AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

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efgee
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AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby efgee » 14 Apr 2014, 08:26

Trying to use alphaOS as a htpc-os.
Using alphaOS unmodified gives me 1920x1080 resolution, ethernet works -> cool.
Increased size of tint2 fonts (time/date) to 68 in order to make it readable from 10 feet -> cool.
Only firefox needed to stream video -> OK.

Now the problems:
TV goes blank (but video keeps on running) after a few minutes. Have to move the trackball to make it visible again.
Didn't find the file where the setting for the screensaver is...
Also the cursor stays visible all the time.
Cpu fan runs very high during video stream (running Windows the cpu fan was quiet).
Installed nvidia driver 304 legacy but resolution was only 1280x1024.
Didn't have time to observe cpu-fan.

Anyway, found a possible solution for display resolution here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121947
and will try it next...

Has anyone experience with nVidia ION drivers?
Do they incorporate GFX only or also chipset?
Any help is appreciated (alphaOS should replace Windows as htpc-os).

Thanks

john3voltas
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby john3voltas » 14 Apr 2014, 15:13

The cpu fan was running very fast while playing video, huh? Did you check if the cpu usage was high too?
Because if cpu usage was high then that would explain cpu fans running fast too.
If cpu usage was high then it is down to vga drivers. Those vga drivers are not doing what they should. They should take care of all video decoding tasks, and apparently they didn't otherwise cpu usage shouldn't have risen.
Can't help you much more than this because unfortunately I am a Linux ignorant :(

BTW, why not use a proper htpc-os like openelec instead of alphaos? alphaos is great but should need some tweaking in order to work properly on htpc.

Scooby
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby Scooby » 14 Apr 2014, 16:57

efgee wrote:TV goes blank (but video keeps on running) after a few minutes. Have to move the trackball to make it visible again.
Didn't find the file where the setting for the screensaver is...

You could try in terminal or /root/.start

Code: Select all

xset s 0 0
xset s off



efgee wrote:Cpu fan runs very high during video stream (running Windows the cpu fan was quiet).
Installed nvidia driver 304 legacy but resolution was only 1280x1024.
Didn't have time to observe cpu-fan.

Are you using a cpu-governor? Dunnow if it helps, for me it was a marked difference
with governor regarding heat issue on laptop.

efgee
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby efgee » 14 Apr 2014, 17:19

@john3voltas
Other htpc os/packages like xbmc or openelec come with tons of stuff that make the whole system slow to boot and slow to react.
Also they come with tons of stuff that we don't need.
The only thing we do with it is to stream video (not netflix, hulu etc.) where a internet client like firefox/chrome/midory/ivory/etc. with flash support is needed.

@scooby
Will try your .start addition, thank you.
Don't know anything about cpu-governor will have to look it up.

Thank you both for your input.

Scooby
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby Scooby » 14 Apr 2014, 17:38

efgee wrote:Don't know anything about cpu-governor will have to look it up.


for governor check
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1038&p=2566&hilit=governor#p2553

I put edited MODULES line in /etc/rc.conf

Code: Select all

MODULES="cpufreq_powersave"


list availible governors

Code: Select all

ls /usr/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/cpufreq/

john3voltas
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby john3voltas » 15 Apr 2014, 06:58

Sorry to disagree with you guys but, even though I don't have any hard evidence, I am quite sure that the "high speed cpu fan issue" is related to bad drivers.
If your cpu is going over 50% while watching a 720p movie then I'm right.
The OS is using the cpu for something that should be mostly the vga adapter to deal with. That's either chipset drivers or vga drivers issues.
Just run a quick test with windows. Use a 720p movie on it and watch the cpu. It doesn't go over 30%, right? Usually that should even go with less than 20%. That's what alphaOS needs to do.
So, if alphaOS is using more than 50% it's because it's only using cpu instead of using vga. That's down to drivers.

If on the contrary my suspicions are wrong and alphaOS is only using less than 30% of cpu (such as windows), then it's not drivers and Scooby is right, it should be the cpu governor. But I wouldn't bet in it. :|

efgee
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby efgee » 23 Apr 2014, 07:48

Had to go with a non- frugal linux with preloaded nvidia drivers for this. The reason being my noobness in regards to blacklist the nouveau driver and activate the right nvidia driver.

If I would have seen Scooby's blacklist tool sooner I would have tried it out.
However the htpc setup I have now works great (also arch based) so I don't have a reason to change it.

Thank you guys for your input.

BTW I think john3voltas was right all along.

john3voltas
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby john3voltas » 23 Apr 2014, 19:43

efgee wrote:BTW I think john3voltas was right all along.

Hate being right regarding difficult to solve issues ;).
BTW, you mentioned you are using something else (not alphaOS), right?
What is it you're using now which works with video hardware decoding based on Arch?
Maybe that way Sim can take a look at it and figure why alphaOS is not working properly ;).
Cheers

efgee
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby efgee » 24 Apr 2014, 01:00

ManjaroBox. It is the OpenBox version of Manjaro.
At booting the CD you can choose which drivers you want, free or non-free.
Non-free loads the nVidia drivers and got 1920x1080 resolution with no hiccup.
Memory footprint is 150MB.

As an HTPC, openbox with tint2 is pretty cool. That's why I wanted alphaOS.
The panel is transparent, only the text of the clock is visible in the far right corner.
Left click on the clock calls midori, right click on the clock calls the shutdown script.

For video streaming... nothing more is needed.
The footprint of alphaOS would have been awesome.
But ManjaroBox is a good compromise.
At least on an nVidia HTPC.

On my laptop I still have alphaOS 15 running... and loving it :D
It will stay there for good :mrgreen:

john3voltas
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Re: AlphaOS On a NVIDIA ION HTPC

Postby john3voltas » 24 Apr 2014, 14:14

Thanks for sharing.
Frugal or real install?
You say ram usage is 150MB. How about HDD usage? Pacman working?
I'm looking for something that works properly on a netbook asus 1015PEM with 1GB ram.
AlphaOS would be great but WiFi drivers aren't working on this netbook :(
Cheers


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