Installing Ubuntu 10.04 on fitPC2 and fitPC2i

[Denis]

You can install Ubuntu 10.04 with EMGD drivers like described here:
http://fit-pc2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=2026
Just use Ubuntu LiveCD/USB instead LinuxMint.

[jeanmark]

You can install Ubuntu 10.04 with EMGD drivers like described here:
http://fit-pc2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=2026
Just use Ubuntu LiveCD/USB instead LinuxMint.

Thanks!

Works ok. Full HD to my Philips TV. But h264 videos does not work ok. If I go with Full HD resolution, screen start to flickering. If I set to HD ready resolution, picture is ok, but sound and video are not synchronized (H264 video). With mplayer. I will try some other video formats.

boxee and xbmc are very very vrey slow.

[Denis]

boxee and xbmc are very very vrey slow.

It`s ok. Only mplayer-vaapi intended to work with HD videos on high resolution. Other players don`t use HW acceleration features.

[jeanmark]

boxee and xbmc are very very vrey slow.

It`s ok. Only mplayer-vaapi intended to work with HD videos on high resolution. Other players don`t use HW acceleration features.

Yes, but even with mplayer-vaapi video lost synhronization with audio. And plays a little slow.

[fly]

I udapted thie initial post once more, reflecting the current changes:

- Linux Foundation prompoting the PowerVR driver issue to top priority
- new EMGD drivers
- XV support in the community maintained psb driver
- Alan Cox working on an new, free, open source driver
- Fix for video cluttering using mplayer's "-vfm mediatype" option

This fixes the last critical bug for this release. However, driver situation for gma500 is still worse and master mode for some wlan models is still not possible/confirmed.

[Kyo_O]

Hello all,

I have a device (see my signature for details) since 09/2010 and i tried a lot of solutions before i found one getting "almost acceptable" for a mediaplayer configuration so i thought it might be usefull to share my experience.
In waiting for new opensource video drivers that might be released in the coming months, here is the quick step-by-step installation instructions which brought the better results in my case:

- Install Mint 10 (should work with Maverick as well i suppose)
- Install all updates and reboot
- Run "wget dl.dropbox.com/u/1338581/emgd/emgd-maverick.sh && sh ./emgd-maverick.sh"
- Download and install manually libva1, libva-dev, libva-x11-1, vainfo, mplayer and gnome-mplayer from http://ppa.launchpad.net/gma500/emgd/ubuntu/pool/main/
- Replace /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with this one: http://pastebin.com/JvFXKb2e
- Replace /etc/default/grub with this one: http://pastebin.com/NPMUVcJi and run update-grub2
- Add "export GMA500_WORKAROUND=yes" to /etc/bash.bashrc
- If you want you can modify /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and replace the line "default-sample-channels = 2" with "default-sample-channels = 6"
- Add line "/usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog" to /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11
- Reboot
- Désactivate all visual effects in gnome appearence preferences (set to none) if there's some
- Install Smplayer if you want. Follow this link to fix crashes with VAAPI: http://linux-tipps.blogspot.com/2009/12 ... vaapi.html
- For running mplayer in command line, here some examples of some available parameters:

mplayer -vo vaapi -va vaapi -ao alsa:device=spdif -fs -cache 32000 -framedrop -stop-xscreensaver file.mkv
mplayer -vo xv -ao pulse -cache 32000 -stop-xscreensaver file.avi

- At last, if some artefacts occurs during playback, try to add "-vfm codec_name" as parameter of mplayer (ex: -vfm xvid)

Like that, i can play every SD and HD videos with Mplayer without any crash or artefact, choosing the video output between "xv" and "vaapi"

Still annoying problems (for me) are:

- When using smplayer, some videos still crash mplayer thus needing to reboot completely the device to get working again
- AC3 SPDIF passthru doesn't work with pulseaudio (bug here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/pulseaudio/+bug/520157, possible workaround here: http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/12/bobby-dig ... -surround/)
- XBMC or enna doesn't work at all (due to dramaticaly poor gtkperfs with emgd i suppose?), even tried compilation from sources and special settings found in forums that could help working better
- VAAPI in VLC doesn't work properly

N.B: I didn't tried the new PSB drivers which support xv playback, i know it has better 2D performances too but in my case PSB caused X to crash each time my TV went off/on, too bad

[fly]

Thanks for the howto, but you might be better off in the Linux MInt Board (or the one for Ubuntu 10.10, as Mint 10 is based on this version rather than lucid).

[radioxid]

Again thanks for the How-To!
I'll try to follow it this weekend in order to compare your findings with my regular hw-accelerated Mint configuration.

I may well use the most cpu-savvy Mint installation (what'd you consider the lighter? lxde, xfce, fluxbox, gnome, or kde?) Unfortunately, I've the just previous fitpc2 release which does not have spdif out. To what extent your How-To should be modified to fit my needs?

kthxbye

[Kyo_O]

Of course fly, it's a mistake so i put it in the right board

[Kyo_O]

Hi, radioxid

LXDE and fluxbox are the lighter desktop managers, i used LXDE which is OK on Mint 9 but unfortunately for some reasons Mint developpers didn't keep it for Mint 10 releases.
Concerning the sound, just ignore the "alsa:device=spdif" in mplayer command line and everything else should be the same