VIA EPIA & Unichrome

[infiniteedge]

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Unichrome

I found this article in gentoo-wiki and was looking for a bit of explanation that the original author couldn't include.

What is the DRI (x11-drm) package? Is it a set of kernel modules? If I'm using it I believe I shouldn't include DRM in my kernel at all (much the same as the alsa-driver package)?

It seems that the latest [masked] Xorg in portage is now xorg-x11-6.8.99.14. Will using this masked package free me of some of the work in the "Patching Xorg" section?

Any other commentary would be greatly appreciated. I am completely at home with all of my gentoo servers and am finally trying to set up a gentoo desktop. Unichrome isn't making my first experiences with Xorg very happy ones .

[keli]

You are avare, that you can "just use" your Unichrome with the vesa driver in X.org? I don't want to be a party breaker, but Since I have Unichrome on my laptop (with only 128M Shared memory) I didn't really see an advantage that big from the Unichrome driver over vesa to be worth all that bother that was descibed in the gentoo wiki.

So I'm just waiting paciently, until Unchrome driver mature enough to be usable

Yeah, I know, I'm lazy.
_________________
"The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb."
Marshall McLuhan, 1969

[infiniteedge]

I can't get by with the vesa driver, I'm using my box for HDTV on MythTV. Can anyone answer my questions?

[infiniteedge]

bump

[infiniteedge]

I seem to be encountering some success using the ~x86 vanilla-sources (currently 2.6.13-rc3) which already contain the Unichrome DRI. The combination of the masked Xorg and ~x86 vanilla-sources has allowed me to gain (I think) a fully accelerated unichrome X without needing to go outside portage. glxinfo still tells me I'm not using direct rendering, however I think some changes to my xorg.conf will fix that. I will report back shortly. This should be good news to gentoo unichrome users .

[infiniteedge]

All I had to do to get glxinfo to tell me Direct Rendering was enabled with the above setup was follow these steps from the Unichrome 3D-HOWTO (http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=26963&group_id=102048):

c. Let's backup some files first. Jump into /usr/X11/lib and copy libGL.so.1.2 into some safe place in your home directory. Now, untar your opensource 3D driver package, `cause it's magic time! Replace libGL.so.1.2 with the one in the package. Then jump into /usr/X11/lib/modules/dri and copy over the unichrome_dri.so file. You may want to create a symlink to unichrome_dri.so called via_dri.so, although I'm not sure this is necessary. We are now done with tough stuff!

In my particular version of Xorg, libGL.so.1.2 did not exist (I instead had libGL.so.1.3). Simply moving the 1.2 file into place worked fine.

[kevin_barsby]

Hi,

I'm trying to get a similar sounding config up and running, which version of xorg are you running? Also which implementation of opengl?

Thanks
Kevin

[infiniteedge]

As I said in an earlier post, I'm using whatever version of Xorg is currently masked in portage. Unmask it by adding it to your /etc/portage/package.unmask . It's 6.8.99.xx something; the bits are from the Xorg CVS. I'm using whatever opengl came with it, I did nothing special to get opengl, so whatever Gentoo defaults to.

[kevin_barsby]

I've tried both 6.8.99.14 and 6.8.99.15 ebuilds both give the following error on starting X:

[adsmith]

By the way, I have hacked ebuilds of xorg-x11-6.8.2 and mplayer-1.0_pre6-r6 which fully support unichrome. I found them online; I don't remember where, but I can provide them to whomever would like them.

I'm glad to here that support is working its way into the official portage tree. So many people have unichromes, and I've found that a properly accelerated unichrome is capable of a few hundred fps in glxgears -- plenty for everything but high-res gaming.


EDIT: the hacked xorg ebuild also provides the appropriate kernel module.

[the_mgt]

Hi there!

I am author of aforementioned howto. That howto is the essence of what made my Epia MII 6000 board running with the mpeg2-hw-acc. It is needed because the board is to slow to do it in software.

The DRM has to be excluded from the kernel and installed seperatly, that's right.

Since nobody told me, that everything is working fine with him and my scripts/howto, i don't know if that way works on all unichrome boards. It is working here, i have a nice multimedia station with freevo running now.

I am usually around at the forum on www.epiawiki.org

Here are some scripts i wrote, so you won't have to do the steps manually:
drm-script
xorg-script
mplayer-ebuild

Last time, i tried out the latest masked ebuild, it didn't work and b0rked my dvb-t card configuration.
The xorg-patches always have to fit with the drm modules used. Last time i tried, the -mm kernel had too old drm, but i heard it is working now.

[alidaf]

I've tried every incarnation of these scripts and I just can't get it to work. Every time I try 'make' after cvs'ing the xfree86 drivers I get the following error:

ISO C forbids data definition with no type or storage class.

I had mythtv up and running from scratch with Fedora Core 3 within a few hours but I've been struggling with Gentoo for over two months now and can't get beyond Unichrome.

Regards

Darren

[adsmith]

here are a couple ebuilds. The xorg ebuild "just worked", and the mplayer ebuild mostly so (still can't get xvmc to fully work on my machine, but no big deal, since I've never really gotten it to work anywhere):

xorg:
http://tock.no-ip.org/~abe/unichrome/xorg-x11-6.8.2-r3002.ebuild

mplayer:
http://tock.no-ip.org/~abe/unichrome/mplayer-1.0_pre6-r6.ebuild

obviously, set package.use, package.mask and package.keywords appropriately

[the_mgt]

@alidaf: the concept of the scripts is, that you dont have to enter anything manually.....
"chmod 755 <scriptname>" them and execute them with ./scriptname, if you are in the directory where the script is.
I have been struggeling for over half a year, when i first tried to get it working...
Are you sure you went through this steps before starting "make":

[alidaf]

Hi there the_mgt. I've noticed your name flying around a lot and take you to be an expert, which, unfortunately I am not. I went through the scripts manually because I thought it would be a useful way to become familiar with Gentoo.

In direct response to your query, I definitely did those steps.

Anyway, thanks for your help. I'm sure there is nothing wrong with the scripts but a prerequisite maybe. I followed the gento guidelines for a stage 1 install, which took forever. I've lost track of what I have but I'm pretty sure the drm install went ok when I did it. I wouldn't be surprised if I've broken it now though!

[the_mgt]

hi!
I wouldn't call myself an expert, but i have lots of experience with these epia things.
Going to the steps manually can be very ennerving, i spend whole weekends just failing everytime, because i forgot something or things like that.

Stage 1 can be a pain in the a**! Took me two month or so, the first time i tried gentoo...
You can definetly use a stage3, which is lot faster and not so complicated. We did that on the board of a friend of mine. You just need to make a kernel, use my drm script and compile xorg (try the "minimal" useflag, that should save time. add it to your useflags in make.conf) with the script. Try first without changing the cflags and cxxflags in make.conf. That should be all....
If i have time later this evening, i will post my make.conf settings and other stuff on the howto on gentoo-wiki.

I was surprised, that i am the first one posting a howto there and that nobody added any stuff since....

I wish you luck with your board, since they are a real charm when working properly!
I use it with freevo and an ir-remote control, it's all very nice.

I have no experience with mythtv, but it should be even more easy than freevo, since mythtv has unichrome support buildin.

[alidaf]

the_mgt,

I think one problem is that there are a lot of slightly different ideas on how to do the same thing. The biggest reason for the differences seems to be version control. Things appear to be developing so fast, the documentation just hasn't caught up yet.

For instance, I think you were the first person to state that a patched kernel is not necessary, yet the howto on epiawiki is still geared towards patched kernels and its one thing I just cannot follow. I started using the guide at MagicItx because the guide at epiawiki is just too confusing but I fell over at the Unichrome section, and its where I've been falling over with every other guide since. I think I may start from scratch, collate all of your recent posts and use your scripts. At least I'll know that I'm operating from the same hymn sheet as you. I don't think I can face another stage 1 though!

Keep up the good work.

[the_mgt]

Exactly that was my problem too! 1001 different ways!

But in the and, all u need is this thread, i hope: http://www.epiawiki.org/wiki/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?comments_parentId=634&topics_threshold=0&topics_offset=13&topics_sort_mode=commentDate_desc&topics_find=&forumId=2

After the stage 3 tarball installation, there is not much to do, just a kernel and all the user progs you like.
We did use a normal gentoo-sources-kernel, didn't use the drm in the kernel but the ones from my script and all is fine. Since my scripts both install the latest versions from sourceforge CVS, there shouldn't be any versioning problems, because they fit together and are managed by the same people, i guess.

I was able to install a working freevo mediasystem over ssh on my friends board with a stage3 install, so i guess it should work for you, too.

Later more, have to go now.

[dan224]

Would someone please help clarify this?

I have an SP13000, using kernel 2.6.13-rc6 and xorg 6.8.99.15

I've compiled my kernel so that the via drm is incorperated - but all of the guides mention loading via drm as a module.

Shouldn't the dri just work in it's present state? glxinfo reports that it's turned off.

I've tried the guide here: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=26963&group_id=102048, but was confused as to which steps I needed to take, exactly.

Thanks!

[adsmith]

did you enable DRI in your xorg.conf?

[dan224]

Yes, I did.

This is from my Xorg.0.log:

[the_mgt]

You said you "incorporated" your drm in the kernel, so you didn't build it as module?
Have you tried building it as module? Does it work then?

Do you use the drm from your kernel or from sourceforge?

And did you notice, that your log says:

[dan224]

I haven't tried building it as a module. Is that my best bet?

I used the drm from my kernel.

How do I disable it?

Yes, CN400.

[the_mgt]

Yes, most of the unichrome stuff works best as module and is known for causing trouble if build-in.

You do disable it, if you don't build it at all in the kernel. If you use menuconfig, leave "<>" blank.
After that you could try an ebuild or my script for dri from cvs. (Posted somewhere above in this thread)

Have a look at http://unichrome.sf.net for compatibility questions, they are the ones who develope the unichrome drivers. http://dri.sf.net has some information, too.

The CN400 is not very supported still. But VIA themself decided to go Open Source... Have a look at http://viaarena,com. Look for the Linux Forum there.

[brumbrum]

The latest stable unichrome-drivers are not found on http://unichrome.sf.net. If you want the latest working drivers, check http://myth.ivor.org.
I had big problems using the old drivers in unichrome.sf.net, but downloading the drivers from myth.ivor.org fixed everything. Just emerge xorg, but look out so you dont remove the work-directory, then compile the drivers from myth.ivor.org following the readme-file, and point the xmkmf to the work-dir of xorg. Then compile the drm-modules to your kernel... then restart X using the via-driver instead of vesa-driver!