. I then tried it on Deepin 2014 - here it installs fine, but x264 would just crash when it tries encoding a file, no idea why.
Thus far, Hybrid-Wine has been the only viable solution, at least in my experience.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
x264 support under Ubuntu is a independent set of packages. omelette all else failes there is another option to distribution provided. http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html Yes there are upstream binaries static binaries of x264 for Linux.
x264 is one of those things that has me cursing.
Mint 17 and Deepin 2014 repositories can be behind main Ubuntu for providing upto date x264 packages.
There is a reason why I would like to see a lot of distributions die.
x264 is one of those things that has me cursing.
Mint 17 and Deepin 2014 repositories can be behind main Ubuntu for providing upto date x264 packages.
There is a reason why I would like to see a lot of distributions die.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
You didn't mention what Wine version you're using. If it's not the latest development release, upgrade. If the problem is present in 1.7.24, post terminal output.omelette wrote:- is there any Windows dll that I can use to get around this?
Re: Hybrid media converter.
@oiaohm: Some Linux repositories based on Ubuntu are very dated - for instance 'Precise' has the indispensable Gparted at 11.x despite the current version being 19.x. This is scandalous considering that all versions below 12.3 contain a huge bug where Gparted causes overlapping partitions, which is a real bitch to solve - most online recommendations are to reformat the disk! I still use Ubuntu 10.04 as my defacto setup and have managed twice to have overlapping partitions after using Gparted. First time I just reformatted in frustration, second time it happened I took the time to figure out how to fix it without reinstalling Linux. Since then I've built my own versions of Gparted, with no further problems.oiaohm wrote:x264 support under Ubuntu is a independent set of packages. omelette all else failes there is another option to distribution provided. http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html Yes there are upstream binaries static binaries of x264 for Linux.
x264 is one of those things that has me cursing.
Mint 17 and Deepin 2014 repositories can be behind main Ubuntu for providing upto date x264 packages.
There is a reason why I would like to see a lot of distributions die.
My Mint 17 installation was another frustrating exercise. Whereas Ubuntu 10.04 performs almost flawlessly, Mint17/Mate1.8 was too buggy to bear, so I wiped it after failing to get Hybrid working with it. Deepin 2014 has its own set of problems! As it stands, it in no way qualifies as a general-release - a Alpha, maybe Beta. Obvious bugs regarding its novel desktop itself aside, I was appalled to discover that network-sharing has not even been implemented - this the developers themselves admit!
While I think of it, there is another problem with Mint17/Hybrid - Hybrid will not work without ffmpeg, whereas Mint17 no longer uses it by default - so more hassle involved in getting it going and another strike against the Linux-Hybrid.
The problem exists with all versions of Wine that I have built - these include 1.6.2 up to 1.7.24, the current version. As I write this, I have Hybrid 1.4.2 (which works) installed encoding a series of jobs so can't post terminal output now. I'll re-install the current version later and do so.dimesio wrote:You didn't mention what Wine version you're using. If it's not the latest development release, upgrade. If the problem is present in 1.7.24, post terminal output.omelette wrote:- is there any Windows dll that I can use to get around this?
Re: Hybrid media converter.
omelette all my "Ubuntu 10.04" is long gone. I am using Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04 with 12.04 editions to be all gone by end of month. To be correct they are closer to kubuntu than ubuntu but they are still using the core repository system.
Yes they might be LTS. But I do LTS to LTS upgrades.
My personal distribution is Debian Testing. omelette early on all of us distribution hoop a bit. Experience teaches you old has nasty unfixed bugs. Forks from mainline also equal issues.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases People don't read the end of life sheet. May 9, 2013 (Desktop) is 10.04 end of life. So you should not be still using it for desktop roles this includes partitioning discs. Most highly dated Ubuntu repositories are end of life or past end of life.
https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html Yes you can get static build ffmpeg from here.
This is knowing your programs. Choice of Binary Distributions is in fact insanely limited. Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat(and redhat relations due to most of these in fact being binary compatible) if you choose to use something outside this 3 with Linux you can have major hell getting third party programs to work because most parts are not tested with anything else. Running old versions also you run into major hell. Sometimes even running these 3 you have minor hell.
Only options outside this are some of the source distributions like archlinux but this expects you are willing to build binaries.
Hybrid could in fact ship with bundled ffmpeg and many others parts for Linux yet they don't.
omelette you are still young using Linux you are still looking to the distributions. I look at the upstream the upstream of most project only officially support 3 binary distributions sometimes only two being debian and redhat.
omelette if you think using wine is going to be issue free you have another thing coming. Someone building up a nice install script for Hybrid pulling Linux static parts in as required would improve its install a lot also get it round a lot of distribution particular bugs.
Simplest solution stick to the core distributions and except anything outside the core can be highly experimental. As you said with Deepin you are running into other problems. A production environment is not to be highly buggy.
Yes people seam to think the only way to get Linux binaries is by distribution. This does cause problems when you require parts that have legal limitations.
omelette I do quite a bit of video altering work. Linux native managed in most cases to complete first.
Yes they might be LTS. But I do LTS to LTS upgrades.
My personal distribution is Debian Testing. omelette early on all of us distribution hoop a bit. Experience teaches you old has nasty unfixed bugs. Forks from mainline also equal issues.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases People don't read the end of life sheet. May 9, 2013 (Desktop) is 10.04 end of life. So you should not be still using it for desktop roles this includes partitioning discs. Most highly dated Ubuntu repositories are end of life or past end of life.
https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html Yes you can get static build ffmpeg from here.
This is knowing your programs. Choice of Binary Distributions is in fact insanely limited. Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat(and redhat relations due to most of these in fact being binary compatible) if you choose to use something outside this 3 with Linux you can have major hell getting third party programs to work because most parts are not tested with anything else. Running old versions also you run into major hell. Sometimes even running these 3 you have minor hell.
Only options outside this are some of the source distributions like archlinux but this expects you are willing to build binaries.
Hybrid could in fact ship with bundled ffmpeg and many others parts for Linux yet they don't.
omelette you are still young using Linux you are still looking to the distributions. I look at the upstream the upstream of most project only officially support 3 binary distributions sometimes only two being debian and redhat.
omelette if you think using wine is going to be issue free you have another thing coming. Someone building up a nice install script for Hybrid pulling Linux static parts in as required would improve its install a lot also get it round a lot of distribution particular bugs.
Simplest solution stick to the core distributions and except anything outside the core can be highly experimental. As you said with Deepin you are running into other problems. A production environment is not to be highly buggy.
Yes people seam to think the only way to get Linux binaries is by distribution. This does cause problems when you require parts that have legal limitations.
omelette I do quite a bit of video altering work. Linux native managed in most cases to complete first.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
@oiaohm - Thanks for the interesting post. I have been using Linux since 2008 exclusively, that's about 7 years, you may consider that "young", whereas I consider I am a fairly "seasoned" Linux user! 
I have tried weaning myself off of 10.04 several times, the last being Mint17, but imo there is nothing up-to-date available that offers a similar 'user-experience' that Gnome2 does. Mate 1.8 comes close but it has really annoying bugs. I hated Gnome3 when it came out and despite many many updates (imo) it still doesn't deliver even what Gnome2 could years ago - needless to say, I still hate it! One of the things I can't stand about it is the developers insistence on 'dumbing it down' - maybe that's the reason I like Hybrid so much, you have full access to all the nitty-gritty details, so can do practically anything that the underlying core-components are capable of, but from a GUI. Also let's not forget that although Ubuntu 10.04 has been EOL'ed for about a year now, there are still regular kernel & security updates being issued for it, as well as all of its repositories still being on-line. When these are pulled, I will have no choice but to move to another distro. I'm pretty sure it won't be Ubuntu though - I despise Unity more than Gnome3 and I'm not a big fan of KDE either. I did try Arch Linux for about 3-4 months a few years ago, and definitely learned more about what makes Linux tick during that time than during all of the my previous (or subsequent) experience. I would probably still be using it but for two reasons - 1, after building a customised system that I felt comfortable with, I realised that I was using about as much disk space as I would if I had just installed from a 'ready-made' distro. And 2, I was kind of shocked when I became aware of the cavalier attitude that the Arch developers have towards package security - practically refusing to employ it, despite admitting that it wouldn't be hard to do. Several people have shown just how easy it would be to introduce malicious code into a repository because of this.
@dimesio - I've just installed the current Hybrid but hit an unexpected problem when trying to run Hybrid from the command-line. With Wine 1.7.24 installed, I get the following error;
- any idea why that happens? It runs fine when double-clicked on.
I have tried weaning myself off of 10.04 several times, the last being Mint17, but imo there is nothing up-to-date available that offers a similar 'user-experience' that Gnome2 does. Mate 1.8 comes close but it has really annoying bugs. I hated Gnome3 when it came out and despite many many updates (imo) it still doesn't deliver even what Gnome2 could years ago - needless to say, I still hate it! One of the things I can't stand about it is the developers insistence on 'dumbing it down' - maybe that's the reason I like Hybrid so much, you have full access to all the nitty-gritty details, so can do practically anything that the underlying core-components are capable of, but from a GUI. Also let's not forget that although Ubuntu 10.04 has been EOL'ed for about a year now, there are still regular kernel & security updates being issued for it, as well as all of its repositories still being on-line. When these are pulled, I will have no choice but to move to another distro. I'm pretty sure it won't be Ubuntu though - I despise Unity more than Gnome3 and I'm not a big fan of KDE either. I did try Arch Linux for about 3-4 months a few years ago, and definitely learned more about what makes Linux tick during that time than during all of the my previous (or subsequent) experience. I would probably still be using it but for two reasons - 1, after building a customised system that I felt comfortable with, I realised that I was using about as much disk space as I would if I had just installed from a 'ready-made' distro. And 2, I was kind of shocked when I became aware of the cavalier attitude that the Arch developers have towards package security - practically refusing to employ it, despite admitting that it wouldn't be hard to do. Several people have shown just how easy it would be to introduce malicious code into a repository because of this.
This is precisely what someone has just done - information is available on Hybrid's forum. They have done an excellent job as well. But like I mentioned, on the two Linux systems I tried it on, I couldn't get it to work properly for a variety of reasons. I have no love for Wine and will always use a native-Linux application when they are available. And despite having had to remove/install Wine literally dozens of times over the years (because of Wine bugs) I still keep using it because unfortunately, there are some apps that I use that have no Linux equivalent.omelette if you think using wine is going to be issue free you have another thing coming. Someone building up a nice install script for Hybrid pulling Linux static parts in as required would improve its install a lot also get it round a lot of distribution particular bugs.
@dimesio - I've just installed the current Hybrid but hit an unexpected problem when trying to run Hybrid from the command-line. With Wine 1.7.24 installed, I get the following error;
Code: Select all
wine client error:0: version mismatch 456/402.
Your wine binary was not upgraded correctly,
or you have an older one somewhere in your PATH.
Or maybe the wrong wineserver is still running?
Re: Hybrid media converter.
The possibilities are mentioned in the output. The first thing to check is to make sure there are no Wine processes still running when you run from the command line. If that's not the issue, the question is, how did you upgrade Wine? If you built it yourself, did you uninstall any distro Wine packages before installing the new version?omelette wrote:- any idea why that happens? It runs fine when double-clicked on.Code: Select all
wine client error:0: version mismatch 456/402. Your wine binary was not upgraded correctly, or you have an older one somewhere in your PATH. Or maybe the wrong wineserver is still running?
Re: Hybrid media converter.
omelette yes young compared to me I started with Linux back in 1994-6 full time usage by 2000. Coming from Unix and BSD before that.
Ubuntu 10.04 is still valid for server usage as it not End of Life for server this is why security updates are coming. But not all desktop applications are being updated any more(this is the gparted issue). So 10.04 is progressively getting worse and a hazard.
Mate is officially in Ubuntu 14.04 and in Debian and Redhat systems. My debian is a mix between stable/testing/sid.
KDE I stick to because its quite heavily commercially supported. Mate still lacks the funding for its developers. The difference between old Gnome 2 and current day Mate 1.8 in quality is mostly the difference in developer funding of Mate compared to what Gnome has. How to solve that problem not easy. I don't like gnome 3 or Unity.
You are about where I was around 2004. I got over my personal taste biases and started choosing from what had decent operational support.
omelette supported Window managers you don't have many options. lxde and xfce both are horible, KDE vs Gnome 3 vs Unity. For most people KDE wins. KDE focus more on pretty than gnome people like.
omelette I know when young to Linux(in the first 10 years of usage) people are optimistic that they can always get what they want. You learn after the first 10 years forget getting exactly want you want worry about getting what is operational. I will agree with you that Gnome 2 was nice. Mate is a reasonable but the quality is not there yet and they don't have the size developer team to provide the quality yet.
Basically make your self three lists. What you wish for, what you can live with and what is impossible. KDE I can live with. Mate or lxde(with search in menu) or Xfce(with search in the menu) I wish for. Unity and Gnome 3 are just impossible for me to use effectively. I can get work done using Mate, Lxde or xfce just not that happy due to bugs and limitations.
omelette it takes a very long time to mature as a Linux user. The temptations to avoid common sense are huge in the Linux world. As you notices in the source world security becomes major issues.
KDE 4.0 compare to current KDE 4.x shows features of KDE 3.5 returning. Why KDE core developers made a list of the features they nuked and have worked on that list restoring them. A professional response to the problem. You don't see this with Gnome. You do this this with major alterations in lxde and xfce. Mate not long enough history yet to see exactly how they manage this.
Ubuntu 10.04 is still valid for server usage as it not End of Life for server this is why security updates are coming. But not all desktop applications are being updated any more(this is the gparted issue). So 10.04 is progressively getting worse and a hazard.
Mate is officially in Ubuntu 14.04 and in Debian and Redhat systems. My debian is a mix between stable/testing/sid.
KDE I stick to because its quite heavily commercially supported. Mate still lacks the funding for its developers. The difference between old Gnome 2 and current day Mate 1.8 in quality is mostly the difference in developer funding of Mate compared to what Gnome has. How to solve that problem not easy. I don't like gnome 3 or Unity.
You are about where I was around 2004. I got over my personal taste biases and started choosing from what had decent operational support.
omelette supported Window managers you don't have many options. lxde and xfce both are horible, KDE vs Gnome 3 vs Unity. For most people KDE wins. KDE focus more on pretty than gnome people like.
omelette I know when young to Linux(in the first 10 years of usage) people are optimistic that they can always get what they want. You learn after the first 10 years forget getting exactly want you want worry about getting what is operational. I will agree with you that Gnome 2 was nice. Mate is a reasonable but the quality is not there yet and they don't have the size developer team to provide the quality yet.
Basically make your self three lists. What you wish for, what you can live with and what is impossible. KDE I can live with. Mate or lxde(with search in menu) or Xfce(with search in the menu) I wish for. Unity and Gnome 3 are just impossible for me to use effectively. I can get work done using Mate, Lxde or xfce just not that happy due to bugs and limitations.
omelette it takes a very long time to mature as a Linux user. The temptations to avoid common sense are huge in the Linux world. As you notices in the source world security becomes major issues.
KDE 4.0 compare to current KDE 4.x shows features of KDE 3.5 returning. Why KDE core developers made a list of the features they nuked and have worked on that list restoring them. A professional response to the problem. You don't see this with Gnome. You do this this with major alterations in lxde and xfce. Mate not long enough history yet to see exactly how they manage this.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
Ok, I ran Synaptic and Wine 1.2 was also installed. So after removing that and running the current Hybrid on Wine 1.7.24 (which I built myself) I get the output below when I try a simple 5ch -> stereo audio conversion (video ignored). The terminal output;dimesio wrote:The possibilities are mentioned in the output. The first thing to check is to make sure there are no Wine processes still running when you run from the command line. If that's not the issue, the question is, how did you upgrade Wine? If you built it yourself, did you uninstall any distro Wine packages before installing the new version?omelette wrote:- any idea why that happens? It runs fine when double-clicked on.Code: Select all
wine client error:0: version mismatch 456/402. Your wine binary was not upgraded correctly, or you have an older one somewhere in your PATH. Or maybe the wrong wineserver is still running?
Code: Select all
startJobs,...
postponeJobs:
16_59_44_7710_01_audio: mkvextract processing started
-> should be there after processing: Z:\media\SSD_~JS5\iId_1_aid_0_DELAY_-12ms_16_59_44_7710_01.ac3
16_59_44_7710_01_audio ### Z:\media\SSD Stuff\test_sample_new.mkv ###
Starting Main@16:59:45.170:
"C:\PROG~FBU\Hybrid\MKVE~NNL.EXE" tracks "Z:\media\SSD Stuff\test_sample.mkv" 1:"Z:\media\SSD_~JS5\iId_1_aid_0_DELAY_-12ms_16_59_44_7710_01.ac3"
Main call started,..
16_59_44_7710_01_audio ### Z:\media\SSD Stuff\test_sample_new.mkv ### finished after 00:00:01.730
Created Z:\media\SSD_~JS5\iId_1_aid_0_DELAY_-12ms_16_59_44_7710_01.ac3 (2.63818 MB)
16_59_44_7710_02_audio: ffmpeg processing started
-> should be there after processing: Z:\media\SSD Stuff\iId_1_aid_0_DELAY_-12ms_16_59_44_7710_02.aac
16_59_44_7710_02_audio ### Z:\media\SSD Stuff\test_sample_new.mkv ###
Starting Main@16:59:46.973:
"C:\PROG~FBU\Hybrid\ffmpeg.exe" -y -threads 1 -f sox -i - -c:a libvo_aacenc -b:a 128k -ac 2 -ar 48000 "Z:\media\SSD Stuff\iId_1_aid_0_DELAY_-12ms_16_59_44_7710_02.aac"
Main call started,..
Starting Helper2:
"C:\PROG~FBU\Hybrid\sox.exe" --multi-threaded --ignore-length --temp "Z:\media\SSD Stuff" --buffer 524288 -S -t sox - -b 16 -t sox - remix -m 1v0.3694,3v0.2612,5v0.3694 2v0.3694,3v0.2612,6v0.3694 norm
Helper call 2 started,..
Starting Helper:
"C:\PROG~FBU\Hybrid\ffmpeg.exe" -y -threads 1 -loglevel fatal -i "Z:\media\SSD_~JS5\iId_1_aid_0_DELAY_-12ms_16_59_44_7710_01.ac3" -ac 6 -ar 48000 -f sox -
Helper call 1 started,..
- Attachments
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Re: Hybrid media converter.
@oiaohm - Haha, ok, I concede - although my initial introduction to Linux was in 98-99 when I bought Suse Linux 6 for £30-40. Can't have been too impressed with it as I never did much with it. Still have it though! 
Yep, I agree with most of what you say. I realise that our choices are limited as far as Linux is concerned. Never knew that KDE was commercially supported though. But somewhat cynically, I often wondered if the Gnome devs had been paid off by Microsoft to produce a POS - they way they went from having something that most were reasonably happy with, to something that was goddam awful, and almost universally criticised, and how they adamantly refused to restore vital features - stuff the old Gnome2 possessed - despite the outcry, always struck me as suspicious. But then, I thought the same about Handbrake - where its developer(s) refused outright, despite numerous requests, to restore that incredibly useful feature of creating videos of a desired size, rather than just set video quality and hope for the best! Just like Hybrid can do in fact! Maybe I'm just suspicious by nature...
That said, I've slowly come to realise that developing software for the Linux community is probably a fairly thankless task - nothing but people (like me) complaining. So it's amazing that it is a good as it is. I guess Intel/Google/Redhat/Canonicial etc. have had a lot to do with that as well.
But I'll finish on a whine - what really really has pissed me off about Linux has been its wireless support, specifically the Atheros ath9k drivers. How can anything be that buggy? I thought because Ubuntu 10.04 was really old, that bug-fixes were no longer being applied. So I was flabbergasted when I installed Mint17 with its 3.15 kernel and was seeing dropped connections within minutes! Without a doubt, if I hadn't had Ndiswrapper, I would have abandoned Linux years ago. What makes it harder to understand is that I know from regularly reading through the kernel-changes notes, that the ath9k drivers have continued to receive regular bug-updates. Just recently, my 3G modem died so I got an upgrade via my ISP - a Huawei e5220. This has built-in routing for up to 5 pc's - something I regretted initially as I knew it would render my router redundant. Since I've had it, it's been sheer bliss, a rock-solid connection. I also discovered after getting it that my now-redundant router also has an Atheros chipset and which uses the ath9k drivers - which doubly-explains why I have experienced so many problems with it. Now, with a Intel 5100 card coupled with the Huawei e5220 modem all wireless problems have vanished.
Yep, I agree with most of what you say. I realise that our choices are limited as far as Linux is concerned. Never knew that KDE was commercially supported though. But somewhat cynically, I often wondered if the Gnome devs had been paid off by Microsoft to produce a POS - they way they went from having something that most were reasonably happy with, to something that was goddam awful, and almost universally criticised, and how they adamantly refused to restore vital features - stuff the old Gnome2 possessed - despite the outcry, always struck me as suspicious. But then, I thought the same about Handbrake - where its developer(s) refused outright, despite numerous requests, to restore that incredibly useful feature of creating videos of a desired size, rather than just set video quality and hope for the best! Just like Hybrid can do in fact! Maybe I'm just suspicious by nature...
That said, I've slowly come to realise that developing software for the Linux community is probably a fairly thankless task - nothing but people (like me) complaining. So it's amazing that it is a good as it is. I guess Intel/Google/Redhat/Canonicial etc. have had a lot to do with that as well.
But I'll finish on a whine - what really really has pissed me off about Linux has been its wireless support, specifically the Atheros ath9k drivers. How can anything be that buggy? I thought because Ubuntu 10.04 was really old, that bug-fixes were no longer being applied. So I was flabbergasted when I installed Mint17 with its 3.15 kernel and was seeing dropped connections within minutes! Without a doubt, if I hadn't had Ndiswrapper, I would have abandoned Linux years ago. What makes it harder to understand is that I know from regularly reading through the kernel-changes notes, that the ath9k drivers have continued to receive regular bug-updates. Just recently, my 3G modem died so I got an upgrade via my ISP - a Huawei e5220. This has built-in routing for up to 5 pc's - something I regretted initially as I knew it would render my router redundant. Since I've had it, it's been sheer bliss, a rock-solid connection. I also discovered after getting it that my now-redundant router also has an Atheros chipset and which uses the ath9k drivers - which doubly-explains why I have experienced so many problems with it. Now, with a Intel 5100 card coupled with the Huawei e5220 modem all wireless problems have vanished.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
Atheros ath9k driver is not exactly the issue. Its the device the ath9k driver interfaces with is the issue. Lets not have user loadable firmware. This does not mean the device does not have firmware. Some Atheros cards and devices are down right stable and great but then some Atheros items are down right horrible. The difference is not chipset but on device unchangeable firmware with them. Some Atheros card firmware are that bad that Ndiswrapper and even real windows also suffer from excessive in face drop outs. Note windows and ndiswrapper does not tell you every time it has to reconnect due to bad Atheros firmware eating packets. Yes comes very clear when you are running network sniffing and matching packets OS is receiving to those that were really transmitted and when the distance is 2 foot in a Faraday cage its not noise. I was extremely annoyed I had 12 cards all same model from same maker slightly different versions. 8 worked perfectly 4 played up badly after all that effort the maker replaced the newer editions with a newer again edition containing the older firmware that worked. Since then I only touch wifi card with loadable firmware.
I would guess you got two of the bad Atheros.
Intel 5100 card loadable firmware. Huawei E5220 do get firmware updates as well(yes this can bite). Result they are mostly great but I have had some issues with both. Intel 5100 with old Ubuntu installs due to old firmware playing up ok to be expected. Some Huawei E5220 that were quite a few years old playing up and not maintaining network connection and all it required was a firmware update to fix. Note something either both case can replace firmware. Something to check on your hardware shopping list. If you cannot replace the firmware expect hell. By the way don't just update Huawei E5220 to newest firmware without checking with carrier first. Some case newest firmware=device will not connect to because the towers by the E5220 get called insecure because the carrier as not updated things in some countries and places. E5220 is up to 10 devices by the way unless the firmware is old or carrier tweaked. E5220 handled up to 8 quite well on the newer firmwares.
I would guess you got two of the bad Atheros.
Intel 5100 card loadable firmware. Huawei E5220 do get firmware updates as well(yes this can bite). Result they are mostly great but I have had some issues with both. Intel 5100 with old Ubuntu installs due to old firmware playing up ok to be expected. Some Huawei E5220 that were quite a few years old playing up and not maintaining network connection and all it required was a firmware update to fix. Note something either both case can replace firmware. Something to check on your hardware shopping list. If you cannot replace the firmware expect hell. By the way don't just update Huawei E5220 to newest firmware without checking with carrier first. Some case newest firmware=device will not connect to because the towers by the E5220 get called insecure because the carrier as not updated things in some countries and places. E5220 is up to 10 devices by the way unless the firmware is old or carrier tweaked. E5220 handled up to 8 quite well on the newer firmwares.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
Wow, you know a lot about wireless cards - great information! I never even gave the card's firmware a thought - I always associated the abysmal wireless connections with the ath9k driver. But that doesn't quite explain why the very same wireless cards performed almost flawlessly when I used Ndiswrapper & Windows drivers. I appreciate what you're saying about Windows not reporting dropped packages etc, but from my experience, the difference in performance when using Ndiswrapper & ath9k wireless was profound. Sure, with Ndiswrapper, there would occasionally be a dropped connection, but I often had my laptop running 24/7 for months without wireless problems. Compare that to often just minutes, sometimes hours but never more than a day or so before ath9k-wireless would permanently drop the connection! If I was lucky, I could stop/start it using modprobe to get it working again. Very often though, I would have no choice but to restart Linux itself. Thank heavens for Ndiswrapper, the only thing that has kept me sane.
While I think of it, I had similar problems with a Intel card, the IWL3945 when I first started using Linux full-time. Since it's 54Mb/s, I don't use it any more, but around the time of my Mint17 debacle, I briefly tried it out again and things seemed not to have improved one iota.
Interesting info on the e5220 as well. I only have it a few months but it definitely states a max of 5 connections on the box it came in and in its manual, so it very likely is old stock that my ISP procured for next to nothing and is flogging off to its customers at a huge profit. Nevertheless, it's a considerable improvement over what I had.
While I think of it, I had similar problems with a Intel card, the IWL3945 when I first started using Linux full-time. Since it's 54Mb/s, I don't use it any more, but around the time of my Mint17 debacle, I briefly tried it out again and things seemed not to have improved one iota.
Interesting info on the e5220 as well. I only have it a few months but it definitely states a max of 5 connections on the box it came in and in its manual, so it very likely is old stock that my ISP procured for next to nothing and is flogging off to its customers at a huge profit. Nevertheless, it's a considerable improvement over what I had.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlegacy IWL3945 is choose your magic firmware. Yes it has 5 firmwares and most likely only 1 will work correctly. Yes too many options you can fairly much bet the distribution will by default on a IWL3945 load the wrong firmware for it. Yes that firmware will be perfect for someone one else with a different model IWL3945. Yes its possible to load the wrong intel driver under windows for the IWL3945 as well and have it play up.
Restart Linux itself instead of just reload module with ath9k-wireless was that the firmware had completely gone south on the card. Windows drivers watchdog the card as well. If card is not responding it automatically windows drivers does equal to module unload and reload. Basically ath9k card is playing up merry hell and you just don't see it with Windows drivers as much. Linux drivers and putting the issues straight in your face that the firmware is bust. With a working card you will notice higher transfers than the broken ath9k was doing. Some of the reason why I came aware of this was some places were pushing remote desktop over wifi.
Every single wifi issue becomes a pain because its like way does X computer running Windows to a remote desktop work fine and Y computer running windows to a remote desktop is jerky problem is Y computer is the CEO computer and it is firmware/card. I got well and truly over practised changing wifi cards. Linux in these cases was way faster to find put a livecd in and it drops out great its a lemon put a tested and working in.
http://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobile-br ... 220-en.htm
omelette always remember don't trust what is in the box firmware does get updated.
omelette I guess you now get how much of a pain in the you know what is firmware. Its very simple to think its just the Linux drivers. Deeper issues at play. Good Linux compatible hardware is so nice.
Restart Linux itself instead of just reload module with ath9k-wireless was that the firmware had completely gone south on the card. Windows drivers watchdog the card as well. If card is not responding it automatically windows drivers does equal to module unload and reload. Basically ath9k card is playing up merry hell and you just don't see it with Windows drivers as much. Linux drivers and putting the issues straight in your face that the firmware is bust. With a working card you will notice higher transfers than the broken ath9k was doing. Some of the reason why I came aware of this was some places were pushing remote desktop over wifi.
Every single wifi issue becomes a pain because its like way does X computer running Windows to a remote desktop work fine and Y computer running windows to a remote desktop is jerky problem is Y computer is the CEO computer and it is firmware/card. I got well and truly over practised changing wifi cards. Linux in these cases was way faster to find put a livecd in and it drops out great its a lemon put a tested and working in.
http://consumer.huawei.com/en/mobile-br ... 220-en.htm
omelette always remember don't trust what is in the box firmware does get updated.
omelette I guess you now get how much of a pain in the you know what is firmware. Its very simple to think its just the Linux drivers. Deeper issues at play. Good Linux compatible hardware is so nice.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
@oiaohm - Excuse the delay in responding. Regarding the IWL3945, I'm well familiar with that page you linked to, having tried (and failed!) at least twice to build those drivers from source. I can't remember precisely what didn't work - either it wouldn't build at all, or else no card would be detected - either way, a no-go situation. Of course, I would have only tried building from the most up-to-date source, not all 5 that are listed, which according to what you have said, might be the reason it didn't work.
I remember once begging on some forum (probably Ubuntu's) for someone to give me the name & model number of just one wireless card that worked properly with Linux - so I could just buy it, thereby bypassing all of this misery - only to be greeted by a stony silence. Basically it seems to be a complete crap-shoot when buying a wireless card for Linux. And while I agree that there can be significant firmware issues, from my experience, I find it hard to believe that it all comes down to that. It doesn't explain why with Linux drivers it will drop the signal in mere minutes, whereas with Ndiswrapper<->Win2k-driver the same card can stay connected for months! At the very least, it would appear that the XP-drivers are taking this 'buggy' firmware into consideration, and coding around the problem, whereas the Linux drivers seem oblivious to the problem.
One thing I have noticed from using Ndiswrapper is that it is VERY selective about the driver version that will work - generally, a driver will either work perfectly or not at all, so for example, with all of the AR5008 XP 32-bit drivers available on the 'unofficial' Atheros' driver site, only 2 would work for me. The most current driver for example does not work at all with my card. But this situation is imminently better than having your network dropping every few minutes.
I'm happy to report that the E5220 also continues to work flawlessly with the Intel 5100 card. It will be interesting to see how it works with one of my Atheros cards over time. But not yet, I'm still reveling in the current hassle-free setup.
I remember once begging on some forum (probably Ubuntu's) for someone to give me the name & model number of just one wireless card that worked properly with Linux - so I could just buy it, thereby bypassing all of this misery - only to be greeted by a stony silence. Basically it seems to be a complete crap-shoot when buying a wireless card for Linux. And while I agree that there can be significant firmware issues, from my experience, I find it hard to believe that it all comes down to that. It doesn't explain why with Linux drivers it will drop the signal in mere minutes, whereas with Ndiswrapper<->Win2k-driver the same card can stay connected for months! At the very least, it would appear that the XP-drivers are taking this 'buggy' firmware into consideration, and coding around the problem, whereas the Linux drivers seem oblivious to the problem.
One thing I have noticed from using Ndiswrapper is that it is VERY selective about the driver version that will work - generally, a driver will either work perfectly or not at all, so for example, with all of the AR5008 XP 32-bit drivers available on the 'unofficial' Atheros' driver site, only 2 would work for me. The most current driver for example does not work at all with my card. But this situation is imminently better than having your network dropping every few minutes.
I'm happy to report that the E5220 also continues to work flawlessly with the Intel 5100 card. It will be interesting to see how it works with one of my Atheros cards over time. But not yet, I'm still reveling in the current hassle-free setup.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
omelette the fact your Atheros card required a unofficial windows driver and is picky with ndiswrapper you can fairly much brand that card as dead firmware and pure luck it worked at all. The newer Atheros windows drivers are not as tolerant with bad cards.
Good firmware Atheros cards are highly unpicky on what drivers you point at them. Good firmware Atheros is so nice is not funny. The problem is that it impossible to tell from the packaging if you have a good one or complete crap.
omelette the IWL3945 is 1 driver and 5 firmwares that may work. You set by module options what firmware the intel driver loads. If it is loading the wrong firmware for the card you are totally screwed getting the card to work. IWL3945 is try the firmwares first before doing anything. 4965AGN is worst with its 9 firmwares and it does get even worse the iwlegacy driver under Linux will load a 4965AGN firmware into a IWL3945 and of course that does not work and the card now crashes and require power disconnect to resume operation. I hate iwlegacy driver with a passion. If it can shoot it left and right feet off it does. So really there are 14 firmwares that could be loaded into the card 9 are 100 percent sure to fail and one of the remaining 5 is the correct one.
Note the 5 listed on the site link I gave are binary blobs not items you build. Those 5 firmware images is what the open source driver requires to work as well. No binary blob no detection either.
No card detected happens with iwlegacy after its loaded the wrong firmware into the card and the card has now crashed as well. IWL3945 you will almost never get working without controlling what firmware iwlegacy is loading.
I would give you a reasonable chance of getting the IWL3945 working being highly aware that setting firmware is critical. Getting the old Atheros working I have all the felling its a write off. Intel 5100 is about one of the nicest out their at the moment. IWL3945 compared to Atheros was a better option. Problem is IWL3945 still needs way too much configuration knowledge to be simple card to have.
Good firmware Atheros cards are highly unpicky on what drivers you point at them. Good firmware Atheros is so nice is not funny. The problem is that it impossible to tell from the packaging if you have a good one or complete crap.
omelette the IWL3945 is 1 driver and 5 firmwares that may work. You set by module options what firmware the intel driver loads. If it is loading the wrong firmware for the card you are totally screwed getting the card to work. IWL3945 is try the firmwares first before doing anything. 4965AGN is worst with its 9 firmwares and it does get even worse the iwlegacy driver under Linux will load a 4965AGN firmware into a IWL3945 and of course that does not work and the card now crashes and require power disconnect to resume operation. I hate iwlegacy driver with a passion. If it can shoot it left and right feet off it does. So really there are 14 firmwares that could be loaded into the card 9 are 100 percent sure to fail and one of the remaining 5 is the correct one.
Note the 5 listed on the site link I gave are binary blobs not items you build. Those 5 firmware images is what the open source driver requires to work as well. No binary blob no detection either.
No card detected happens with iwlegacy after its loaded the wrong firmware into the card and the card has now crashed as well. IWL3945 you will almost never get working without controlling what firmware iwlegacy is loading.
I would give you a reasonable chance of getting the IWL3945 working being highly aware that setting firmware is critical. Getting the old Atheros working I have all the felling its a write off. Intel 5100 is about one of the nicest out their at the moment. IWL3945 compared to Atheros was a better option. Problem is IWL3945 still needs way too much configuration knowledge to be simple card to have.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
@oiaohm - I'm confused, I thought you said that the IWL3945 and the old Atheros cards, firmware could not be changed! But you say "You set by module options what firmware the Intel driver loads. If it is loading the wrong firmware for the card you are totally screwed getting the card to work." - I read this as meaning that for example the IWL3945's firmware can be changed - it's has on-board read/write memory as opposed to read-only memory. If that is the case, the fault clearly still lies with Linux, if not with the wireless drivers, at least with whatever is responsible for writing the wrong firmware to the card.
There can be no getting away from the fact that the correct wireless XP driver with Ndiswrapper will work almost perfectly with the Atheros cards, whereas (for whatever reason) the same card is almost unusable when using native-Linux drivers. Whether this is down to (for instance) the ath9k driver or to some other Linux component is irrelevant to most Linux users.
Intel cards are slightly different. I don't think there are any Intel drivers available that can be used with Ndiswrapper. I could never find one for the IWL3945 and downloaded at least a dozen XP-drivers for the 5100 card, which after installing many on a VirtualBox XP, finally managed to find one of the installed drivers in the system32 folder that Ndiswrapper would at least recognise as drivers. But that's as far as it would go, the card was not even detected. This was when I was working with the now-redundant ath9k-based TP-Link router. Yet the same 5100 card works perfectly using the same Intel-supplied Linux driver when connected to the E5220 modem/router.
To me, this clearly shows that the problem was not with the Intel-supplied Linux driver, but with the TP-Link router - which uses the ath9k driver! Add to that, for years I experienced the same type of disconnections with both the Intel and Atheros cards, long before I ever got the TP-Link router, having set up a ad-hoc network between my laptop and a mini-pc I used to leave running 24/7 for this.
There can be no getting away from the fact that the correct wireless XP driver with Ndiswrapper will work almost perfectly with the Atheros cards, whereas (for whatever reason) the same card is almost unusable when using native-Linux drivers. Whether this is down to (for instance) the ath9k driver or to some other Linux component is irrelevant to most Linux users.
Intel cards are slightly different. I don't think there are any Intel drivers available that can be used with Ndiswrapper. I could never find one for the IWL3945 and downloaded at least a dozen XP-drivers for the 5100 card, which after installing many on a VirtualBox XP, finally managed to find one of the installed drivers in the system32 folder that Ndiswrapper would at least recognise as drivers. But that's as far as it would go, the card was not even detected. This was when I was working with the now-redundant ath9k-based TP-Link router. Yet the same 5100 card works perfectly using the same Intel-supplied Linux driver when connected to the E5220 modem/router.
To me, this clearly shows that the problem was not with the Intel-supplied Linux driver, but with the TP-Link router - which uses the ath9k driver! Add to that, for years I experienced the same type of disconnections with both the Intel and Atheros cards, long before I ever got the TP-Link router, having set up a ad-hoc network between my laptop and a mini-pc I used to leave running 24/7 for this.
Re: Hybrid media converter.
<b> I read this as meaning that for example the IWL3945's firmware can be changed - it's has on-board read/write memory as opposed to read-only memory. If that is the case, the fault clearly still lies with Linux, if not with the wireless drivers, at least with whatever is responsible for writing the wrong firmware to the card.</b>
No you are still wanting to blame software here for a hardware problem. Some 4965AGN return device information that they are a IWL3945. Yes highly fun pull card out computer read what on it and hey that is not what the pci utils is reporting. No IWL3945 card reports a correct version number so driver loading firmware into card has wild guess. Big problem with a IWL3945 you may only get one guess yes the firmware memory is write then switches to read only. Really bad a PCI reset request requires the IWL3945 firmware to be some what working. Yes you need to do a PCI reset request to be able to upload another firmware image without powering off. Finally IWL3945 firmwares don't contain a signature so the card cannot reject invalid or damaged firmwares.
Some IWL3945 cards will kinda work with more than 1 of the 5 firmwares. Problem is only 1 of the 5 will in fact work correctly.
The IWL3945 fault does not 100 percent land with Linux. IWL3945 are just a prick card that does not hand over enough information that a driver can treat it correctly without user assistance. Some hardware is just like this. You can think of a IWL3945 as wireless equal to a pre plug and play device. It don't plug and play even under windows.
The reality is the card itself is responsible if you can write the wrong firmware then you cannot reset to load another one. All firmwares should contain a signature with what they are for and a checksum. Some of the older devices don't even include a checksum so the firmware can be damaged by bad ram then loaded into the device. So now you have a random-ally failing device.
<b>Intel cards are slightly different. I don't think there are any Intel drivers available that can be used with Ndiswrapper.</b>
This is correct Intel firmware file is not inside the driver even under Windows. Ndiswrapper does not support loading Intel firmwares for there wireless devices. Most people don't notice under windows Intel wifi driver only start working when the Intel wifi management service starts. Guess what has the firmware. Yes new people on windows killing so called unrequired services remove this one and then wonder why they have no wifi. Reactos guy trying to get reactos to run over iscsi by wireless found this one out.(yes it was just one of those mad things will it work)
The Intel 5100 include all the proper stuff. Yes it really a simple check list.
1) Correct reporting of all require information to OS. Yes what card is and version. The version is so critical when you get multi cards same id different internal versions requiring different firmwares.
2) In card firmware checking before running it on the card preventing card lock-ups from damage or invalid firmwares.
3) Pci reset command hard wired electronics. So no matter what firmware in it the bugger can be reset and another loaded.
Device requiring driver loaded firmware not having all the above is a pain in ass. Yes can brute force a 5100 and attempt to upload every firmware image and result in working. Because all the incorrect firmwares it just rejects.
Intel 5100 has a slightly slower start up than a IWL3945 due to having to wait for card to checksum firmware. But its in the few mill seconds. It adds about 22 cents to the card doing the correct things. This is the reality cost savings on some of the old cards went a step way too far so they need special treatment.
The makes of Atheros cards were given the source code to the Windows drivers. So windows drivers can contain a lot of per X card hacks.
Both of the wireless cards you have mentioned were broken in different ways. One is workable with as what is wrong is documented. The IWL3945 what is wrong is documented. The Atheros its something the ODM has done and has told no one exactly what the magic hand shake is.
For the cost of a Intel 5100 that works correctly I would not even mess around with a IWL3945.
It really easy to blame the OS. The reality is some hardware is just expensive priced trash.
No you are still wanting to blame software here for a hardware problem. Some 4965AGN return device information that they are a IWL3945. Yes highly fun pull card out computer read what on it and hey that is not what the pci utils is reporting. No IWL3945 card reports a correct version number so driver loading firmware into card has wild guess. Big problem with a IWL3945 you may only get one guess yes the firmware memory is write then switches to read only. Really bad a PCI reset request requires the IWL3945 firmware to be some what working. Yes you need to do a PCI reset request to be able to upload another firmware image without powering off. Finally IWL3945 firmwares don't contain a signature so the card cannot reject invalid or damaged firmwares.
Some IWL3945 cards will kinda work with more than 1 of the 5 firmwares. Problem is only 1 of the 5 will in fact work correctly.
The IWL3945 fault does not 100 percent land with Linux. IWL3945 are just a prick card that does not hand over enough information that a driver can treat it correctly without user assistance. Some hardware is just like this. You can think of a IWL3945 as wireless equal to a pre plug and play device. It don't plug and play even under windows.
The reality is the card itself is responsible if you can write the wrong firmware then you cannot reset to load another one. All firmwares should contain a signature with what they are for and a checksum. Some of the older devices don't even include a checksum so the firmware can be damaged by bad ram then loaded into the device. So now you have a random-ally failing device.
<b>Intel cards are slightly different. I don't think there are any Intel drivers available that can be used with Ndiswrapper.</b>
This is correct Intel firmware file is not inside the driver even under Windows. Ndiswrapper does not support loading Intel firmwares for there wireless devices. Most people don't notice under windows Intel wifi driver only start working when the Intel wifi management service starts. Guess what has the firmware. Yes new people on windows killing so called unrequired services remove this one and then wonder why they have no wifi. Reactos guy trying to get reactos to run over iscsi by wireless found this one out.(yes it was just one of those mad things will it work)
The Intel 5100 include all the proper stuff. Yes it really a simple check list.
1) Correct reporting of all require information to OS. Yes what card is and version. The version is so critical when you get multi cards same id different internal versions requiring different firmwares.
2) In card firmware checking before running it on the card preventing card lock-ups from damage or invalid firmwares.
3) Pci reset command hard wired electronics. So no matter what firmware in it the bugger can be reset and another loaded.
Device requiring driver loaded firmware not having all the above is a pain in ass. Yes can brute force a 5100 and attempt to upload every firmware image and result in working. Because all the incorrect firmwares it just rejects.
Intel 5100 has a slightly slower start up than a IWL3945 due to having to wait for card to checksum firmware. But its in the few mill seconds. It adds about 22 cents to the card doing the correct things. This is the reality cost savings on some of the old cards went a step way too far so they need special treatment.
The makes of Atheros cards were given the source code to the Windows drivers. So windows drivers can contain a lot of per X card hacks.
More than 2 should have worked if you card was not depending on a ODM(original device maker) hack. That is why I said the card you had was basically a write off. omelette just because you can make something work does not mean its not broken. I guess you had absolutely no success at all with official Atheros windows drivers. Yes Official Atheros drivers are ODM hack free.One thing I have noticed from using Ndiswrapper is that it is VERY selective about the driver version that will work - generally, a driver will either work perfectly or not at all, so for example, with all of the AR5008 XP 32-bit drivers available on the 'unofficial' Atheros' driver site, only 2 would work for me.
Both of the wireless cards you have mentioned were broken in different ways. One is workable with as what is wrong is documented. The IWL3945 what is wrong is documented. The Atheros its something the ODM has done and has told no one exactly what the magic hand shake is.
For the cost of a Intel 5100 that works correctly I would not even mess around with a IWL3945.
It really easy to blame the OS. The reality is some hardware is just expensive priced trash.
