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Author Topic: 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install  (Read 140530 times)

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bitbytebit

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32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« on: November 30, 2010, 07:03:53 pm »
32 bit and 64 bit Groovy Arcade Linux liveCD/install using my kernel patch and switchres.  

This is tailored to run on Arcade monitors and utilize the newest versions of X and Linux DRM/KMS kernel.  It also contains GroovyMame and Mess with cabmame patches, should be able to do the best possible display of arcade resolutions of any Linux distribution using groovymame/switchres Mess, advance menu or wahcade frontends and mupen64plus/gens/zsnes/nestopia/stella emulators.  

Also I have the complete build scripts and extra files needed to build the Groovy Arcade Linux liveCD distribution from scratch, although not recommended because of the effort and having it already built for you, it is available for the curious.

http://arcade.groovy.org


Live CD of Groovy Arcade Linux, 32 bit and 64 bit versions
==========================================================

You can choose to run the ISO as a LiveCD or Install it to
your hard drive.  You will need a completely empty (no partitions)
drive to install to unless you want to manually setup partitions.
With the LiveCD you can use a partition as your 'home' directory
and it can save the setup for future reboots.  It is recommended
to setup a swap partition with the LiveCD but not necessary, it
just helps when generating the Wah!Cade game database. 

There's basically 3 sections to the main setup menu...
1. Setup options
2. LiveCD options
3. Install to disk

You can just to straight to installing to disk, and it'll autopartition
the drive for you into the proper partitions needed to install.

You can choose the LiveCD options and setup a stateful home drive, setup
swap space, and/or just startup the FrontEnd in X Windows.  You also can
change the frontend in Setup options, configure Advance Menu, use a window
manager to do system configuration from xterms (or use as a desktop and
browse the web etc.).
« Last Edit: April 16, 2011, 06:13:48 am by bitbytebit »
SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

Quinny

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Looks interesting! I will try this out.

Quinny

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I have an arcadeVGA 3000 on my system and I tested with my CRT monitor and a PAL TV.

On the PAL TV, after it got to the stage of changing the resolution, the text all went swirlly and could not be read. I guessed at options and got to the X window which was showing me one screen split three times and did not stretch to the screen (which could be because of the first CGA option I chose).
It didn't look like a PAL option was available to select, could this please be added?

On the monitor I used the SVGA option and got to the X window. The menu was slightly off to the left of my screen. Could possibly be ok on there but I don't want to use a CRT monitor in the end.

bitbytebit

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I have an arcadeVGA 3000 on my system and I tested with my CRT monitor and a PAL TV.

On the PAL TV, after it got to the stage of changing the resolution, the text all went swirlly and could not be read. I guessed at options and got to the X window which was showing me one screen split three times and did not stretch to the screen (which could be because of the first CGA option I chose).
It didn't look like a PAL option was available to select, could this please be added?

On the monitor I used the SVGA option and got to the X window. The menu was slightly off to the left of my screen. Could possibly be ok on there but I don't want to use a CRT monitor in the end.

Ah, yeah I actually haven't put in PAL or NTSC TV support yet, but I will look at doing that in the next day or so.  Thanks for the report to remind me of that, definitely something I need to think about.

So you could see the Grub boot prompt then, that is good if so since I can at that point have an option for a PAL or NTSC frame buffer modeline too.  Will let you know when I've gotten that support put in, which I'm redoing the kernel patch some with new modelines and the configuration setup right now so it's a good time to add that in.

Good to know though that the ArcadeVGA 3000 works actually, because it didn't a kernel version back and it might be fixed actually which is a great thing.  Mine didn't work at least when I tested it last, but also haven't had time to put it in there and test it lately.
SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

Quinny

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Ah, yeah I actually haven't put in PAL or NTSC TV support yet, but I will look at doing that in the next day or so.  Thanks for the report to remind me of that, definitely something I need to think about.

So you could see the Grub boot prompt then, that is good if so since I can at that point have an option for a PAL or NTSC frame buffer modeline too.  Will let you know when I've gotten that support put in, which I'm redoing the kernel patch some with new modelines and the configuration setup right now so it's a good time to add that in.

Good to know though that the ArcadeVGA 3000 works actually, because it didn't a kernel version back and it might be fixed actually which is a great thing.  Mine didn't work at least when I tested it last, but also haven't had time to put it in there and test it lately.

Thanks bitbytebit. Yes I could see the GRUB menu and it still showed some of the status lines as it went but then it changed resolutions and I couldn't read it anymore.

Will look forward to seeing PAL support added. :)

bitbytebit

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Ah, yeah I actually haven't put in PAL or NTSC TV support yet, but I will look at doing that in the next day or so.  Thanks for the report to remind me of that, definitely something I need to think about.

So you could see the Grub boot prompt then, that is good if so since I can at that point have an option for a PAL or NTSC frame buffer modeline too.  Will let you know when I've gotten that support put in, which I'm redoing the kernel patch some with new modelines and the configuration setup right now so it's a good time to add that in.

Good to know though that the ArcadeVGA 3000 works actually, because it didn't a kernel version back and it might be fixed actually which is a great thing.  Mine didn't work at least when I tested it last, but also haven't had time to put it in there and test it lately.


Thanks bitbytebit. Yes I could see the GRUB menu and it still showed some of the status lines as it went but then it changed resolutions and I couldn't read it anymore.

Will look forward to seeing PAL support added. :)

I'm uploading new .iso images now, should be a few hours before they are up there, will be livecd32_12-03-2010_1291434263.iso and livecd64_12-03-2010_1291434978.iso.  These should boot directly into X Windows and use the newest kernel, more statefull saving of configured information if there's a home directory.   Also the enable the ethernet interface by default when booted the first time and in configuration mode, so should be able to get into them easier if they don't work and see what the logs say.  There's definitely a few rough edges still but should be good hopefully to test the theory that X Windows may work while the DRM console doesn't. 

I added a framebuffer option for PAL support, and also curious if the X Windows shows up or not after boot and if the PAL framebuffer works to that point.  I'm not sure if I'll need to use that same frame buffer modeline in X Windows on boot or not, so should be able to tell from the results you see.  If you have remote ssh access then you can do some tests, root password will be arcade to the system through ssh.  If it works up till X starts, then ssh into the box and the menu system should be there, configure it from there possibly and use pal as your monitor type.  This would be interesting to see if that works if the default X startup doesn't.  The framebuffer seems sort of different than the X modelines reaction, so I'm not sure if the modeline I used is bad or it's another framebuffer oddness in the DRM stuff.

SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

bitbytebit

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Ah found a bug in the new one, well a couple :/.  Will let you know when I get them fixed, had restricted the xorg.conf hsync too tightly for the generic modeline used to setup, and the kernel changes seem to have totally allowed the frame buffer to be way too free with what modelines it used too.
SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

bitbytebit

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New .iso images are up, 32/64 bit, should hopefully have more of a chance working with PAL TV's.  Curious if the framebuffer shows up, either either with the default CGA option or possibly the PAL option if it doesn't.  Also if X Windows works with the modeline it'll use, else I may need to make a different modeline for PAL TV's. 
SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

Quinny

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New .iso images are up, 32/64 bit, should hopefully have more of a chance working with PAL TV's.  Curious if the framebuffer shows up, either either with the default CGA option or possibly the PAL option if it doesn't.  Also if X Windows works with the modeline it'll use, else I may need to make a different modeline for PAL TV's. 

Thankyou bitbytebit.

I realised now that the original issue with the triple screen is because the modes are not set properly. I found this out when I tried to boot normally. I have to change to a lrmc -pal mode of some sort to get a clear screen on the TV. Using the PAL option from the LiveCD doesn't work once X starts but it is ok before that when it shows the command outputs as it's installing/running or if I switch to a terminal screen.

The 768 x 576 x 50i is being used in the terminal but not in X for some reason. I can set that using lrmc values and adding to xrandr after I boot normally, but I can't do this from the LiveCD as there is no terminal window available.

Going in to Wahcade and selecting a non-arcade system and choosing a game in there will change the resolution on the TV and sometimes it becomes readable but other times it breaks. I couldn't find any resolutions in the arcade section which changed the TV resolution (there are no games linked to the titles, don't know if that makes a difference).

I tried to run the ISO to boot from a USB stick and it would not work because it couldn't get past the GRUB menu, like the file references were mixed up and it couldn't find squashfs. I don't know if that's an issue with how I installed it on the USB stick or if that is a problem within the LiveCD code. It would be good to not have to burn a CD everytime to test a new version of the ISO.


bitbytebit

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New .iso images are up, 32/64 bit, should hopefully have more of a chance working with PAL TV's.  Curious if the framebuffer shows up, either either with the default CGA option or possibly the PAL option if it doesn't.  Also if X Windows works with the modeline it'll use, else I may need to make a different modeline for PAL TV's. 

Thankyou bitbytebit.

I realised now that the original issue with the triple screen is because the modes are not set properly. I found this out when I tried to boot normally. I have to change to a lrmc -pal mode of some sort to get a clear screen on the TV. Using the PAL option from the LiveCD doesn't work once X starts but it is ok before that when it shows the command outputs as it's installing/running or if I switch to a terminal screen.

The 768 x 576 x 50i is being used in the terminal but not in X for some reason. I can set that using lrmc values and adding to xrandr after I boot normally, but I can't do this from the LiveCD as there is no terminal window available.

Going in to Wahcade and selecting a non-arcade system and choosing a game in there will change the resolution on the TV and sometimes it becomes readable but other times it breaks. I couldn't find any resolutions in the arcade section which changed the TV resolution (there are no games linked to the titles, don't know if that makes a difference).

I tried to run the ISO to boot from a USB stick and it would not work because it couldn't get past the GRUB menu, like the file references were mixed up and it couldn't find squashfs. I don't know if that's an issue with how I installed it on the USB stick or if that is a problem within the LiveCD code. It would be good to not have to burn a CD everytime to test a new version of the ISO.



Interesting, that is good that the boot up and DRM stuff works, it means I just have to setup the first X Windows startup config used to configure using the PAL definition.  I didn't do that in this version, I wanted to see if the generic modeline worked but it seems it doesn't.  The main reason I avoided it is there is a bit of tricky stuff involved with knowing which boot option was chosen, but seems that will be necessary and not terribly hard (just seemed a bit messy if not necessary).  Thanks so much for testing this, definitely interesting and hopefully next version if I have X startup up using the PAL definitions it might just act right I hope (hopefully then my switchres configuration for PAL settings are correct to produce modelines that work right on the TV for all games, that has not been tested). 

Yeah the live cd thing is a start, I'm wanting to get it working fully then look at the way to have an installation option too.  The trick with that is the live CD build I do basically specifies the system to use a liveCD and won't work any other way without reversing that.  So I'll have to go through and find all the differences and see how to reverse them, not sure if it'll just be a simple thing and able to copy the live CD and run a few scripts or it'll be a whole other build necessary.  I'm sure it'll eventually grow into a full installation CD too, since Gentoo can do that from a live CD, I just want make sure to keep it as small of iso as possible and avoid downloading too much extra stuff and compiling it which is how Gentoo mostly works usually.  Would rather have a small binary archive to decompress into the / root directory and transform the installation into a normal one from a liveCD one.

Might be later tonight I think, or tomorrow, since waiting on reports from another person to see how it goes for certain Arcade monitors and can hopefully add any fixes needed there too if there's issues.  It's actually very close though it sounds like in your case, I just need to put some checking and run the xorg.conf creation with pal as the argument instead of generic and if switchres likes the modelines we are set.


Here's a something to try though, might be a way to get it working...


When booted up into X, where you can't see it, push Ctl-Alt-F2
You should then be at the second console prompt (left that open to allow this type of thing, seems it's needed :)).
type `killall startup.pl` about 3-4 times till it says it can't find anything
push Ctl-Alt-F1 and push Ctl-C a few times and enter till it's a command prompt
Then type the following commands:

rm -rf /root/setup_done
rm -rf /home/arcade/.gentooarcade/
rm -rf /home/arcade/arcade.orig

After that, you need to patch it, I just added what should work to support checking the kernel command prompt for
which monitor type exactly was specified.  If you put this patch on a usb stick, and mount that, suspect you'll be able
to get it onto the system and of course after this is done and your home directory is a real partition then the setup
should be saved even though the boot CD won't have these changes permanently (only ran when no home directory is
found with the previous configuration on it).

basically go into / and type `cat /mnt/usbstick/this.diff | patch -p0` or -p1 if that doesn't work (think it'd be -p0).

Code: [Select]
diff --git a/root/create_xorg-dyn.pl b/root/create_xorg-dyn.pl
index f2b9d8f..04b6739 100755
--- a/root/create_xorg-dyn.pl
+++ b/root/create_xorg-dyn.pl
@@ -10,15 +10,15 @@ print "# $monitor Monitor configuration\n\n";
 my $hfreq_range = "";
 my $vfreq_range = "";

-if ($monitor eq 'cga' || $monitor eq 'generic') {
-        $hfreq_range = "15-16.6";
-        $vfreq_range = "49.5-65";
-} elsif($monitor eq 'd9800' || $monitor eq 'd9200') {
+if($monitor eq 'd9800' || $monitor eq 'd9200') {
         $hfreq_range = "15.1-38.5";
         $vfreq_range = "40-80";
 } elsif($monitor eq 'h9110') {
         $hfreq_range = "15.625-16.670";
         $vfreq_range = "49.5-65";
+} elsif($monitor ne 'multi') {
+        $hfreq_range = "15-16.6";
+        $vfreq_range = "49.5-65";
 }

 `Xorg -configure 2>&1 >/dev/null`;
diff --git a/root/create_xorg.pl b/root/create_xorg.pl
index 43ad522..f54838e 100755
--- a/root/create_xorg.pl
+++ b/root/create_xorg.pl
@@ -29,16 +29,16 @@ $PCIID =~ s/\./:/g;
 my $hfreq_range = "";
 my $vfreq_range = "";

-if ($monitor eq 'cga' || $monitor eq 'generic') {
-       $hfreq_range = "15-16";
-       $vfreq_range = "49.5-65";
-} elsif($monitor eq 'd9800' || $monitor eq 'd9200') {
+if($monitor eq 'd9800' || $monitor eq 'd9200') {
        $hfreq_range = "15.1-38.5";
        $vfreq_range = "40-80";
 } elsif($monitor eq 'h9110') {
        $hfreq_range = "15.625-16.670";
        $vfreq_range = "49.5-65";
-}
+} elsif ($monitor ne 'multi') {
+       $hfreq_range = "15-16";
+       $vfreq_range = "49.5-65";
+}

 my @newfile = `cat /root/xorg.conf-TEMPLATE`;
 my $in_monitor = 0;
diff --git a/root/startup.pl b/root/startup.pl
index 15ee3d7..d04a0a6 100755
--- a/root/startup.pl
+++ b/root/startup.pl
@@ -85,12 +85,34 @@ if (! -d "/home/arcade/$CFG_DIR") {
 # Check if first setup has been done
 my $start_x = 0;
 if (! -e "/root/setup_done" && $tty =~ /\/dev\/tty1/ && $home eq '') {
-       my $montype = "multi";
-       my $cmdline = `cat /proc/cmdline`;
-       chomp($cmdline);
-       if ($cmdline =~ /\svideo=\d+x\d+.*c/) {
-               $montype = "generic";
-       }
+        my $montype = "multi";
+        my $cmdline = `cat /proc/cmdline`;
+        chomp($cmdline);
+        if ($cmdline =~ /\svideo=.*\d+x\d+c/) {
+                $montype = "generic";
+                my (@ca) = split(/\s+/, $cmdline);
+                my $vline = "";
+                foreach(@ca) {
+                        my $line = $_;
+                        chomp($line);
+                        if ($line =~ /video/) {
+                                $vline = $line;
+                        }
+                }
+                my ($v, $wh) = split(/=/, $vline);
+                my ($j, $k) = split(/:/, $wh);
+                if ($k ne '') {
+                        $wh = $k;
+                }
+                $wh =~ s/x/_/g;
+                $wh =~ s/[a-zA-Z]//g;
+                my ($w, $h) = split(/_/, $wh);
+                if ($w == 720 && $h == 480) {
+                        $montype = "ntsc";
+                } elsif ($w == 768 && $h == 576) {
+                        $montype = "pal";
+                }
+        }
        # No configuration yet
        setup_monitor($montype);
        system("rm -f .xinitrc");


Ok, so all that is done, scripts patched and those directories and files removed.  Then you just type 'exit' at the
root prompt and should then startup X again with the PAL definitions in xorg.conf hopefully.

I'll get that onto the next liveCD, so either play around trying this or it should be all up in a day or so, but would be interesting for you to test it this way to see since it'll definitely save time if there's still an issue with it like this.

SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

Quinny

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Thanks. Do you mean install the ISO on a USB stick and patch that? Then boot from the liveCD as a CD while also having the USB stick mounted?

I may not have time to test this before you create the next patch but I'll keep an eye out.

Thankyou so much for doing this.

Any reason for the Wahcade arcade games not changing the resolution but the other game systems would?

bitbytebit

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Thanks. Do you mean install the ISO on a USB stick and patch that? Then boot from the liveCD as a CD while also having the USB stick mounted?

I may not have time to test this before you create the next patch but I'll keep an eye out.

Thankyou so much for doing this.

Any reason for the Wahcade arcade games not changing the resolution but the other game systems would?


Just from the live CD actually, just using the USB stick to store the patch and mount that to access it.

I'm not sure what is going on there with the resolutions, but that part of having the  games accessible and all able to get setup properly is definitely something that needs work right now.  I've got it setup in a static configuration currently where the /data/ directory has the same basic tree as mine does and it expects that.  Plus the wahcade setup is somewhat static and possibly going through the setup of it will re-index them games for you.  I plan on focusing on that and making it all easier to setup, also possibly change it so the /data/ directory can be actually just /home/arcade/ or inside there if a person has one single partition they are using.  The /data/ directory structure is like this:


#
# Default directory layout for WahCade
#
## ROMS
/data/artwork_all
/data/samples
/data/roms
/data/biosroms
/data/Games/NES
/data/Games/SNES
/data/Games/Coleco
/data/Games/N64
/data/Games/C64
/data/Games/Atari2600
/data/Games/SegaGenesis
#
## Snap shots
/data/screen_shots/NES/snaps
/data/screen_shots/SNES/snaps
/data/screen_shots/Coleco/snaps
/data/screen_shots/N64/snaps
/data/screen_shots/C64/snaps
/data/screen_shots/Atari2600/snaps
/data/screen_shots/SegaGenesis/snaps
## Mame control/info files
/data/ctl
## Mame snapshots
/data/mrq
/data/cab
/data/fly
/data/cat
/data/pcb
/data/ttl
/data/prv
/data/ico


Possibly try running the games from an xterm, 'switchres <game>' and maybe add -v -v (more make it more verbose) and see what is going on there, or even add to that `--args -verbose` after all the other args which passes -verbose to mame. 
SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

bitbytebit

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In a few hours or so there should be new versions of the .iso's up, which hopefully fix the PAL tv support.  They also have better support for installation to a drive/usb stick, the support for that isn't fully tested but in theory it's now possible.  There's a menu option, but not complete in setting up, it's very experimental.  There's more support now for setting up the links properly to the ROM drive to all work properly when not located in the default directories. 

Will be named livecd32_12-06-2010_1291689634.iso and livecd64_12-06-2010_1291690462.iso
SwitchRes / GroovyMame - http://arcade.groovy.org
Modeline Generator and Mame Wrapper for Windows or Linux
LiveCD of Groovy Arcade Linux for Arcade Monitors
GroovyMame - generate arcade resolutions like advancemame
--
The Groovy Organization

Quinny

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Just trying again from a USB stick and this is the same error as last time:

>> Determining looptype ...
!! Invalid loop location: /livecd.squashfs
!! Please export LOOP with a valid location, or reboot and pass a proper loop=...
!! kernel command line!

It drops into BusyBox and I can't see the USB stick from there, or so it seems. I can't find livecd.squashfs even though it should be in the root directory.

bitbytebit

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Just trying again from a USB stick and this is the same error as last time:

>> Determining looptype ...
!! Invalid loop location: /livecd.squashfs
!! Please export LOOP with a valid location, or reboot and pass a proper loop=...
!! kernel command line!

It drops into BusyBox and I can't see the USB stick from there, or so it seems. I can't find livecd.squashfs even though it should be in the root directory.

Yeah it won't actually run that way most likely, it would have to be first booted from the liveCD and then the installer stuff I'm writing would need to basically re-groom the system to be able to boot on another medium.  The whole setup of the liveCD seems like it requires a CD to mount the part with the squashfs on it.  I need to look at how the USB stick installation with a squashfs is done though since it should be possible too.  Right now I've somewhat gotten the things I *think* done to install it to a hard drive decompressed and like a normal installation.  It's crude still though, but then I need to look at what exactly a usb stick would require.  

Hopefully this version should allow X Windows to work right on the PAL TV though, curious as to how that goes.  If it has trouble switching again then try the switchres command in an xterm and post the 'switchres -v -v -v <game> --args -verbose` output since that'll hopefully show what's going on.


Update: I think I may see how to do that, it may be as simple as the kernel option for USB Mass storage support being built in and  not a module.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2010, 08:42:54 am by bitbytebit »
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bitbytebit

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I'm compiling USB Mass storage support in the kernel, actually most likely will get a USB stick myself and do some tests to get this working since I'd like to run it this way too.  So hopefully will have liveCD/USB and installation support in a day or so, if it all works it's definitely more than I'd hoped getting working this soon :).  I'm just not fully sure yet if the liveCD stuff and USB bootup are somehow going to differ in it expecting to mount a CDROM instead of the USB stick, I'll have to research that and test it to see.
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Quinny

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When I boot up with a monitor connected (DVI-0) and a TV connected (DVI-1) switchres tries to update the monitor. If I use xrandr to put that same mode on to DVI-1 (the TV) then the resolution changes. I tried this with pacman and the resolution was not so good as the image wobbled quite a bit. The resolution for mace was reasonably good though.

When first starting X the resolution is still no good and it shows me the "three screens" issue.

If I just boot up with the TV connected it still thinks it's DVI-1 and for some reason using switchres will break it. I have to type the modes into xrandr to see the change. As you can imagine that is quite tedious. :)
Maybe using xrandr instead of switchres isn't as effective at changing the resolutions?

Using switchres --monitor pal changes the values for the modeline and switchres still doesn't work. The screen goes black and I get it back by using xrandr.

bitbytebit

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When I boot up with a monitor connected (DVI-0) and a TV connected (DVI-1) switchres tries to update the monitor. If I use xrandr to put that same mode on to DVI-1 (the TV) then the resolution changes. I tried this with pacman and the resolution was not so good as the image wobbled quite a bit. The resolution for mace was reasonably good though.

When first starting X the resolution is still no good and it shows me the "three screens" issue.

If I just boot up with the TV connected it still thinks it's DVI-1 and for some reason using switchres will break it. I have to type the modes into xrandr to see the change. As you can imagine that is quite tedious. :)
Maybe using xrandr instead of switchres isn't as effective at changing the resolutions?

Using switchres --monitor pal changes the values for the modeline and switchres still doesn't work. The screen goes black and I get it back by using xrandr.


One thing is that having a monitor connected and a TV/Arcade monitor is really hard to get working with xrandr mode changing, since it likes to try and have all monitors the same unless the xorg.conf is setup very carefully.  It'll end up refusing to change it at all, but also it sounds like something else is going on which might have to do or not (not sure about it) with the boot option change to have all the output's enabled with video=HxWec (the 'e' added now).  If you can, in the grub menu see if you can change the command line to not include that 'e' and using just the TV see if you get anything better.

Also I'm curious about what your 'xrandr -q' output looks like, with just the TV connected and with both TV/Monitor connected at boot.  That might give me more information on what it's doing exactly there.   

It also sounds like the PAL modeline generation is a bit 'off' which I did suspect could be possible, since the values used might be wrong and I wasn't sure yet what to use for those exactly.  What would be interesting is if you had a modeline generated with lrmc for each of the ones that look bad, and compared the two, I might be able to start figuring out more with that information quicker.  It definitely sounds like if I can get this working on the USB stick I guess it'll be at least easier to change out the kernel or alter the grub.conf bootup.  Is your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file generated saying it's PAL at the top, and what does it look like at the bottom  with the modeline generated for it?  If the console is working it in theory should be using the exact same modeline now for X but there might be something going wrong with generating the xorg.conf properly I am guessing.  Unfortunately too, the dual monitor support is probably going to be very 'weird', at least I suspect, since the way I'm doing setup of the xorg.conf doesn't take into account for that and I'm not fully sure what exactly will happen :).     So hopefully the output of xrandr -q and possibly even the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file would help some too, the output of `dmesg` might even be good I thinik, after you've done switches (also the /var/log/dmesg might help since that's the bootup info, while the dmesg output will fill up the buffer quite fast and lose information from startup).
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Quinny

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One thing is that having a monitor connected and a TV/Arcade monitor is really hard to get working with xrandr mode changing, since it likes to try and have all monitors the same unless the xorg.conf is setup very carefully.  It'll end up refusing to change it at all, but also it sounds like something else is going on which might have to do or not (not sure about it) with the boot option change to have all the output's enabled with video=HxWec (the 'e' added now).  If you can, in the grub menu see if you can change the command line to not include that 'e' and using just the TV see if you get anything better.

This works and shows only one monitor with xrandr. However, it is still using a mode (1024x768 I think) which is not compatable with PAL on startup.

Also I'm curious about what your 'xrandr -q' output looks like, with just the TV connected and with both TV/Monitor connected at boot.  That might give me more information on what it's doing exactly there.   

I am not sure how to get this info from the computer I am testing on to this one I am using now.
This is with both the TV and monitor connected.
Both DVI-0 and DVI-1 have the exact same parameters.
DVI-0 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 60.0*
800x600 60.3
640x480 59.9
512x384 120.0
400x300 120.6
320x240 120.1

With just the TV (with video=HxWec):
Same as above.

Just TV with video=HxWc:
Same as above.

It also sounds like the PAL modeline generation is a bit 'off' which I did suspect could be possible, since the values used might be wrong and I wasn't sure yet what to use for those exactly.  What would be interesting is if you had a modeline generated with lrmc for each of the ones that look bad, and compared the two, I might be able to start figuring out more with that information quicker.  It definitely sounds like if I can get this working on the USB stick I guess it'll be at least easier to change out the kernel or alter the grub.conf bootup.  Is your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file generated saying it's PAL at the top, and what does it look like at the bottom  with the modeline generated for it?  If the console is working it in theory should be using the exact same modeline now for X but there might be something going wrong with generating the xorg.conf properly I am guessing.  Unfortunately too, the dual monitor support is probably going to be very 'weird', at least I suspect, since the way I'm doing setup of the xorg.conf doesn't take into account for that and I'm not fully sure what exactly will happen :).     So hopefully the output of xrandr -q and possibly even the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file would help some too, the output of `dmesg` might even be good I thinik, after you've done switches (also the /var/log/dmesg might help since that's the bootup info, while the dmesg output will fill up the buffer quite fast and lose information from startup).

There is no file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Again, not sure how to get those files from that PC to this one.

Sorry I can't provide more info with the logs. I'll see if I can figure out a way to get the files across.

bitbytebit

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One thing is that having a monitor connected and a TV/Arcade monitor is really hard to get working with xrandr mode changing, since it likes to try and have all monitors the same unless the xorg.conf is setup very carefully.  It'll end up refusing to change it at all, but also it sounds like something else is going on which might have to do or not (not sure about it) with the boot option change to have all the output's enabled with video=HxWec (the 'e' added now).  If you can, in the grub menu see if you can change the command line to not include that 'e' and using just the TV see if you get anything better.

This works and shows only one monitor with xrandr. However, it is still using a mode (1024x768 I think) which is not compatable with PAL on startup.

Also I'm curious about what your 'xrandr -q' output looks like, with just the TV connected and with both TV/Monitor connected at boot.  That might give me more information on what it's doing exactly there.   

I am not sure how to get this info from the computer I am testing on to this one I am using now.
This is with both the TV and monitor connected.
Both DVI-0 and DVI-1 have the exact same parameters.
DVI-0 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 60.0*
800x600 60.3
640x480 59.9
512x384 120.0
400x300 120.6
320x240 120.1

With just the TV (with video=HxWec):
Same as above.

Just TV with video=HxWc:
Same as above.

It also sounds like the PAL modeline generation is a bit 'off' which I did suspect could be possible, since the values used might be wrong and I wasn't sure yet what to use for those exactly.  What would be interesting is if you had a modeline generated with lrmc for each of the ones that look bad, and compared the two, I might be able to start figuring out more with that information quicker.  It definitely sounds like if I can get this working on the USB stick I guess it'll be at least easier to change out the kernel or alter the grub.conf bootup.  Is your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file generated saying it's PAL at the top, and what does it look like at the bottom  with the modeline generated for it?  If the console is working it in theory should be using the exact same modeline now for X but there might be something going wrong with generating the xorg.conf properly I am guessing.  Unfortunately too, the dual monitor support is probably going to be very 'weird', at least I suspect, since the way I'm doing setup of the xorg.conf doesn't take into account for that and I'm not fully sure what exactly will happen :).     So hopefully the output of xrandr -q and possibly even the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file would help some too, the output of `dmesg` might even be good I thinik, after you've done switches (also the /var/log/dmesg might help since that's the bootup info, while the dmesg output will fill up the buffer quite fast and lose information from startup).

There is no file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Again, not sure how to get those files from that PC to this one.

Sorry I can't provide more info with the logs. I'll see if I can figure out a way to get the files across.


Interesting, it's having the default modelines used it seems, so I suspect it's not creating an xorg.conf which sounds like what your seeing so it's trying to use the default modes then.  Oddly it sounds like for some reason the xorg.conf isn't getting setup right, not sure why that's occuring though, it might be from the custom command line change it's not working with my check for the command line.  Good to know though that the 'e' option causes the issue, although that also might be a fix for Jpac and Arcade monitors, so might have to do some more exact forcing of things to work on the first output like Soft15Khz has to do.

What does this show, `cat /proc/cmdline`?   When you get the 1024x768 resolutions for X, that would be interesting to see since that's what it parses to setup the monitor config.  Also is the home directory your using writable, is there a .gentooarcade/ directory in /home/arcade/ (/home/arcade/.gentooarcade/), and what does the config file contain in that directory?  Another thing you can do, at the command prompt as root run `create_xorg.pl pal > /etc/X11/xorg.conf` and copy that to /home/arcade/.gentooarcade/ and it'll at least force it to use the right xorg.conf setup, and also can check and make sure that really works too.

I think I've figured out the fuzzy pacman issue, why some resolutions are not good like that one.  Has to do with some calculations in switchres which needed a check for strict Horizontal freq displays like a TV and how it's interlaced normally and has an extra half line I guess.  I'll check with Calamity to see what he thinks, but I think I have a good fix for it.  Also think some of the timing information needs to be slightly altered too for the front porch/back porch possibly to make sure things are more correct with the resolutions generated for TV's.
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If you have the network enabled, then just running `scp -C /file root@host:`  should allow you to transfer them, or mount the USB stick and copy them to it.  I mostly think I know what's going on with things now, except just not sure why exactly that xorg.conf doesn't exist and what /proc/cmdline contains that would not allow it to be created with the startup script.  It sounds odd it's using the default modes, acting as if the 'c' option isn't on the command line but it should be, so possibly seeing /proc/cmdline output and doing some of the other stuff I mentioned might help figure it out.
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New .iso images are up which should work with usb booting now hopefully, also has the change to possibly fix the bad fuzzy resolution for some PAL modelines, and have removed the 'e' part of the boot command for PAL mode (so no longer have to edit the grub config for it).  Let me know how the USB goes and if X Windows acts any better too, and how the new modelines work. 
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New .iso images are up which should work with usb booting now hopefully, also has the change to possibly fix the bad fuzzy resolution for some PAL modelines, and have removed the 'e' part of the boot command for PAL mode (so no longer have to edit the grub config for it).  Let me know how the USB goes and if X Windows acts any better too, and how the new modelines work. 

Unfortunately it still does not work from a USB stick and gives me the same error that I got above.
So I am using the previous version to test with from a CD (not the latest because I am running low on CDs):
I am using only the monitor with the TV unplugged and using PAL mode from the GRUB menu, since I would expect the monitor to display nothing (out of range) and it's easier for me to get the logs and show why it isn't changing resolutions.

cat /proc/cmdline shows:
real_root=/dev/loop0 looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs initrd udev nodevfs cdroot dodmraid  video=768x576ec

I don't see anything in /home/arcade/.gentooarcade/
/home/arcade is writeable

create_xorg.pl: command not found

I have attached the logs you asked me to attach earlier.

bitbytebit

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New .iso images are up which should work with usb booting now hopefully, also has the change to possibly fix the bad fuzzy resolution for some PAL modelines, and have removed the 'e' part of the boot command for PAL mode (so no longer have to edit the grub config for it).  Let me know how the USB goes and if X Windows acts any better too, and how the new modelines work. 

Unfortunately it still does not work from a USB stick and gives me the same error that I got above.
So I am using the previous version to test with from a CD (not the latest because I am running low on CDs):
I am using only the monitor with the TV unplugged and using PAL mode from the GRUB menu, since I would expect the monitor to display nothing (out of range) and it's easier for me to get the logs and show why it isn't changing resolutions.

cat /proc/cmdline shows:
real_root=/dev/loop0 looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs initrd udev nodevfs cdroot dodmraid  video=768x576ec

I don't see anything in /home/arcade/.gentooarcade/
/home/arcade is writeable

create_xorg.pl: command not found

I have attached the logs you asked me to attach earlier.

I'll have to get a USB stick and test with that to figure out how that works, have gotten the disk drive install mostly working so that'll eventually work.  Could in theory install to a USB stick I think, I'll have to look into that, wondered if there was something different going on.  Yeah I understand about the CD issue, I got a few rewritable ones and have been testing with those, so far have been pretty cool having many writes on them and still only using the two original ones for 32/64 bit testing.

The create_xorg.pl command is at /root/create_xorg.pl so you'll need to reference it by the full path actually.  Did you go through the setup menu, the .gentooarcade/ directory will get those files after a run through the setup menu actually.  You can probably run through it remotely, if you run /root/startup.pl -rs it will bring up the setup menu.  Choosing option 5 will re-run the first setup, and there's other options there too.

I'll have to look at the logs more, thanks.  The latest .iso you have mainly has a difference in not using the 'e' which I suspect will make it work better in your case, but I also think that when editing that at the grub command line something happens different to the /proc/cmdline file and it doesn't work with my parsing stuff to know it's a PAL setup.
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Also how exactly is the TV connected, what output type used from the AVGA card and what in between that, and the connection to the TV? 

I think I need to do the same as Soft15Khz does and basically say the first connector (at least DVI one most likely) will be the arcade output, because otherwise it seems things are not going to work (since only the first output actually is going to be used for X Windows anyways). 

Try these command line options (with the TV connected to the first output, nothing on the second):

video=DVI-I-1:768x576ec

and:

video=TV-1:768x576ec


That will effectively force the first output of the card (I'm still not sure if DVI or TV is needed here) and leave the rest alone, which shouldn't be connected.  If it doesn't work well with one output, try the other, I'm not totally sure the cards order is always right in the DRM layer.  Also additionally, only if the above don't work, try to add a 'D' into the mix up there 'eDc' possibly.  Here's some more detail on how the command line should work, my 'c' option for CGA is an addition to this...

Code: [Select]
A mode can be forced on the kernel command line. Unfortunately, the command line option video is poorly documented in the DRM case. Bit and pieces on how to use it can be found in

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/nouveau/linux-2.6/tree/Documentation/fb/modedb.txt
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/nouveau/linux-2.6/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/drm_fb_helper.c
The format is: video=<conn>:<xres>x<yres>[M][R][-<bpp>][@<refresh>][i][m][eDd]

<conn>: Connector, e.g. DVI-I-1, see your kernel log.
<xres> x <yres>: resolution
M: compute a CVT mode?
R: reduced blanking?
-<bpp>: color depth
@<refresh>: refresh rate
i: interlaced (non-CVT mode)
m: margins?
e: output forced to on
d: output forced to off
D: digital output forced to on (e.g. DVI-I connector)
You can override the modes of several outputs using "video" several times, for instance, to force DVI to 1024x768 at 85 Hz and TV-out off: video=DVI-I-1:1024x768@85 video=TV-1:d
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New .iso images are up which should work with usb booting now hopefully, also has the change to possibly fix the bad fuzzy resolution for some PAL modelines, and have removed the 'e' part of the boot command for PAL mode (so no longer have to edit the grub config for it).  Let me know how the USB goes and if X Windows acts any better too, and how the new modelines work.  

Unfortunately it still does not work from a USB stick and gives me the same error that I got above.
So I am using the previous version to test with from a CD (not the latest because I am running low on CDs):
I am using only the monitor with the TV unplugged and using PAL mode from the GRUB menu, since I would expect the monitor to display nothing (out of range) and it's easier for me to get the logs and show why it isn't changing resolutions.

cat /proc/cmdline shows:
real_root=/dev/loop0 looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs initrd udev nodevfs cdroot dodmraid  video=768x576ec

I don't see anything in /home/arcade/.gentooarcade/
/home/arcade is writeable

create_xorg.pl: command not found

I have attached the logs you asked me to attach earlier.

It's odd that there's no /etc/X11/xorg.conf file being created, and your logs show that, it's not setting up the xorg.conf file.  Also is there a /etc/switchres.conf?  That also might explain switchres not working, although if that's created then it's really odd because that is created when the xorg.conf is.  Also strange there's no files under /home/arcade/.gentooarcade/ at all, should create an xorg.conf and put it there to and use that after the first one is created.  

One thing though is that the TV should be connected to the first video card output, the second one won't be used actually for X Windows so that could explain some issues.  It at least shouldn't when the xorg.conf file is created since it's hard to be able to setup one for all situations like that and like Soft15Khz it's really needing the first video card output to be the arcade output (and have to run all stuff on that output too for starting up things).  The whole way the video card dual output works is really tricky to setup generically in xorg.conf and something I haven't touched on exploring yet, but for now am trying to make it the simple one output case.  So that could be one thing causing it not to work as expected, although it's just really odd the xorg.conf isn't there.  Manually creating it with the `/root/create_xorg.pl pal >/etc/X11/xorg.conf` command is a work around but I'm really curious why it's not working in the first place.  




Update:

Another thing to check, have you got a directory already setup as /home/arcade for mounting?  If so, try removing the .gentooarcade/ directory for that partition/drive.  If there's already a config setup there it might cause some issues with getting things setup at first since it thinks they already have been.  That might explain why the xorg.conf isn't being created.   Basically remove that .gentooarcade directory if it exists and reboot, or from another installed system on the machine.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2010, 02:27:18 pm by bitbytebit »
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Something to try, on the usbstick edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the following...

Remove the 'cdroot' option and replace with root=/dev/XXX   where XXX is the device your usb stick will show up as to the system.  That might allow it to find it, and not use the cdrom for the root directory (which is what cdroot seems to force).

If that doesn't work then try 'cdroot=/dev/XXX' instead, that might act different I think.  From what I can tell this is the issue, finding the USB stick as the root drive which right now the grub setup is told it's a CD so it tries to use the cdrom as the root which is why you don't see the squashfs file in /. 
« Last Edit: December 08, 2010, 03:31:43 pm by bitbytebit »
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Something to try, on the usbstick edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the following...

Remove the 'cdroot' option and replace with root=/dev/XXX   where XXX is the device your usb stick will show up as to the system.  That might allow it to find it, and not use the cdrom for the root directory (which is what cdroot seems to force).

If that doesn't work then try 'cdroot=/dev/XXX' instead, that might act different I think.  From what I can tell this is the issue, finding the USB stick as the root drive which right now the grub setup is told it's a CD so it tries to use the cdrom as the root which is why you don't see the squashfs file in /. 

I still can't get this to work. Changing those settings didn't help. Using root=... locks up when it tries to mount root.

However I have good news! Now I am testing with only the TV connected. It is connected via a SCART-VGA cable. There's a sticky thread in the Monitor forum about how to do this. Mine is working quite well. This connects to RGB SCART on the TV.
I found the free roms in /data/roms. When I use "switchres <rom> --monitor pal" I seem to be getting the right resolution!! YAY!
I've only tested with some of the roms so far. Some colours (red in particular) bleed a bit but I suspect that is a hardware issue.

X still will not let me see a decent resolution! Configuring the xorg, copying it and running startup.pl caused a crash. Plus I can't see what I am doing so it's all guess work.
I noticed this line when it boots:
Use of uninitialized value $k in string ne in at ./startup.pl line 112

That is possibly why startup doesn't run and there's no xorg.conf file.

So the only issue I have at the moment is getting a resolution in X that I can see with.

bitbytebit

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Something to try, on the usbstick edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the following...

Remove the 'cdroot' option and replace with root=/dev/XXX   where XXX is the device your usb stick will show up as to the system.  That might allow it to find it, and not use the cdrom for the root directory (which is what cdroot seems to force).

If that doesn't work then try 'cdroot=/dev/XXX' instead, that might act different I think.  From what I can tell this is the issue, finding the USB stick as the root drive which right now the grub setup is told it's a CD so it tries to use the cdrom as the root which is why you don't see the squashfs file in /. 

I still can't get this to work. Changing those settings didn't help. Using root=... locks up when it tries to mount root.

However I have good news! Now I am testing with only the TV connected. It is connected via a SCART-VGA cable. There's a sticky thread in the Monitor forum about how to do this. Mine is working quite well. This connects to RGB SCART on the TV.
I found the free roms in /data/roms. When I use "switchres <rom> --monitor pal" I seem to be getting the right resolution!! YAY!
I've only tested with some of the roms so far. Some colours (red in particular) bleed a bit but I suspect that is a hardware issue.

X still will not let me see a decent resolution! Configuring the xorg, copying it and running startup.pl caused a crash. Plus I can't see what I am doing so it's all guess work.
I noticed this line when it boots:
Use of uninitialized value $k in string ne in at ./startup.pl line 112

That is possibly why startup doesn't run and there's no xorg.conf file.

So the only issue I have at the moment is getting a resolution in X that I can see with.


Great, at least for the resolutions working :) I need to get a USB stick tonight and figure that out, sounds good to get that working and it probably is just some weird grub thing or I might need to make a custom linuxrc for the initrd ram disk.

I am making quite a few changes in setup, I think I might see some of the issue happening with the main X setup and so hopefully these fix that.  I'm also working on using the lxde window manager, setup having more options, and wahcade setup during setup.  I think the xorg.conf issue might be something about how my logic in the startup.pl script works, I did fix that $k issue actually but also have now reworked that whole part to be a bit nicer in how it figures out what boot prompt was chosen. 

Will let you know when I figure out the USB stick part, and hopefully later tonight will have an .iso at least with fixes to xorg.conf setup which hopefully will allow the normal desktop display to work for you too.  I think that's mostly just my xorg.conf setup had an issue or two, hopefully is the problem and is fixed.

This new way I'm doing the output hopefully will work, you'll need to test it and might be some issue with the grub command line.  I'm trying to do things where the first output is the only one used, and choosing the specific output which can be DVI/VGA or TV.  I am seeing yours is DVI-I-1: from your logs, so on this new grub menu there will be a [PAL DVI Output] option.  That way the other TV one will be for S-Video type setups.  What this will do is get what your seeing now most likely even if your other monitor was connected originally, since it seems that as your seeing the whole xrandr setup only really works if only one 'monitor' for the mode switching is attached/enabled.  It seems in X Windows the two video outputs of the card are always combined together with modeswitching like we are doing and also very tricky to tell which one your actually using actively.  So that should explain what you saw before, and now, which hopefully I've made this become less tricky to figure out with the way I'm turning off all other outputs besides the main one for the arcade/TV monitor.
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This new way I'm doing the output hopefully will work, you'll need to test it and might be some issue with the grub command line.  I'm trying to do things where the first output is the only one used, and choosing the specific output which can be DVI/VGA or TV.  I am seeing yours is DVI-I-1: from your logs, so on this new grub menu there will be a [PAL DVI Output] option.  That way the other TV one will be for S-Video type setups.  What this will do is get what your seeing now most likely even if your other monitor was connected originally, since it seems that as your seeing the whole xrandr setup only really works if only one 'monitor' for the mode switching is attached/enabled.  It seems in X Windows the two video outputs of the card are always combined together with modeswitching like we are doing and also very tricky to tell which one your actually using actively.  So that should explain what you saw before, and now, which hopefully I've made this become less tricky to figure out with the way I'm turning off all other outputs besides the main one for the arcade/TV monitor.

Just from what I noticed. With the AVGA 3000, it has a VGA port and DVI port. The VGA port is the only one that can be used with an arcade monitor/TV. The DVI one is only for computer monitors. With both connected, the computer monitor (DVI port) is DVI-1 and the TV is DVI-0. With only the TV connected (VGA port) it shows up as DVI-1. So I am not sure if this confusion will impact on what you are doing.

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This new way I'm doing the output hopefully will work, you'll need to test it and might be some issue with the grub command line.  I'm trying to do things where the first output is the only one used, and choosing the specific output which can be DVI/VGA or TV.  I am seeing yours is DVI-I-1: from your logs, so on this new grub menu there will be a [PAL DVI Output] option.  That way the other TV one will be for S-Video type setups.  What this will do is get what your seeing now most likely even if your other monitor was connected originally, since it seems that as your seeing the whole xrandr setup only really works if only one 'monitor' for the mode switching is attached/enabled.  It seems in X Windows the two video outputs of the card are always combined together with modeswitching like we are doing and also very tricky to tell which one your actually using actively.  So that should explain what you saw before, and now, which hopefully I've made this become less tricky to figure out with the way I'm turning off all other outputs besides the main one for the arcade/TV monitor.

Just from what I noticed. With the AVGA 3000, it has a VGA port and DVI port. The VGA port is the only one that can be used with an arcade monitor/TV. The DVI one is only for computer monitors. With both connected, the computer monitor (DVI port) is DVI-1 and the TV is DVI-0. With only the TV connected (VGA port) it shows up as DVI-1. So I am not sure if this confusion will impact on what you are doing.


Yeah I'm right now hoping that I can have a DVI and VGA option on the grub menu, DVI being the default.  Since in theory a user with the AVGA card can see the grub menu in every situation but the other ATI cards the user won't always and most of the time would have the DVI as the first input (also I think it'll still be viewable but just doubled possibly. 

The odd part that is trick is the DRM stuff uses different names, so DVI-I-1 in DRM is DVI-0 in Xorg, and VGA-1 DRM is VGA-0 in Xorg.  Besides that, there might be some other inconsistency and I'm not sure how the order matches for each either.  Definitely sounds there might be some oddness with figuring that out if they show up differently like that.   Which is something I'm guessing we'll have to work out and hopefully eventually get things to where we can logically setup all the different possible combinations and know what DRM layer output to use and what Xorg output to isolate and disable all the rest.
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Re: Experimental 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #31 on: December 10, 2010, 10:06:12 am »
There are new .iso files out, hopefully solve the missing xorg.conf issues and get the desktop to work. 

Also I have gotten a usb stick and can boot it off that now, so good news there.  The steps I took to do this were...

1. create ext2 partition on drive
2. copy over .iso contents to partition
3. go into /boot/grub/ and rm menu.lst and symlink it to grub.conf
4. check to see what drive the partition is on the system, mine is /dev/sdd2 for example
5. edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file to have cdroot=/dev/sdd2 (or your partition name for the usb drive)
6. use the grub command, following this basically http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/grub_intro,
    where you run `grub find /boot/grub/stage1`, figure out the order and which one is your usb sticks partition
    then run `grub` and in the grub prompt type something like `root (hd3,1)` which was the one for my /dev/sdd2,
    and then `setup (hd3)` to put grub into the master boot record of the usb stick partition.

After that, it boots up from the usb stick, and then it's just the task to copy over to the usb stick each new version it seems.
How are you trying to boot it, I suspect the main issue is the 'cdroot=/dev/XXX` part and getting the correct drive name.
I am not sure how to make that more generic, like the /dev/cdrom drive is easy usually to find while for USB drives (at least
from what I can tell) the names always some disk drive and can vary per system.
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bitbytebit

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Re: Experimental 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #32 on: December 14, 2010, 11:34:31 pm »
Newest ISO has the ATI Radeon page flipping support:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati/commit/?h=kms-pflip&id=69639ef377a9d6701cdef902f8a1c5e0b58cf833

32 bit Minimal ISO is uploaded and 64 bit to follow in a few hours

Performance looks good, there is an issue with non-updating screen parts getting frame buffer junk data in them sometimes with vertical games.  I've notified the AMD guy who is the author of the page flipping code, so that'll be fixed hopefully soon, but right now it's quite nice performance and non-tearing capability better than the plain OpenGL Mesa waitvsync stuff I had been using.
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Re: Experimental 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #33 on: December 28, 2010, 03:35:39 pm »
Also I have gotten a usb stick and can boot it off that now, so good news there.  The steps I took to do this were...

1. create ext2 partition on drive
2. copy over .iso contents to partition
3. go into /boot/grub/ and rm menu.lst and symlink it to grub.conf
4. check to see what drive the partition is on the system, mine is /dev/sdd2 for example
5. edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file to have cdroot=/dev/sdd2 (or your partition name for the usb drive)
6. use the grub command, following this basically http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/grub_intro,
    where you run `grub find /boot/grub/stage1`, figure out the order and which one is your usb sticks partition
    then run `grub` and in the grub prompt type something like `root (hd3,1)` which was the one for my /dev/sdd2,
    and then `setup (hd3)` to put grub into the master boot record of the usb stick partition.

After that, it boots up from the usb stick, and then it's just the task to copy over to the usb stick each new version it seems.
How are you trying to boot it, I suspect the main issue is the 'cdroot=/dev/XXX` part and getting the correct drive name.
I am not sure how to make that more generic, like the /dev/cdrom drive is easy usually to find while for USB drives (at least
from what I can tell) the names always some disk drive and can vary per system.

I have a working system, so I thought about giving this a try on the liveCD, but install it on an USB card. I am a total noob when it comes to Linux, so I am a bit confused about the 3-6 steps. I managed to install the XBMC Live CD without any issues on a 8 GB memory stick I have by simply choosing it as the target harddrive after choosing to "Install to harddrive" in the boot menu. Is that menu not available when using your release?

bitbytebit

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Re: Experimental 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #34 on: December 28, 2010, 03:45:22 pm »
Also I have gotten a usb stick and can boot it off that now, so good news there.  The steps I took to do this were...

1. create ext2 partition on drive
2. copy over .iso contents to partition
3. go into /boot/grub/ and rm menu.lst and symlink it to grub.conf
4. check to see what drive the partition is on the system, mine is /dev/sdd2 for example
5. edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file to have cdroot=/dev/sdd2 (or your partition name for the usb drive)
6. use the grub command, following this basically http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/grub_intro,
    where you run `grub find /boot/grub/stage1`, figure out the order and which one is your usb sticks partition
    then run `grub` and in the grub prompt type something like `root (hd3,1)` which was the one for my /dev/sdd2,
    and then `setup (hd3)` to put grub into the master boot record of the usb stick partition.

After that, it boots up from the usb stick, and then it's just the task to copy over to the usb stick each new version it seems.
How are you trying to boot it, I suspect the main issue is the 'cdroot=/dev/XXX` part and getting the correct drive name.
I am not sure how to make that more generic, like the /dev/cdrom drive is easy usually to find while for USB drives (at least
from what I can tell) the names always some disk drive and can vary per system.

I have a working system, so I thought about giving this a try on the liveCD, but install it on an USB card. I am a total noob when it comes to Linux, so I am a bit confused about the 3-6 steps. I managed to install the XBMC Live CD without any issues on a 8 GB memory stick I have by simply choosing it as the target harddrive after choosing to "Install to harddrive" in the boot menu. Is that menu not available when using your release?

Using the USB card as an install target should work, it has an option after setup to install to disk drive which could be a usb card.  The grub setup part is not fully user friendly yet, basically it installs the MBR to the device you want to boot from.  The liveCD for now probably is best since the USB method isn't well tested, I got it to work but admit the grub setup was a bit painful.  Most distributions definitely make this much easier, there is a generic ISO to USB installer program Ubuntu and others can use which might just work:  http://www.pendrivelinux.com/downloads/Universal-USB-Installer/Universal-USB-Installer.exe

I think the USB installer is probably the best bet, seems like it'll probably work, I'm not sure though since I haven't tested it but worst case probably just fail at installing to the USB card.  Would be interested in how it goes, I'm hoping that USB installer works, or possibly do the USB installer first then after that do a install to disk through the CD because the USB installer might just do the Grub part for you and make it bootable ahead of time.
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Re: Experimental 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #35 on: December 29, 2010, 05:10:43 am »
Thanks, I'll try the pendrive approach first and let you know how it goes.

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Re: Experimental 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #36 on: December 29, 2010, 11:46:22 am »
Well, the Universal Pendrive installer didn't give me a bootable USB. It might be because of the option I used though, "Try Unlisted Linux ISO (New Syslinux)". Trying to boot gives me a "no setup file" or "setup.ini not found" or something like that.

Next up is burning the .iso to disc and trying to install to the USB from it.

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Re: 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #37 on: January 16, 2011, 11:30:34 am »
Version 1.282-b299821 of the ISO images for 32 and 64 bit are being uploaded now.  There have been considerable improvements in performance for Multithreading systems now being able to utilize all processors and still run in waitvsync mode. 

* Versions of mame and mess are 0141 with cabmame patches now, plus a few performance patches too for waitvsync to utilize mulithreading. 
* The 64 bit version can now run the Sega Gens emulator program, and support for vertical/rotating monitors is now in the setup script so should be easy to get working on those. 
* If you can setup wahcade, then it gets a pretty nice dedicated arcade cabinet system going, boot up and setup through the script the first liveCD boot (can install to disk from there).  Remember to use 'switchres <game>' to run games/mame or 'switchres n64 --emulator mupen64plus --rom <rompath/name> --args <args to mupen64plus>' to for example use another emulator instead of mame.
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Re: 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #38 on: February 01, 2011, 03:21:12 am »
Big improvements, fully redid the setup/install interface to be a nice console menu system...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=106405.msg1157231#msg1157231
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Re: 32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
« Reply #39 on: February 19, 2011, 09:18:46 pm »
Have gotten the LiveCD and Installation to the point where I would say this is a pretty easy Linux installation and bare bones arcade cabinet system.  Have AdvanceMenu and Wahcade working pretty much without any real setup, SMB remote share access for ROM/Snaps to be put onto the system, remote web admin access for the entire system control/monitoring.  Works best with ATI Radeon cards/ArcadeVGA 3000 or older cards, and decent most likely with other video cards (may not be able to use vsync with others, but otherwise should be good).  Much easier installation/setup which is menu system based at the console now, dos like interface (based of of the Arch Linux installer).  Give it a try and report issues, I'm hoping to do everything I can to make it the best system available for real arcade cabinet/monitor emulation output.
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