[mythtv-users] Myth broken and Ubuntu Nvidia Driver hell

[Damian]

Jos Hoekstra wrote:
> Damian schreef op 19-5-2008 13:03:
>> Well, to say that the 5200 card is supposed to be one of the best 
>> supported in Linux (as I understood when I got one), there are a LOT of 
>> people having problems with them since upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04.
>>
>> I'm one of them, and I've had no display about 800x600 since I did the 
>> damn upgrade. Finally reached despair now. Even considering moving 
>> everything over to a Windows based system because I just don't have the 
>> free time for these kind of problems.
>>
>> Anyway, on to the reason for me posting here.
>>
>> One of the most successful 'fixes' for this driver problem has been to 
>> install the 173.08 nvidia driver. Unfortunately, on my system, when I do 
>> that, I still get glorious 800x600, but now, when I try to run 
>> Mythfrontend I get a message informing me that the OpenGL only works 
>> with CPU's that have SSE.
>>
>> I have no idea what SSE is, but just assume that my computer processor 
>> is too old to have it.
>>
>> I also have no idea why Mythfrontend is needing OpenGL, as I always use QT.
>>
>> The worse thing is that this seems to have broken my Backend too! None 
>> of my frontends can connect to it any more, and I see this OpenGL/SSE 
>> error message flick past my eyes directly after mythbackend tries to 
>> load on bootup.
>>
>> The best conclusion I can draw from this is that I need to upgrade my 
>> chip (which also means new motherbloard and fan as the board is already 
>> maxed out).
>>
>> I currently have a 1.2 gig athlon in an Abit Kt7 motherboard. Can anyone 
>> suggest an economical replacement?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Damian
> 
> Your processor talks SSE, the problem you have might be related to 
> desktop-effects and settings for mythtv. Ubuntu mythtv isn't updated 
> very often and if it is, I usually need to adjust some setting to get it 
> working again.
> OpenGL is used for some shiny effects when changing menus amongst others 
> and should work with a Nvidia card.
> The probleem you have seems(very little information to go on ;)) to be 
> related to X. Maybe some more info on the logs of X and mythbackend help 
> and start mythfrontend from a terminal, that way you can see the error 
> which causes it to quit.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jos
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> 

Jos Hoekstra wrote:
 > Damian schreef op 19-5-2008 13:03:
 >> Well, to say that the 5200 card is supposed to be one of the best
 >> supported in Linux (as I understood when I got one), there are a LOT of
 >> people having problems with them since upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04.
 >>
 >> I'm one of them, and I've had no display about 800x600 since I did the
 >> damn upgrade. Finally reached despair now. Even considering moving
 >> everything over to a Windows based system because I just don't have the
 >> free time for these kind of problems.
 >>
 >> Anyway, on to the reason for me posting here.
 >>
 >> One of the most successful 'fixes' for this driver problem has been to
 >> install the 173.08 nvidia driver. Unfortunately, on my system, when 
I do
 >> that, I still get glorious 800x600, but now, when I try to run
 >> Mythfrontend I get a message informing me that the OpenGL only works
 >> with CPU's that have SSE.
 >>
 >> I have no idea what SSE is, but just assume that my computer processor
 >> is too old to have it.
 >>
 >> I also have no idea why Mythfrontend is needing OpenGL, as I always 
use QT.
 >>
 >> The worse thing is that this seems to have broken my Backend too! None
 >> of my frontends can connect to it any more, and I see this OpenGL/SSE
 >> error message flick past my eyes directly after mythbackend tries to
 >> load on bootup.
 >>
 >> The best conclusion I can draw from this is that I need to upgrade my
 >> chip (which also means new motherbloard and fan as the board is already
 >> maxed out).
 >>
 >> I currently have a 1.2 gig athlon in an Abit Kt7 motherboard. Can 
anyone
 >> suggest an economical replacement?
 >>
 >> Cheers
 >> Damian
 >
 > Your processor talks SSE, the problem you have might be related to
 > desktop-effects and settings for mythtv. Ubuntu mythtv isn't updated
 > very often and if it is, I usually need to adjust some setting to get it
 > working again.
 > OpenGL is used for some shiny effects when changing menus amongst others
 > and should work with a Nvidia card.
 > The probleem you have seems(very little information to go on ;)) to be
 > related to X. Maybe some more info on the logs of X and mythbackend help
 > and start mythfrontend from a terminal, that way you can see the error
 > which causes it to quit.
 >
 > Regards,
 >
 > Jos
 > _______________________________________________
 > mythtv-users mailing list
 > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
 > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
 >

Hi Jos,

When I run Mythfrontend from a terminal, I get this:

NVIDIA OpenGL Driver requires CPUs with SSE to run.
The current CPU does not support SSE.

That's the same as the message I see on bootup after Mythbackend tries
to run. I have no idea why either are requesting OpenGL as I have such
menu effects turned off. I also have destop effects turned off (although
they, and other Open GL things, worked fine for me in Ubuntu 7.10)

For MythTV in Ubuntu, I'm using the Mythbuntu weekly fixes repository
and it generally works very well for me.

I'll get some logs now, although I never know what to look for or how to
post them ...

There doesn't seem to be a mythbackend.log from today in /var/log/mythtv
The last one seems to be from last night when Myth was still (I think)
working ok. I've rebooted several times today in attempts to sort these
issues and mythbackend has looked like it's trying to load everytime so
I don't know why there are no logs unless it's just doing the same
instant fail due to the SSE issue.


This is a pre-release version of the X server from The X.Org Foundation.
It is not supported in any way.
Bugs may be filed in the bugzilla at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/.
Select the "xorg" product for bugs you find in this release.
Before reporting bugs in pre-release versions please check the
latest version in the X.Org Foundation git repository.
See http://wiki.x.org/wiki/GitPage for git access instructions.

Here's my Xorg.0.log (actually with a decent resolution for once on this
reboot!, but not got the projector connected and still with this SSE
problem). Maybe something has changed with Xorg/nvidia between ubuntu
7.10 and 8.04 which is stopping my projector getting the resolutions I
want. It was very hard to get it to work in 7.10, but I got there (with
lots of help) eventually. Maybe a few of the switches I'm using have
altered? One thing at a time ... here's a link to my xorg.log

http://www.gingermagic.co.uk/tmp/Xorg.0.log

Thanks for taking a look
Damian