xbmc no go

[Masta]

Installed 32 bit on the laptop, then installed xbmc media player. It comes up, but there is some problem. The display gets stuck with a blue background, and the menu is at the bottom (not yet developed), the menu and cursor stay flashing and you can't do anything. The only way to get out of it, is to move into another terminal (ctrl+alt+F2) and login, enter htop and kill the xbmc.

It does however, work on the desktop beast with 64bit. Sometimes it operates with a bit of lag though.

Both systems are Nvidia and using nouveau driver.

I ran from terminal on the laptop, here's the output:

Code:

xbmc

** (process:2544): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GMountMountFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'

** (process:2544): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GDriveStartFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'

** (process:2544): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GSocketMsgFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'
/usr/bin/xbmc: line 137:  2552 Killed                  "$LIBDIR/xbmc/xbmc.bin" $SAVED_ARGS

I also had the same issue with this on the laptop using 64bit.

[vector]

Seems xbmc is picky as to which nvidia chipset it likes with nouveau with my onboard nvidia 7025 chipset xbmc was barely there like your experience. I put in a nvidia 8400gs card with same nouveau driver and it worked like a charm. I have installed it on two laptops both with intel graphics and it works fine there. So I suspect if you have nvidia onboard  probably the proprietary nvidia driver may be the way to go with xbmc. I haven't tested that but pretty sure it will work.

Cheers,
Vec

[Masta]

Thanks Vec. I suspected it was as you said. I have an issue trying to install the nvidia driver though.
1.) I can't seem to get rid of the nouveau even when uninstalling. I think that's because of the added boot commands.
2.) the terminal window we currently have in text mode seems to have issues with overlapping the text from the nvidia installer.

I'd prefer to stick with the nouveau driver if possible (yeah that's a switch, lol), because I can clock up my card from the bios and do not have tearing or hanging issues like I did with nvidia driver.

Anyhow, I can test that hypothesis by installing the nvidia driver, if I can manage to kill off the nouveau.

[nightflier]

Just to share my experience with 7.1 B0.49 32-bit and nvidia:

Installed kernel-src. Downloaded the nvidia installer.
Rebooted to text mode and executed nvidia-installer. It detected nouveau and offered to disable it. I said yes.
Rebooted to text mode again, this time it was obvious nouveau was not active, as I got a standard VGA console.
Re-ran nvidia-installer, it built the module and created an xorg.conf.
Nvidia's xorg.conf did not work. Ran vxconf and it produced another non-working configuration.
Manually edited xorg.conf and got it working using "startx".
Reboot to GUI did not work. No X. I guess nouveau gets loaded from initrd?
Manually edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg to remove the initrd statement.
Reboot, no pretty boot splash but a working X with the nvidia driver.

System runs well. 

[Masta]

on the .48 iso I could not read the prompts from the nvidia installer. Not even after uninstalling the nouveau and rebooting. The yes/no boxes overlapped, and the text was also overlapped. I know the installer pretty well, but I could not tell whether or not I had actually selected yes or no.

Just got to installing .49 iso today on one machine. Have not gotten to the other machine yet.

[nightflier]

on the .48 iso I could not read the prompts from the nvidia installer. Not even after uninstalling the nouveau and rebooting. The yes/no boxes overlapped, and the text was also overlapped. I know the installer pretty well, but I could not tell whether or not I had actually selected yes or no.

Same experience with .48, looks like .49 fixed that.

[Masta]

Just to share my experience with 7.1 B0.49 32-bit and nvidia:

Installed kernel-src. Downloaded the nvidia installer.
Rebooted to text mode and executed nvidia-installer. It detected nouveau and offered to disable it. I said yes.
Rebooted to text mode again, this time it was obvious nouveau was not active, as I got a standard VGA console.
Re-ran nvidia-installer, it built the module and created an xorg.conf.
Nvidia's xorg.conf did not work. Ran vxconf and it produced another non-working configuration.
Manually edited xorg.conf and got it working using "startx".
Reboot to GUI did not work. No X. I guess nouveau gets loaded from initrd?
Manually edited /boot/grub/grub.cfg to remove the initrd statement.
Reboot, no pretty boot splash but a working X with the nvidia driver.

System runs well. 

I don't know which version of VL you are using, but there is no selection in lilo to boot into text mode in either .iso from as far back as .45 to presently .49, regardless of arch. I can't read the nvidia installer where it would prompt to blackllist the nouveau, everything is overlapped after you click on the 1st "OK" (which by the way, is the only thing that you can actually see), the rest is pretty much hope and pray like mad Hell that you hit the right selection, and when all is done, it simply returns to the command prompt, so Nvidia never did get installed, and thus you have to reboot once again and slapt-get --install the nouveau.

on the .48 iso I could not read the prompts from the nvidia installer. Not even after uninstalling the nouveau and rebooting. The yes/no boxes overlapped, and the text was also overlapped. I know the installer pretty well, but I could not tell whether or not I had actually selected yes or no.

Same experience with .48, looks like .49 fixed that.

It did not fix that here, still the same bullshit.
 You all need to keep in mind that not every user of VL is a "developer" or a "computer wiz" of any sort, and the "end users" are fucked if something doesn't go as it should and aren't able to get help otherwise.

Previously in 7.0 all we had to do was simply open gslapt, mark to uninstall nouveau, and apply it. Then we'd reboot into TUI ....yeah that's right, there was that option back then wasn't there? You confirmed you were at init3 and began the process of executing the Nvidia installer. When completed correctly, you could simply "reboot" (or init4) and all was fine and dandy. That was the easy way for the end users. Currently in 7.1 none of this is so.

 And so that it doesn't sound as if I am bitching, because really I am..., I am glad this is working for you (anyone) however, I am reporting that it is not working for me. That's the whole purpose of testing isn't it? To find things that do not work as expected and report them for development. If in an event like this where it is worknig properly for someone and not for the other, it is of course the best thing to report both sides of the findings so that development knows where to start more accurately.
 The thought of the end user shoulld ALWAYS be kept in mind within reason, throughout every stage of development, package building/installing, and testing, and so on. Otherwise, why not Slackware instead of VL?

cheers,
           Masta

[nightflier]

Good feedback.

My post illustrates that the steps involved in getting nvidia working is way beyond reasonable effort.

I also think that the amount of choice given Vector users complicates things. I used grub, which gave me an option to boot to text mode whereas lilo may not. The installer defaults to grub when you choose automatic, but when you use the advanced option it defaults to lilo. We can install VL in a number of unique ways, with each option possibly producing a different end result.

I would not want to limit choice, but believe it would be a good idea to have one standard or recommended way of doing an install. My preference would be to have one universal image that could be burned to disc, or transferred to USB stick using unetbootin or dd. Installer should not even mention alternative install sources unless you dig into the advanced option. Choosing advanced and accepting all defaults should produce the exact same result as using automatic.

Relying too much on virtualization limits testing on real hardware. It is one thing to boot from an image in a virtual machine, another one to have to burn a physical disc for every test. If I had done that for every 7.1 image, it would have required over 100 discs so far. It is a waste. I have some CDRW's but they are a lot slower to burn than a CDR, and after a few uses I often get boot errors and have to throw them away too. This may have been some of the motivating force for coming up with all the alternative install procedures in the first place. Some of those options could be retired, like the install from floppy discs was. Personally, I like unetbootin. It is easy to use and we can make our images compatible with it.

Having one predictable install procedure would make things a lot easier for the devs, who would then have a lot smaller set of variables to consider.

There is much good work going into the back end right now. The automatic build system has the potential to produce a great mechanism with an efficient dev process and a rich repository. Most of this is invisible to end users. What they see is a great emphasis on boot splashes and obvious bugs like non-working launchers on the desktop and desktop folders on the desktop.

[Pita]

Greetings nightflier.

As of late I am using a DVD+RW to burn iso images even if they would fit
on a CD. I found bruning on a DVD is much faster than burning a CD.
For the VL7.1nth the entire process takes less than 3 minutes. I am using
xcdroast. I do not know how many times I have burned the DVD now and
can sofar not detect any malburn.

[nightflier]

Pita, you just taught an old dog a new trick. Because of my past frustrations with cdrw's I had pretty much written off rewritables. I went and got a dvd-rw and tested it out. Sure enough, it's like you said; much faster and seems to work well. No need to blank in between uses, either. Thanks. 

[Masta]

I have always used RW's for both CD and DVD. You can find high speed CDRWs out there. I have a spare one if you might need, but was cheap at a local "Dollar Store" for a 5pk of these. The only times I use the std burn media is to ensure the RW is still propper, and to burn a final copy.

  Anyway, let's not get off topic of this thread, there's issues wuth installing nvidia drivers. I suspect that after uninstalling the nouveau driver, I will have to run lilo again and make sure the initrd is updated and not still holding the nouveau. I see that the boot theme is still working even without drivers being installed, and that's the only place that I can think of.

[nightflier]

Masta, I appreciate the offer but no worries, I can afford some blanks. Already got'em. 

When it comes to the nvidia driver, I do not expect that the final release will require jumping through all the hoops I had to.

I got the jumbled display that you mention when booting to init 2 in .48, but not in .49. BTW, in lilo you should be able to highlight the line for your boot option and then press Tab to get an editable line. Add a 2 to the end and it should go to text mode. I also like to remove the initrd statement and include "vga=normal", that gives you a safe, plain vga console.

Yes, apparently the nouveau driver is in the initrd too, so just uninstalling it won't do. I did not try to alter the initrd, just eliminated it from the boot options.

[nightflier]

Follow-up when trying this on B0.50 64-bit:

Even after unistalling xf86-video-nouveau and disabling initrd, nouveau was active after reboot. Running nvidia-installer gave a jumbled display as described above. Like Masta, I have done the installation a few times and had an idea what keys to press and when. The installer did create the entry /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf which allowed me to reboot to a standard console. I appreciate the work done by the nouveau devs, but why does it have to be so darn hard to disable the thing?

Still, when running the installer the display remained pretty much unreadable. Again, I guessed, just pressing the left and right arrow keys and taking "Yes" when available and "OK" otherwise. According to the log file, there were several warnings, but the module did build and an xorg.conf file was created. Running startx brought up X, and subsequent reboots to init 4 worked as intended.

Clearly, there are bugs to be worked out if we want users to be able to install nvidia.

[nightflier]

I wanted to try nvidia on B0.50 32-bit also, but can not find the kernel-src package for 3.10.17. I see 3.10.18 and old ones all the way back to 3.0.xx, but not one for the kernel in B0.50. Looking through the repo, same thing for 64-bit. I still have the package that I downloaded for 3.10.17 64-bit on my computer. Either my mind is slipping, or files have been moved or deleted.

[Masta]

All this for Plymouth -- sigh. My bad    .

  Anyway, I was going to say something... oh yeah... I had the kernel src for the 64bit ... cleaned it out when .51 iso came into my system.  The kernels on the iso are from the buildbot on vlcore, and they will change there often. I missed the src for a previous iso, and snagged up the new package wen i saw it on the vlcore .. came in handy.

If you've moved up to 51, I still have the src installed and can zip it up, but apears as though I've accidentally deleted the package   though I think the src is still there at the moment for 3.10.18.