[mythtv-users] SUCCESS - Gentoo and Nehemiah hardware decodin g

[Curtis Stanford]

Here's a brief summary to be followed by a more detailed howto. Please note 
this is only a frontend. My PVR-250 is in a backend box so I'm interested in 
playback only. Also, all of these steps (i.e. AGP) may not be necessary to 
make hardware decoding work but this is what I did to get it to work and now 
I'm not going to screw with it figuring out what is needed and what is not.

- Latest unstable gentoo with all updates

- ac kernel 2.4.22-ac4 (gentoo package ac-sources-2.4.22-r4)

- Unselect kernel option "Loadable module support->Set version 
information..." (IMPORTANT!)

- Select kernel option "Video for Linux" as a module

- Select kernel option "Character devices->/dev/agpgart support" as a module 
(Don't think this is needed for just video)

- Select kernel option "Character devices->VIA chipset support" as a builtin

- Select kernel option "Character devices->Direct Rendering Manager" as a 
builtin

- Select kernel option "Character devices->VIA CLE266" as a module

- Compile and install kernel and reboot.

- If you use ALSA/LIRC re-emerge these since installing kernel modules erased 
them. (emerge alsa-driver lirc)

- emerge latest xfree (xfree-4.3.0-r3)

- you may need to re-emerge qt (I'm using qt-3.2.2-r1)

- Download latest VIA drivers (full binary) at http://downloads.viaarena.com/
drivers/video/CLE266/CLEXF40037.zip

- Unzip in a temporary place and go to the CLEXF40037/RedHat/9.0/pentium 
directory.

- Copy files in that directory as follows:

	cp libddmpeg.so /usr/X11R6/lib
	cp via_dri.so /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri
	cp via_drv.o /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers
	cp via_v4l_drv.o /lib/modules/2.4.22-ac4/kernel/drivers/media/video
	cp videodev.o /lib/modules/2.4.22-ac4/kernel/drivers/media/video

- Do NOT copy the via.o file anywhere, we want to use the one from our own 
kernel already installed.

- Now, reload agpgart module as so "modprobe agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1"

- Make sure the via.o module is loaded (modprobe via)

- Load the videodev module (insmod -f videodev). We have to use the 
"force" (-f) option because the module was made for a different kernel 
version than ours. This is why it's important to disable the "Set version 
information..." kernel option above. The module should load with warnings.

- Load the via_v4l_drv module similarly (insmod -f via_v4l_drv)

- Usually, this tells the devfs filesystem to create the /dev/video* devices 
but for some reason, these non-standard modules didn't do that. So I had to 
make them:

	mknod /dev/video0 c 81 0
	mknod /dev/video1 c 81 1
	mknod /dev/video2 c 81 2

- Now, configure X11 to use the via driver. Make sure to add "Option VideoRam 
32768" to the Device section. X kept detecting my video ram as 4096K and just 
showed colored static. This one took me a while to figure out. You may have 
to set the framebuffer size in the BIOS to 32M.

- Uncomment the CLE266 stuff in settings.pro and re-compile mythtv. (Make sure 
to do make distclean first)

- Give 'er

Here is the critical section of my XF86Config

Section "Device"
        Option     "ActiveDevice"  "TV"         # [<str>]
        Option     "TVDotCrawl"         # [<bool>]
        Option     "TVType"     "NTSC"          # [<str>]
        Option     "TVOutput"   "S-Video"       # [<str>]
        Option     "TVVScan"    "over"          # [<str>]
        Identifier  "VIA"
        Driver      "via"
        VendorName  "VIA Technologies, Inc."
        BoardName   "VT8623 [Apollo CLE266] integrated CastleRock graphics"
        ChipSet     "CLE266"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
        VideoRam    32768
EndSection

I guess this can be the start of a real HOWTO. Let me know if you need further 
information.

Curtis

On November 12, 2003 11:30 am, Rex Young wrote:
> > After dicking with this WAY too long and after reading a
> > cryptic message from
> > someone named Hopkins on the VIA forums, I've managed to get
> > Myth CVS running
> > on my M10000 Nehemiah using hardware decoding on a Gentoo
> > box! This may be
> > old news but I'm just tickled pink about the whole thing.
> >
> > If there's any of you die-hard gentoo'ers out there I'd be
> > willing to write a
> > howto on it. My CPU using watching TV is only 10-20% now
> > (480x480). Then
> > again, everyone may be doing this already in which case ... nevermind.
> >
> > Curtis
>
> I would be very happy to hear how you accomplished it.
>
> -rex
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