[mythtv-users] Video quality on 0.28 worse than it was on 0.21

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2018 08:51:55 -0700, you wrote:

>On Sat, Aug 25, 2018 at 8:24 AM, Stephen Worthington <
>stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 25 Aug 2018 06:15:37 -0700, you wrote:
>>
>> >On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 10:10 AM, Stephen Worthington <
>> >stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Fri, 24 Aug 2018 09:57:42 -0700, you wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Take a look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log.  It may tell you why nouveau is
>> >> still loading instead of Nvidia.  It is looking like the 304 drivers
>> >> are not actually compatible with the 6200 card.
>> >>
>> >
>> >allen at MythNew:~$ more /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep nvidia
>> >[    23.838] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
>> >[    23.838] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
>> >[    23.838] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
>> >[    23.839] (II) Unloading nvidia
>> >[    23.839] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist,
>> 0)
>> >[    23.839] (==) Matched nvidia as autoconfigured driver 0
>> >[    23.839] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
>> >[    23.839] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
>> >[    23.839] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
>> >[    23.839] (II) Unloading nvidia
>> >[    23.839] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist,
>> 0)
>> >
>> >Same output using the 8600 video card.  Perhaps the lack of the alias
>> >statements in the auto generated nvidia 304 blacklist file has something
>> to
>> >do with it as the driver is called nvidia-304.
>> >
>> >Allen
>>
>> No, the name of the driver file does not have the version number in
>> it.  For comparison, my mother's MythTV box uses the 304 drivers and
>> this is what it shows when the driver loads correctly:
>>
>> [    28.886] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
>> [    28.886] (II) Loading
>> /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so
>> [    29.562] (II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
>> [    29.562]    compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
>> [    29.562]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
>> [    29.651] (II) LoadModule: "nouveau"
>> [    29.701] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so
>> [    29.745] (II) Module nouveau: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
>> [    29.745]    compiled for 1.18.1, module version = 1.0.12
>> [    29.745]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
>> [    29.745]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 20.0
>>
>> So there is a fundamental problem here - the Nvidia drivers are not
>> installed properly.  The Xorg driver file (nvidia_drv.so) is not
>> loading.  So the logs to be looking at are the ones of the install of
>> the Nvidia drivers.  Those are in /var/log/apt.  In there, the
>> history.log file is what apt has done at the package level.  The
>> term.log files are the output to the terminal of what happened as the
>> packages were installed (or removed).  So look in the term.log files
>> and find your last install of the Nvidia drivers and see if it shows
>> what went wrong.
>>
>> I have never come across any problems like this since Nvidia drivers
>> were made available in packages in the Ubuntu distro.  You normally
>> either get an error message during the install of the packages, and
>> the install fails, or the install works and the drivers work.
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>
>Looks like the bug that John reported.
>
>Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.15.0-32-generic
>(i686)
>Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia-304/304.137/build/make.log for more
>information.
>
>Looking at that log I see similar language as the bug report.
>
>Allen

There is your problem - Ubuntu 16.04 must be installing 4.15 kernels
now.  The 4.15 kernel is incompatible with the 304 drivers (and the
340 drivers too I think).  My 16.04 systems were originally installed
when 16.04 first came out, and I have not let them upgrade to the
later kernels by installing the Hardware Enablement Stack packages.
But the version of 16.04 you are installing from will likely be
16.04.5, which has the HWE packages and therefore has 4.15 kernels
now.  So if you want to try reinstalling 16.04, you need to get an old
version of it, 16.04.1 I think would be best, that has the 4.4
kernels.

I would recommend using the Mythbuntu 16.04.1 version from here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/16.04/release/

Once you install it, you can let up upgrade all the existing packages
to the latest versions, but do not manually select to install the HWE
packages.  Then you will retain the 4.4 kernels.  Which are still
supported until the end of support for 16.04.