mandrake 10 and unichrome video - help!

[rdbrooks]

I am relatively new to linux. I know a little about using terminals, but not much. The video hardware in my homemade PC is the VIA Unichrome integrated system on KM400 north and 8235 south. (MSI KM4M-L mainboard) The VESA driver in linux is excellent for display and even handles some games well, but I really need to get the correct driver setup so I can have hardware acceleration and openGL capability. There is a lot of info and files on the web regarding this, but no one has volunteered to compile an rpm for mandrake 10 to make an easy install for this. (I checked the mandrake development area, and the issue is one of the projects listed for needing a volunteer to develop it.)

I have tried to download and install the drivers myself, but the directions included are always geared towards people who already know exactly what to do in a terminal. Steps are left out because they assume you know how to do what was instructed. There's no point in listing any examples. The oversimplified instructions were still 4 or 5 pages of tech that was way beyond my limited linux experience.

Anyway, I was wondering if there is anybody out there who has successfully installed this video configuration on Mandrake 10. I really like Mandrake 10, but if I can't address this problem, I am greatly limited in what I can do with it.

 

Note : If you haven't actually installed the unichrome drivers successfully yourself, or at least tried to, please don't reply to this post.

Edited September 19, 2004 by rdbrooks

[theYinYeti]

Hello,

 

I'm the same theYinYeti as at viaarena. As you can see, I have installed all needed for unichrome, though on M10000N, not on KN400.

 

I still have sound issues, but you probably won't have those; others don't.

There's no ready binary RPM for via-based hardware. There are 2 main steps:

- kernel

- XFree

After that, all is configuration, and installing/compiling applications.

The best would probably be to go step by step. So first the kernel.

 

As far as I understand, if you want 3D acceleration with standard OpenGL (like glxgears, games), you'll have to use kernel 2.6.7 with epia1 patch. If having 3D acceleration only through XvMC is OK for you (that's OK for DVD and video), then you can try kernel 2.6.8.1 with epia1 patch.

 

After reading the above viaarena thread, do you have questions on this first step?

 

Yves.

[Guest thepolish]

Hi,

 

I saw u have an epia M10000, i ve the same and couldnt make netwok working with 2.6.8.1 kernel !

 

i exposed this in this thread: http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=18959

 

Do u had the same problem? have u any advice ?

 

Thanks a lot

Thepolish

[rdbrooks]

Thanks for your help yeti, but I had no problem finding out what I needed to get. I have the kernel already. I knew I needed the kernel patch and XFree86 4.0 I believe it was. I also got the drivers from viaarena. The problem was with the instructions for installation and compiling, particularly with the via drivers. They seem to be written with the assumption that you already know how to do all the different operations involved so they are extremely vague to someone who doesn't. I am studying some tutorials on general commands and syntax used in installations and compiling. Maybe after a while, the instructions will make sense to me.

[theYinYeti]

(Short note: I use 2.6.7 for now, and network is OK)

 

OK, so patched kernel is installed and running. Next: XFree86!

 

There is a XFree86 src.rpm for Mandrake on unichrome's site, but I don't know exactly what is inside, so I never used it. Here are the instructions for source compiling.

 

Download XFree86-4.4.0 source tgz files (7 of them if I remember correctly).

Download latest packages from unichrome site (all of them except the mp2 player, the xine/mythtv/mplayer plugins, and the 3D binary).

 

Go to the directory where all those files are, and do the following:

$ for file in XFree86*.tgz; do tar xzf "$file"; done
$ cd xc
$ cd programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/drivers
$ mv via OLD.via.SAVE
$ tar xzf ../../../../../../unichrome-X-r26.tar.gz
$ ln -s unichrome-X-r26 via
$ cd -                (dans xc)
$ bzcat ../XFree86-4.4-libviaXvMC-0.12.0-patch.bz2 | patch -p 1
$ cat >config/cf/host.def <<-END
> #define DefaultGcc2i386Opt -march=i686 -O3 -mmmx -msse
> #define GccWarningOptions -pipe
> #define HasMTRRSupport YES
> #define HasMMXSupport YES
> #define Has3DNowSupport NO
> #define HasSSESupport YES
> #define ProjectRoot /usr/local
> #define NothingOutsideProjectRoot YES
> #define EtcX11Directory /usr/local/etc/X11
> END
$ make World >World.log 2>&1
$ su
<enter root password>
# make install
# make install.man
# cat >>/etc/profile <-END
> 
> if [ -n "\${PATH##/usr/local/bin:*}" ]; then
>     export PATH="/usr/local/bin:\$PATH"
> fi
> export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib:\$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
> export C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/local/include
> export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/local/include
> 
> END
# mv -f /etc/ld.so.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.OLD
# (echo "/usr/local/lib"; grep -vFx "/usr/local/lib" /etc/ld.so.conf.OLD) >/etc/ld.so.conf
# ldconfig
# rm -f /etc/X11/X
# ln -s /usr/local/bin/XFree86 /etc/X11/X
# exit
$

After having made sure an appropriate XF86config-4 file is in /usr/local/etc/X11 (you'll find instructions for that on viaarena forums or www.epiawiki.org), restart the computer. You may also have to configure either /etc/X11/fonts, or /usr/local/etc/X11/fonts for the xfs service.

 

That's only for XFree86, XvMC support, and via driver. If you want 3D OpenGL acceleration, then you also need to install the 3D driver (opensource or via). I don't know this step as I haven't done it myself.

 

Note that the above instructions are for installing the custom XFree86 in /usr/local. That's because Mandrake being a RPM-based OS, *many* packages depend on XFree86 packages being present. The way I told you to do, the XFree86 RPM packages, and your custom XFree86 will co-exist, but your own XFree86 will have priority (that's true for libs, includes, and binaries).

 

Of course, if you want to make use of this just-installed XvMC capability, you'll have to download and use the plugins from unichrome site. Currently supported are MPlayer, Xine, and MythTV. I've been using only the Xine plugin so far.

 

I hope I did not make any mistake. Please ask all the questions you want.

 

Yves.

Edited September 23, 2004 by theYinYeti

[rdbrooks]

Thanks very much. This seems to actually make sense to me so I'll give it a try this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

[theYinYeti]

Small detail: there's an updated version on viaarena. And:

- <-END should be <<-END

- (dans xc) means (back in xc)

 

Good luck!

Yves.