Ubuntu Hardy. Sage menus flashing "underneath" the video

[marcusjohn]

I am now almost done with my Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 32 bit install of Sagetv.

I have a HD2600 Pro PCI Express video card, made by Visiontek.

I have the latest fglrx proprietary driver.

Synaptic calls it 1:7.1.0-8-3+2.6.24.13-19.45 driver.

I am using the server kernel.

I had to turn off Visual Effects via

"System | Preferences | Appearance | Visual Effects (tab)" in order to see any video at all in Sagetv.

As of now, when the video is running, and I click in the video window with the mouse, the menu items of sage appear for only a tiny fraction of a second. And the video keeps showing. Then, if I move the mouse around, the menu items flash quickly in and out of view. I know that the menu items are clickable, even though they are barely visible, because if I then click on one, I get the desired effect, such as returning to the main menu.

Any ideas?

Maybe I should turn overlay off?

John.

[jreichen]

IIRC go to ~/.sagetv/SageTVPlaceshifter.properties and set opengl=true.

[keefmyster]

You can also click the "Settings" button on the "SageTV Placeshifter Servers Manager" dialog and check the "Enable 3D Acceleration" checkbox. It effectively does the same thing that jreichen said above, but through the GUI instead.

[marcusjohn]

Hi and thanks for the great suggestions.

I enabled it both ways.

Unfortunately my installation blew up.

I couldn't log into the main menu from the placeshifter at all after this.

So I undid it.

Ever since then the installation is really corrupted.

I now notice that I have about 20 wiz.bin.corrupt files.

When I could get in, the sound didn't work half the time.

I cannot get my program guide back.

I have Setup the video source about 10 times.

I must think about what to do next.

It is time to erase the whole thing.

Possible reformat my hard disk.

John.

[marcusjohn]

Is there anyone that can help me read the errors in here?

[marcusjohn]

I have erased my sage installation and started over.

[marcusjohn]

I have re-installed my sagetv after downgrading to Java 5, as documented in another thread that I started.

So now I am back to the same level as I was before my post here.

I tried to enable 3d accel in the Placeshifter Servers Manager. When I do, I cannot log on to the server. If I try, I get a flash of a blue screen, and then the placeshifter closes.

Here is a piece of the sagetv_0.txt file for the few seconds when I attempted to open the placeshifter with 3d enabled. It happened at 0:43:44.

Mon 10/13 0:43:07.343 After minimizing priority, priority=1
Mon 10/13 0:43:07.344 Ending Online Video properties updater thread. No Update needed or it isn't time to check again.
Mon 10/13 0:43:44.239 Error in MediaServerConnection of :java.io.EOFException
java.io.EOFException
Mon 10/13 0:43:44.240 	at sage.MediaServer$a.a(Unknown Source)
Mon 10/13 0:43:44.240 	at sage.MediaServer$a.run(Unknown Source)
Mon 10/13 0:43:44.240 	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
Mon 10/13 0:43:55.697 Hidden Extras are DISABLED
Mon 10/13 0:43:55.704 Loading all "Standard SDTV" theme settings...

you can see that there was a java.io.EOFException. Anybody have any more ideas?

Thanks again in advance.

John.

[jreichen]

Does your video driver support OpenGL? I have an nVidia card, and the open source drivers don't support OpenGL so I have to use nVidia's proprietary driver. To enable it, go to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers. I'm not sure if that's the case for ATI.

[stuckless]

Just curious as to why you are using the server kernel? I'm running similar setup (ubuntu 8.04, java 6, sage 6.4.8), but I'm running the default kernel and nvidia graphics card. My understanding of the ubuntu "server" edition is that it's aimed at a headless install, which doesn't appear to be the case in your case.

[marcusjohn]

I have the ATI HD2600 Pro 512 MB made by visiontek. As near as I can determine, it supports OpenGL. Here is the output by glxinfo:

 glxinfo | grep OpenGL 
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
OpenGL version string: 2.1.7412 Release
OpenGL extensions:

I use the server Kernel because the desktop kernel limited my addressable ram to 2.6 GB, when I have 4GB installed. The reason for the discrepancy was the fact that the Desktop kernel has turned off PAE. PAE allows addressing up to 64 GB in a 32 bit operating system.

There is a more complicated explanation of why a 4 GB system can only address 2.6 GB, involving the need for hardware to reserve address spaces for itself, thereby reducing the amount of memory addresses available for ram.

There are arguments for and against PAE, but I wanted to see all of my memory. I run a number of "servers" in my system here. I run SageTV "server", I run VMWare's "VMWare Server", I run Apache, and some other stuff.

Apparently, for a highly loaded system, the Ubuntu server kernel has turned off prememptive multitasking. Turning that off prevents the system from thrashing in and out of memory on interrupts. This slows down user response a little but but speeds up a more loaded system, a "server".

In the windows world, Vista "Ultimate" 32 bit has PAE turned off, so I also was limited to 2.6 GB. The only way to get the PAE turned on was to spend thousands of dollars for a "server" operating system from Redmond, (or go to 64 bit Vista). I tried 32 bit and 64 bit Vista Ultimate (another couple hundred dollars each), and basically nothing of substance works on 64 bit without serious hacking, especially software PVR's. Even Sagetv linux is not available for 64 bit system.

I had an emotional reaction to the Redmond folks having the audacity, or the hubris, to turn off a basic function of my CPU without my permission (the PAE), and then charging me for a system called "Ultimate", and then trying to charge me thousands more to turn on a basic function of my processor.

After thinking about this for awhile, I decided to try Linux, and here I am with SageTV.

I ran into the same 64 bit issue on Linux that I ran into on Vista, and XP for that matter, so I decided 32 bit stuff is more compatible.

I don't have a headless install. I installed the desktop Hardy, but then switched the Kernel. I could have gone the other way to get to the same place by installing the server Hardy, and then "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop", but this takes a long time and is not exactly the same results. There seems to be a lot of configuring that way.

I am still open for suggestions about the flashing of the menus "underneath" the video.

Thanks,

John.

[ntk2]

In the past (Ubuntu 7), I was able to do a server install then install the desktop. I tried the same approach when I recently reloaded a system with 8.04. After much frustration, I found a thread describing changes in the server kernel that would never let my fairly basic NVidia card operate properly. I do not remember the technical details. I ended up reloading with Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop and the problems went away.

Based on my experience, go with the desktop load if you want graphics. I would be very careful about switching the server kernel into a desktop load.

NTK2

[Peggysis]

Originally Posted by marcusjohn

I use the server Kernel because the desktop kernel limited my addressable ram to 2.6 GB, when I have 4GB installed. The reason for the discrepancy was the fact that the Desktop kernel has turned off PAE. PAE allows addressing up to 64 GB in a 32 bit operating system.

There is a more complicated explanation of why a 4 GB system can only address 2.6 GB, involving the need for hardware to reserve address spaces for itself, thereby reducing the amount of memory addresses available for ram.

I could see the lack of PAE support as an issue if you actually had more than 4 GB of memory, but both Linux and Windows are perfectly capable of seeing up to 4 GB. I know my XP system does.

PAE is not going to get rid of the hardware memory requirements that you mention, or reduce the memory reserved for the kernel to use (may actually increase it), so I'm not sure I understand the problem you think it is solving for you. It's absence should only be an issue if more than 4 GB of memory is installed.

You might find this info helpful:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/hardy/man4/PAE.html


-Judy

[marcusjohn]

The most simple way I can put it is that without PAE my system reports 2.6 GB of memory, and with PAE I have 4. I have 4 GB physically installed. The 1.4 GB that is lost to my ram is used for hardware addresses.

Another way to put it is that I need to have 5.4 GB of addresses, if you count hardware addresses plus the system ram. The hardware addresses includes 512 MB just for the video card.

As far as I know, the 32 bit CPU's can only address 4 GB unless the PAE is enabled.

With PAE enabled I can have 4 GB of system ram, not affected by the amount of hardware.

I don't know how to turn on PAE in the desktop kernel, or if that is even an option. I found it quick and easy to just load the server kernel. When I did that the 4 GB were visible to my system.


John.

[stuckless]

I understand your frustration... I ordered a 4gig machine and I can only see 3.25 gigs But, I still think that your issues are related to trying to run a desktop environment with a server kernel.

At the very least, you should try a stock ubuntu install and see if you experience that same issues. If not, they you know the issue is related to the kernel. If you experience the same issue, then you know it has nothing to do with the kernel, so you can focus your efforts on the "real" problem.

As a side note, I'd update your other thread, it clearly indicate that you are talking about installing java in ubuntu for a "server" enabled kernel for the purposes of running a desktop system.

Don't underestimate how the wrong system kernel can affect the system in a bad way. I guess you have to decide to either go 64bit and run sage in 32bit and hope that there are 64bit drivers for your card, or live with the 32bit limitations...

[marcusjohn]

When I get home tonight I will change back to the desktop kernel. it will be interesting to see the effect. It only took a few minutes to change to the server kernel, it shouldn't take long to go back. I could run the desktop kernel until the problem is fixed, anyway.

I know that some of you have been running sage in 64 bits. It might be time to look at that again, and see if I can get farther into the install.

John.

[marcusjohn]

I went ahead and loaded the desktop kernel. I needed to solve some dependencies with a new video driver to do that properly, but it was easy and only took a few minutes. Synaptic was nice enough to install the kernels so that they are a simple choice on grub, so now I can go back forth on a reboot.

With the desktop kernel the flashing videos are just the same.

Ubuntu loaded a whole lot of new updates today, including new kernels and new video drivers. None of them made any difference in the video flashing effect.

I am going to keep using the server kernel because VMWare server, as it is configured, requires the server kernel.

I have discovered that if I run the windows SageTV client inside a windows 2000 virtual machine (all on this machine), and use that to connect to the server inside of my ubuntu host, via the usual lan interface, I get good performance. I can even turn off the encoding option. The menus are properly rendered without any flashing.

So I have that option for now.

In any case, the SageTV is functional, even though not great yet.

I don't know why but the sound doesn't work about half of the reboots, and the PVR-150 blaster needs to be reconfigured on each reboot. I need to figure out how to make that permament.

Thanks for all of your help,

John.

[drewg]

I have (roughly) the same setup as you, except I run a 64-bit kernel. I think the flashing menu problem may be made worse by your video card settings. When I first set the machine up, I tried playing an HD recording using mplayer (what SageTV uses under the hood), and it was basically unusable without some tweaking. What do you have in /etc/X11/xorg.conf? I currently have the following:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
        Driver          "fglrx"
        Option  "TexturedVideo" "on"
        Option  "TexturedVideoSync" "on"
        Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
        Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"

This seems to may playing files using mplayer work pretty well outside of SageTV, though there is still a bit of tearing in full screen video In SageTV, I still see a bit of flashing when the GUI comes up (like for comskip). I've never tried to figure it out, as I almost always use my HD100 and rarely watch video right on the server.

I can't wait for the radeonhd Xorg driver to get xvideo support, so I can ditch the fglrx driver.

Drew

[marcusjohn]

my xorg.conf is a bit different. I will tweak and report.

I was going to try to do this in a 64 bit setup, but I couldn't. I am glad you could do it.

Maybe I should try that again.

john.

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	VendorName  "ATI"
	BoardName   "ATI Radeon (fglrx)"
	Option	    "Capabilities" "0x00000800"
        Option "TexturedVideo" "on"
        Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

[drewg]

Originally Posted by marcusjohn

my xorg.conf is a bit different. I will tweak and report.

I was going to try to do this in a 64 bit setup, but I couldn't. I am glad you could do it.
[/CODE]

64 bits will just make your life a little bit harder, it won't help SageTV run better. I'd stick with 32-bits/PAE for now, and tweak your X configuration. If you can throw money at the problem, try an Nvidia card.


Drew