[mythtv-users] Re: MythTV - ATrpm for Nvidia driver?

[Chad Coulliette, Ph.D.]

Jarod & Axel,

Thanks to the generous help both of you have provided, I finally made
some good progress.  I followed your suggestions and installed the
nvidia drivers using apt-get.  I was quite excited when it worked.  That
also fixed the problem that had been occuring with KDE.  I ran a
benchmark... the nvidia driver is significantly faster and more
efficient than the default nv driver.  I also pasted in the tv-out lines
from Jarod's guide, although I have not had the chance to test it with
my TV yet.  I expect it to work, with perhaps only a little tweaking of
the overscan value.  The RPMs for lirc also are working great.  I got my
grey hauppauge remote working both outside of and inside mythtv.  So, I
am excited that it worked so well.

Before getting into some other stuff, I wanted to ask about an error
that I get during the booting of the OS.. it says something about
"modprobe i2c-proc".. maybe its an underscore, I cannot remember.  It
seemed relevant to mythtv, so I thought that maybe it was related to
some of my problems.  I ran /sbin/modprobe i2c-proc from root, but
nothing seems to happen and the next time I boot the error is there
again.  Is this important?  If so, how do I fix it? 

The ivtv RPMs and mythtv-suite RPMs seem to work quite well.  I
installed them following the instructions in the guide, and then I
configured and tested the ivtv per the instructions.  Using both "cat
/dev/video0 > /tmp/test1.mpg" and also using
"/usr/lib/ivtv/record-v4l2.pl -c 3 -t 1200 -D /home/mythtv/tests", and
using /usr/lib/ivtv/ptune-ui.pl to change channels, I was able to make
some short test recordings.  At first my tuner was set to record channel
4, which is scrambled HBO, so that messed me up for a while, until I
figured out how to change channels and switched to channel 3, which is
not scrambled.  The sound did not work then, but I followed the trick
described in the guide and that got it started.  I also experimented
with different levels temporal and spatial filtering... and it took me
sometime to realize that I had to restart the ivtv driver each time that
I adjusted the filtering parameters.  So, I can now record short clips
from whatever channel I prefer.  But, there is something strange about
the recordings.  For example, I use ptune-ui.pl to set it to channel 3,
then start a cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/test1.mpg and let it run for 20
minutes... timing it exactly with my stopwatch.  Then, I hit ctrl-C, and
play it back with mplayer /tmp/test1.mpg.  But, it only plays about 3
seconds of the clip, then says claims it hit the end of the file (EOF). 
How can that be when I let it capture for 20 minutes?  I thought maybe
the cat command was too crude and could not capture in real time, so I
tried the command /usr/lib/ivtv/record-v4l2.pl -c 3 -t 1200 -D
/home/mythtv/tests, which if I understand correctly, is passing an
argument of 1200 seconds, i.e. 20 minutes, as the desired length of the
recording.  It creates the file correctly, and there is good sound a
picture, as before with the cat command, but again the length is only 3
seconds.  Why is that?  In both cases, there is mplayer error in the
diagnostic output.  It seems to be ending the playback in a healthy
manner, so why is the length of the recording wrong?  Did you guys
notice this strange difference in the length of the mpeg file relative
to the amount of time spent recording it?

So, I decided to leave this for now and move on to setting up MythTV
itself.  I ran mythtvsetup, and went through each option, choosing
PVR-350 where necessary, then ran mythfilldatabase, set the crontab as
described in the guide, started irxevent in the background, and then
mythbackend in the foreground of a terminal window, and mythfrontend in
another in the foreground of another terminal window (that way I could
watch the text output for errors).  I went through all the set up
options, following whatever guidance there was in Jarod's guide and
regular documentation for compiling/installing mythtv from the mythtv
web site.  But, when I finally got everything set, I switched to live TV
and got nothing but a black screen.  I waited for a while, but nothing
happened.  I hit several keys, including ESC, but it seemed to be locked
up.  So, I used ALT-TAB to switch back to windows that were running the
frontend and backend.  The mythbackend gave this output:

[mythtv at localhost mythtv]$ mythbackend
Starting up as the master server.
2003-11-18 14:00:43 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
2003-11-18 14:00:45 Found changes in the todo list.
2003-11-18 14:01:06 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2003-11-18 14:01:06 adding: localhost.localdomain as a player 1
2003-11-18 14:01:06 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2003-11-18 14:01:06 adding: localhost.localdomain as a player 0
2003-11-18 14:01:06 MainServer::HandleAnnounce Playback
2003-11-18 14:01:06 adding: localhost.localdomain as a player 0
2003-11-18 14:01:06 adding: localhost.localdomain as a remote ringbuffer
2003-11-18 14:01:06 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV
Couldn't read data from the capture card in 15 seconds.  Game over, man.
Couldn't read data from the capture card in 15 seconds.  Game over, man.

the last message was triggered when I tried to watch live TV, and
continued indefinitely.  The mythfrontend gave this simultaneous output,
[mythtv at localhost mythtv]$ mythfrontend
2003-11-18 14:00:55 Enabled verbose msgs : important general
mythtv: could not open config file
mythtv: No such file or directory
Failed to init /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc for mythtv
connecting to backend server: 127.0.0.1:6543
taking too long to be allowed to read..
taking too long to be allowed to read..
taking too long to be allowed to read..
Waited 2 seconds for data to become available, waiting again...
Waited 2 seconds for data to become available, waiting again...
Waited 2 seconds for data to become available, waiting again...
Waited 2 seconds for data to become available, waiting again...
Waited 2 seconds for data to become available, waiting again...

and the last message about waiting 2 seconds started once I attempted
live TV, and continued indefinitely.  What could be the problem?  Does
this have something to do with the strange problem I noticed about the
difference in the length of the mpeg file relative to the amount of time
spent recording it?  Could it have something to do with the error above
about "Failed to init /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc for mythtv"?  How do I
fix this "Failed to init /home..." error?  I am still thinking the
problem with live TV is caused by something I set wrong in mythfrontend
or mythbackend.  But, I have gone over the settings many times and I
cannot see anything wrong.  If either of you (or anyone else) has a
setup that is similar to mine, could you e-mail me your config(s) file
that has the mythtvsetup and mythfrontend settings in it?  That is the
only way I can think of to verify if I made a mistake in those
settings.  Maybe posting a correct mythtvsetup config file and
mythfrontend config file on the web site with Jarod's guide would be a
good idea.  I think that would be really helpful.  Once new users see
that their new mythtv installation is working, then they could go
through and change whatever cosmetic things they wanted to do
differently. Anyway, I would really appreciate it if you guys could send
me your mythtvsetup and mythfrontend config files. 

I am still struggling with ALSA. I spent about five hours, trying to
track down what is wrong, including reading all of the documentation at 
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/ regarding emu10k1 and the Sound
Blaster Live!.  I also read through many forums, trying to find someone
with a similar problem.  But, had no success.  So, I am going to just
use OSS for now, and come back to this problem later.  I attached my
/etc/modules.conf file for both the ALSA and OSS configuration.  Could
you guys look at them once more and tell me if you can see anything
wrong with the ALSA version?  The OSS version works fine.

Axel suggested installing Fedora Core 1.  Thanks for pointing that out. 
I did not realize that Redhat had branched off and created Fedora. 
Apparently they have not been advertising Fedora much... I guess they do
not want their business customers to use Fedora instead of buying their
business OS subscriptions.  I have been an end-user of Redhat since
1996, and was quite disappointed when I realized there would not be an
official Redhat 10, because they were focusing on their business
distributions.  I was seriously considering switching to Mandrake,
primarily because they are RPM based, but are still devoting energy to
freeware downloading and the type of desktop-type distribution most us
prefer.  I have actually ordered a copy of Mandrake already, but now
that I know about Fedora I am unsure how to proceed.  Maybe I will
install both and do a side-by-side comparison of Fedora vs Mandrake. 
>From a pure aesthetic p.o.v., I like the transparent menus that Mandrake
offers.  Can this be done in Fedora?  Fedora offers some really cool new
stuff too, like on-the-fly changing of resolutions, without restarting
X, and built-in dual-monitor support.  

Anyway, now that I am aware of Fedora Core 1, I will give it a try.  I
downloaded it last night, and will install it today sometime. 
A few questions came to mind about Fedora before I go ahead with my
Redhat 9 / MythTV box:
1) Are there any files I should backup first, such as /etc/modules.conf?
2) What will happen to RPMs that have been updated with apt-get to a
version that is newer than that in the Fedora Core 1 distro?  Does the
installation overwrite them with older versions, or leave the newer
ones?  Could that create dependency issues?
3)  What sound system does Fedora use?  AlSA or OSS?  I am hoping it is
ALSA so that I do not have to fight with getting ALSA to work anymore. 
Does any distro use ALSA yet?  If not, maybe we should make a distro
that is focused around the latest and greatest A/V packages (ALSA,
MythTV, etc.)?  If I recall correctly, there are 57 or so packages that
get installed in order to make MythTV work.  It would just be great if
there was a good distro like Fedora or Mandrake that came with MythTV
and all of the RPMs it depended on.  Is that what KnoppMyth is supposed
to be?  The only problem with it, from my point of view, is that its
stripped down to the point where its worthless as a desktop box.
4) If Fedora does not use ALSA, is it possible that upgrading from
Redhat 9 will make it easier for me to get ALSA working?  (I am really
hoping the answer is yes, lol).
5)  Is there any difference between installing Fedora Core 1 as an
upgrade to Redhat 9 or doing a fresh install on a formatted disk?  I am
just wondering if it would be better to start all over and erase
everything... if that would increase my chances of getting ALSA
working... or if the results are identical either way.  You guys have
been able to get ALSA working on a Fedora Core 1 installation?  If so,
was it an upgrade of RH9 or a fresh install?

Sorry there are so many issues and questions in this message... just
trying to wrap up all the loose ends and get MythTV working sometime
soon.  I feel like I've been pounding my head against the wall for the
last 6 days.  lol.


      
Many Thanks,

Chad


On Sat, 2003-11-15 at 17:07, Jarod C.Wilson wrote: 
> On Nov 15, 2003, at 14:26, Axel Thimm wrote:
> 
> >> It has gone well so far, except for step 8.  I downloaded the Nvidia
> >> driver that is specified in the instructions (1.0-4363), but could
> >> not compile the interface (module) for your kernel
> >> (linux-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at).  The error simply stated "ERROR: Unable
> >> to build the NVIDIA kernel module." [...] I started to compile a
> >> custom kernel when I was following the main MythTV HOWTO
> >> instructions, before discovering the ATrpms and Jarod/Chris' guide.
> >> I had done a "make xconfig" and a "make dep" in the
> >> /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-20.9 directory.  Could the Nvidia makefile be
> >> looking at the wrong .config file?  This is the only idea I have at
> >> the moment.
> >
> > Make sure you have installed the matching kernel-source and copy the
> > config file of your running kernel into
> > /usr/src/linux-2.4/.config. You can find it under
> > /boot/config-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at
> 
> Yeah, looks like missing kernel source to me also...
> 
> >> If you are not the right person to send these questions to, could
> >> you forward it to the right person?  I could not find Jarod or
> >> Chris' e-mail address in the guide.  Should I post these issues on
> >> the user mailing list?  Thanks in advance for your help.
> >
> > For suggestions for the guide you need to contact Jarod (Cced):
> >
> >     "Jarod C. Wilson" <jcw at wilsonet.com>
> 
> D'oh! My email *was* in the guide right at the top, but it seems the 
> wiki managed to somehow make that not the case... It's there in my 
> source version still...
> 
> > I also suggest trying the nvidia & ivtv rpms:
> >
> > apt-get install nvidia-graphics-kmdl-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at
> > apt-get install nvidia-graphics
> > apt-get install ivtv-kmdl-2.4.20-20_29.rh9.at
> > apt-get install ivtv
> >
> > Look at /etc/X11/XF86Config.nvidia for a suggested XF86config file.
> 
> And I'm in the process of updating the guide to re-incorporate the 
> ATrpms nvidia drivers.
> 
> --Jarod