[gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Walter Dnes]

  I've got a brand new AMD64, which I'm installing 32-bit Gentoo on.
When setting up a system figuring out which drivers to build, my options
are...

  Plan A) Boot Gentoo install CD and run "lsmod" to see which modules
are loaded, so I know what to use.  If The Gentoo install CD can't
recognize some devices...

  Plan B) Post a message to the Gentoo list asking for help<g>.  The two
devices are...
  1) ATI PowerColor X300 SE video card
  2) Sound chip

  Which drivers do I use?  "lspci -v" shows the following.  Note two
entries for the video card!

0000:00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a2)
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology: Unknown device ae01
        Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at a800
        I/O ports at ac00 [size=256]
        Memory at ea106000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2

0000:05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 1b60
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
        Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable)
        I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
        Memory at e9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable

0000:05:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5b70
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 1b61
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Memory at e9010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]


-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Mark Knecht]

Hi Walter,
   I'm setting up the same thing, although I used the 64-bit Gentoo
install CD. Why are you using 32-bit?

   As for the ATI driver I set it up quickly today using the radeon
driver from xorg-x11. I've got an Asus PCI-E 16x card. It worked fine
the first time at 1280x1024 at 16-bit. The ati-driver package
installed fine but I'm unsure about the /dev/agpgart stuff on this
machine. It seems that the kernel doesn't let me choose those options
with the AMD64 processor so I just stuck with radeon for the short
term.

   I haven't set sound up yet. I'll be using an HDSP 9652 card in the
system so that will use the hdsp driver. However I guess there is an
on-board sound chip so I really should set that up too. most likely
it's jsut a normal 2 sound card setup with the motherboard chip using
whatever driver is appropriate, in this case the snd_intel8x0 driver.
However I cannot tell you much more before tomorrow when I take the
RME cards out of the old system and get this up and running.

Cheers,
Mark

On 8/31/05, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
>   I've got a brand new AMD64, which I'm installing 32-bit Gentoo on.
> When setting up a system figuring out which drivers to build, my options
> are...
> 
>   Plan A) Boot Gentoo install CD and run "lsmod" to see which modules
> are loaded, so I know what to use.  If The Gentoo install CD can't
> recognize some devices...
> 
>   Plan B) Post a message to the Gentoo list asking for help<g>.  The two
> devices are...
>   1) ATI PowerColor X300 SE video card
>   2) Sound chip
> 
>   Which drivers do I use?  "lspci -v" shows the following.  Note two
> entries for the video card!
> 
> 0000:00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a2)
>         Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology: Unknown device ae01
>         Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
>         I/O ports at a800
>         I/O ports at ac00 [size=256]
>         Memory at ea106000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
>         Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
> 
> 0000:05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
>         Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 1b60
>         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
>         Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable)
>         I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
>         Memory at e9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
>         Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
>         Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]
>         Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable
> 
> 0000:05:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5b70
>         Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 1b61
>         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
>         Memory at e9010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
>         Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
>         Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]
> 
> 
> --
> Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
> My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Aug 31, 2005 at 09:57:09PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote
> Hi Walter,
>    I'm setting up the same thing, although I used the 64-bit Gentoo
> install CD. Why are you using 32-bit?

  I did some RTFM, and it appears that emerging 32-bit apps requires a
bit of a hassle.  You basically have to install a 32-bit chroot
environment, which you drop into to do the 32-bit emerges.  What apps
would you want to emerge 32-bit, you ask?  Here's a partial list, off
the top of my head, of what you lose if you go 64-bit-only...
  - OpenOffice does not build in 64-bit mode.
  - 32-bit plugins for your web-browser of choice
  - kiss "internet TV" goodbye, because...
    - RealPlayer is distributed as a 32-bit app
    - mplayer, itself, will compile in 64-bit mode.  However, the
      "win32codecs" don't exist in a 64-bit equivalent.

  The "final straw" for me was that LILO is masked out for 64 bits, and
GRUB is the only available bootloader.  GRUB seems to have been
afflicted by Microsoft-featureitis disease.  It's got a whole lot of
additional complexity, which allows it to display an image of Clippy (or
Tux) at bootup.  Come-on guys; people need a *BOOTLOADER*, not a
singing/dancing penguin or paperclip, at bootup.

  What advantages does 64-bit mode offer?  I don't have terabytes of RAM
so that ability isn't required.  64-bit mode is allegedly faster by
default on other distros.  This is probably true.  The underlying reason
for that is that in 64-bit mode, the gcc compiler defaults to include
the flags "-mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 -m3dnow -mfpmath=sse" for the AMD64
cpu, which it doesn't do for 32-bit mode on the same chip.  On a binary
distro, you're stuck with what you're given.  With Gentoo, we "Gentoo
ricers" can set those flags in /etc/make.conf and get their benefit.  So
that advantage for 64-bit mode disappears in Gentoo.

>    As for the ATI driver I set it up quickly today using the radeon
> driver from xorg-x11.

  After reading your message, I tried Radeon, and it seems to work.  I
manually entered the frequencies for my monitor, and 1600 X 1200 works
fine.  Now I just need to get the sound chip working.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Mark Knecht]

On 9/1/05, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

> >    As for the ATI driver I set it up quickly today using the radeon
> > driver from xorg-x11.
> 
>   After reading your message, I tried Radeon, and it seems to work.  I
> manually entered the frequencies for my monitor, and 1600 X 1200 works
> fine.  Now I just need to get the sound chip working.
> 

I set up sound today. I got both the on-board sound chip as well as
the HDSP 9652 working, although very little testing.

So far everything has worked nicely. Only a couple of small issues:

1) A false Gnome message every time I log in.
2) The 'default' sound card setting, since I'm using two devices.

Tomorro I hope to try the ATI proprietary driver to see if I can get 3D working.

There are a number of strange things I've run into. For instance, on
the mplayer emerge:

lightning ~ # emerge -pv mplayer

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] media-video/mplayer-1.0_pre7-r1  (-3dfx) (-3dnow)
(-3dnowext) +X -aac -aalib +alsa (-altivec) -arts -bidi -bl
-cdparanoia -cpudetection -custom-cflags -debug -dga -directfb
(-divx4linux) -doc -dts -dv -dvb +dvd +dvdread -edl +encode +esd
-fbcon -ggi +gif +gtk +i8x0 +ipv6 +jack -joystick +jpeg -libcaca +lirc
-live -lzo +mad* -matroska -matrox (-mmx) (-mmxext) +mythtv -nas +nls
-nvidia +opengl -oss +png +real -rtc -samba +sdl (-sse) (-sse2)
(-svga) -tga -theora -truetype +v4l +v4l2 +vorbis* (-win32codecs)
-xanim -xinerama -xmms +xv +xvid -xvmc 0 kB

Total size of downloads: 0 kB
lightning ~ #

Note that 3dnow and mmx are disabled even though I have them enabled
in my make.conf file:

USE="radeon mmx mmxext sse sse2 3dnow 3dnowext gnome kde -arts ladspa
nptl nptlonly ladcca audiofile gimp gimpprint ppds usb alsa cdr dvd
dvdr dvdread caps jack jack-tmpfs fluidsynth tcltk sndfile v4l v4l2
mysql flac xscreensaver -samba i8x0 mythtv apache2 lirc mjpeg xvid
real"


I need to understand why that happens. /proc/cpuinfo says they should work:

lightning ~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 47
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
stepping        : 0
cpu MHz         : 1809.280
cache size      : 512 KB
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext
fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_lm
bogomips        : 3588.09
TLB size        : 1024 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

lightning ~ #

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Neil Bothwick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1679 bytes --]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 01:18:00 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:

> >    I'm setting up the same thing, although I used the 64-bit Gentoo
> > install CD. Why are you using 32-bit?
> 
>   I did some RTFM, and it appears that emerging 32-bit apps requires a
> bit of a hassle.  You basically have to install a 32-bit chroot
> environment, which you drop into to do the 32-bit emerges.  What apps
> would you want to emerge 32-bit, you ask?  Here's a partial list, off
> the top of my head, of what you lose if you go 64-bit-only...
>   - OpenOffice does not build in 64-bit mode.

No, but openoffice-bin works fine on AMD64, and the latest OOo is only
available as a binary package anyway.

>   - 32-bit plugins for your web-browser of choice

True.

>   - kiss "internet TV" goodbye, because...
>     - RealPlayer is distributed as a 32-bit app

Which works in a 64 bit environment.

>   The "final straw" for me was that LILO is masked out for 64 bits, and
> GRUB is the only available bootloader.  GRUB seems to have been
> afflicted by Microsoft-featureitis disease.  It's got a whole lot of
> additional complexity, which allows it to display an image of Clippy (or
> Tux) at bootup.  Come-on guys; people need a *BOOTLOADER*, not a
> singing/dancing penguin or paperclip, at bootup.

So don't use that option, in the same way you don't use the equivalent
option in LILO. Like it or not, some people don't want to look at a bunch
of text when their computer boots, it scares or bores them. such an
option may not be for you but others do want it, which is why both
bootloaders have it. 


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 32: Living dead

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Nick Rout]

On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 01:18 -0400, Walter Dnes wrote:
> The "final straw" for me was that LILO is masked out for 64 bits, and
> GRUB is the only available bootloader.  GRUB seems to have been
> afflicted by Microsoft-featureitis disease.  It's got a whole lot of
> additional complexity, which allows it to display an image of Clippy
> (or
> Tux) at bootup.  Come-on guys; people need a *BOOTLOADER*, not a
> singing/dancing penguin or paperclip, at bootup.

what bolox.

follow the instructions on the gentoo install manual, which from memory
go:

emerge grub
$EDITOR /boot/grub/grub.conf
EITHER {
grub-install /dev/hda
}
OR {
grub
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
quit
}



-- 
Nick Rout <nick@rout.co.nz>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[Ian Hastie]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 01:18:00 -0400
"Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

>   I did some RTFM, and it appears that emerging 32-bit apps requires a
> bit of a hassle.  You basically have to install a 32-bit chroot
> environment, which you drop into to do the 32-bit emerges.

This is a hassle, but not a huge one.  For a lot of things it isn't
actually necessary anyway.

> What apps
> would you want to emerge 32-bit, you ask?  Here's a partial list, off
> the top of my head, of what you lose if you go 64-bit-only...
>   - OpenOffice does not build in 64-bit mode.

openoffice-bin works very well.

>   - 32-bit plugins for your web-browser of choice

<web browser of choice>-bin is again what you want.  OK, you use some
flexibility in both of these, but the problem is only caused by closed
source 32 bit binaries anyway.

>   - kiss "internet TV" goodbye, because...
>     - RealPlayer is distributed as a 32-bit app

Which will work with multilib support.  The plugin still requires the
32 bit precompiled browser though.

>     - mplayer, itself, will compile in 64-bit mode.  However, the
>       "win32codecs" don't exist in a 64-bit equivalent.

There is now a mplayer-bin ebuild which supports win32codecs.  It too
works very well.

>   The "final straw" for me was that LILO is masked out for 64 bits,
> and GRUB is the only available bootloader.  GRUB seems to have been
> afflicted by Microsoft-featureitis disease.  It's got a whole lot of
> additional complexity, which allows it to display an image of Clippy
> (or Tux) at bootup.  Come-on guys; people need a *BOOTLOADER*, not a
> singing/dancing penguin or paperclip, at bootup.

GRUB is just a boot loader.  It's a very flexible one, but that's all.
If you don't want the graphics then you're under no obligation to use
them.

>   What advantages does 64-bit mode offer?  I don't have terabytes of
> RAM so that ability isn't required.

Well my Athlon64 can only use 40 bit address bus, that's 1TB of RAM.  I
doubt I could fit it into the motherboard though.

address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual

> 64-bit mode is allegedly faster
> by default on other distros.  This is probably true.  The underlying
> reason for that is that in 64-bit mode, the gcc compiler defaults to
> include the flags "-mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3

I hope not!  My vintage of Athlon64 wouldn't like it at all.

flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
                  mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall
                  nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow

Notice there is no sse3 support.

> -m3dnow -mfpmath=sse"
> for the AMD64 cpu, which it doesn't do for 32-bit mode on the same
> chip.  On a binary distro, you're stuck with what you're given.  With
> Gentoo, we "Gentoo ricers" can set those flags in /etc/make.conf and
> get their benefit.  So that advantage for 64-bit mode disappears in
> Gentoo.

The real underlying cause of better performance in 64 bit mode is that
it has twice as many CPU registers available.  The x86 architecture
was always deficient in this respect and AMD64 had put this right at
long last.  Personally I wouldn't have minded a few more, but that
probably isn't really necessary.

> >    As for the ATI driver I set it up quickly today using the radeon
> > driver from xorg-x11.
> 
>   After reading your message, I tried Radeon, and it seems to work.  I
> manually entered the frequencies for my monitor, and 1600 X 1200 works
> fine.

My NVIDIA works with the AMD64 Linux driver very well too.  Of course
the OSS drivers in xorg-x11 also work well as long as you don't need 3D
support.

> Now I just need to get the sound chip working.

Which chip is it you have?  My emu10k1 based Audigy 2 works well with
the in kernel driver.  I'd expect most of the other OSS kernel
supported chips to work in 64 bit mode too.

-- 
Ian.

EOM
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[waltdnes]

On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 04:44:42AM +0100, Ian Hastie wrote

> "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

> Notice there is no sse3 support.

  I got carried away there.  It only goes up to sse2.  Another goof on
my part was referring to the gcc 3.4.4 docs.  I think we're still on
3.3.5.

> > Now I just need to get the sound chip working.
> 
> Which chip is it you have?  My emu10k1 based Audigy 2 works well with
> the in kernel driver.  I'd expect most of the other OSS kernel
> supported chips to work in 64 bit mode too.

  I finally got it going.  My Google-fu hasn't been as good as it could
be.  I tried earlier searching on my motherboard and "k8", and got
buried in a gazillion results, consisting mostly of people listing off
their system components, or else computer stores selling systems with
that motherboard.  I tried a few more times and finally found someone
saying how he got his sound working.  First, in "make menuconfig" ...

<M> Intel/SiS/nVidia/AMD/ALi AC97 Controller

  And then at bootup...

modprobe snd-intel8x0

  I could put the modprobe

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which drivers to use for audio and video?

[waltdnes]

On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 10:28:27PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote

> Note that 3dnow and mmx are disabled even though I have them enabled
> in my make.conf file:

  What about your CFLAGS line?  I assume that you're using "-march=k8".
It's supposed to implicitly include mmx and sse and sse2, but maybe the
mplayer make file gets cute, and tries reading CFLAGS.  Here's my 32-bit
mode CFLAGS line...
CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -march=athlon -m3dnow -mmmx -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mfpmath=sse"

  My emerge seems to have everything I asked for

[m3000][root][~] emerge -pv mplayer

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] media-video/mplayer-1.0_pre7-r1  -3dfx +3dnow +3dnowext
+X +aac -aalib +alsa (-altivec) -arts -bidi -bl -cdparanoia +cpudetection
-custom-cflags -debug +dga -directfb +divx4linux -doc -dts -dv -dvb +dvd
+dvdread -edl +encode -esd -fbcon -ggi +gif -gtk -i8x0 -ipv6 -jack
-joystick +jpeg -libcaca -lirc -live -lzo -mad -matroska -matrox +mmx
+mmxext -mythtv -nas -nls -nvidia +opengl -oss +png +real -rtc -samba
+sdl +sse +sse2 -svga -tga +theora +truetype -v4l -v4l2 +vorbis
+win32codecs -xanim -xinerama -xmms +xv -xvid -xvmc 0 kB


  Try the following command, and see what local flags it allows...
grep /mplayer: /usr/portage/profiles/use.local.desc

  I think that local flags are supposed to be entered in
/etc/portage/package.use.  Here's my entry...

media-video/mplayer cpudetection real sse2 3dnowext mmxext

  My flags line is almost identical to yours.  I'm missing "lahf_lm".

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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