Dear all,
I am using XBMC for years and have recently bought a dedicated HTPC to enjoy HD Content. As I have little knowledge on Linux, I have set up the pc with windows.
XBMC works great, but I have a nVidia 8400GS that I don't use at the moment, and I would like to try VDPAU Support. Plus, the fact that xbmc is primarily build for Linux makes me wish to give it a try.
I will try to describe shortly how I use my htpc today, and I would like you to tell me if I will be able to get the same result with Linux.
Firstly Hardware :
MOBO : GIGABYTE MA78GPM-DS2H (AMD 780G)
CPU : AMD 4850e
RAM : 2GB
HD : SATA 1,5T
SCREEN : FULL HDTV connected through HDMI to the IGP (Radeon HD 3200)
Obviously, since I want to try VDPAU, I will disable the Radeon IGP and put my 8400GS In Place.
The 8400GS is a Gainward wich can pass sound threw HDMI if connected to internal SPDIF out connector of the mobo.
My sound setup is ugly, but from the moment, no money to buy something better, here is how it is configured :
The PC send the sound to the TV through HDMI, the analog sound out connector of my TV is wired to my old (very old) hifi. I have no other way with the sound, so the linux setup Must enable me to send the sound threw HDMI.
Concerning the remote, I am using the mce receiver and a standard mce remote (logitech harmony in fact). I have read that this remote is supported out of the box under linux : great, but will I be able to put the PC in S3 State and resume it with this remote, as i am doing in windows ?
Also, even if it is a dedicated HTPC, I want to be able to do simple task on it, just by closing XBMC, I Mean, browsing the web, Managing Files, I also need to be able to connect to windows shares ...
Now, that I have told you what i have and need, could you tell me if it will work, and eventually some technical advices about drivers, known traps, ...
Many thanks in advance for your help
I am in the same boat, also linux noob and eager to hear feedback from linux fans because of having similar setup, but will add 9500gt. I have fears concerning sound card - xonar d2 witch is supposedly supported in alsa, also how is 24p playback handled with vdpau, and do I need to convert all of my ntfs partitions with media to ReiserFS? maybe dual booting for start?
@miljbee:
I have similar 780G board (GA-MA78GM-S2H) with nvidia 9300GS. You will NOT be able to use HDMI audio without ATI video driver. If your hifi has any kind of inputs at all, you can use analog audio from the board with adapter cable.
Don't know about suspend from remote (I don't suspend mine), but everything else you mention will work.
@Allfodr:
You can read your NTFS partitions, but last I checked write was not 100%. If you have another Windows box on your network, you can mount it as a share and read/write to it though. Also, don't use ReiserFS -- that guy's in jail for murdering his wife! Use XFS for multimedia files.
mythmaster Wrote:Don't know about suspend from remote (I don't suspend mine), but everything else you mention will work.
Suspending depends heavily on the entire hardware and even the distro and kernel used. If you're lucky, everything works out of the box. Since you have a widely used mobo you easily may find help in the ubuntu forums for example. Ubuntu is what i'd recommend for trying out linux for the first time as it is the main dev platform of xbmc. The remote itself has little to do with suspending despite being able to wake the system up again.
mythmaster Wrote:You can read your NTFS partitions, but last I checked write was not 100%. If you have another Windows box on your network, you can mount it as a share and read/write to it though. Also, don't use ReiserFS -- that guy's in jail for murdering his wife! Use XFS for multimedia files.
NTFS write support is somewhat stable using ntfs-3g, and i copied nearly 300gb of stuff to and from ntfs, but in the end i don't recommend it as you will lose both performance and security as there's no permission support for ntfs in linux. other than that it is simply not FOSS but from M$, period. I'd rather use ext3 and a filesystem driver for that in Windows as the other way round.
As for ReiserFS: Yes, that guy's in jail but it is nonetheless a very fast and stable filesystem especially for many small files. too bad it has such a bad history
For multimedia use xfs is great as it handles large files quite good, but honestly you won't need that performance benefit over ext3 e.g. on a htpc.
As for me i exclusively use ext4 now and i'm quite happy with it.
My point being that he's not going to release many bugfixes or new versions from jail.
Maybe it has enough community support to stay alive, I don't know. MansonFS, anyone? lol
If you ever plan on using MythTV or VDR, then you definitely want XFS. It outperforms them all. Even if you don't, why settle for second best? Just my $0.02 -- I don't want to start a FS war.
I know about the benefits of xfs - i'm using it on my audio recording station, and yes - it is one of the reasons i can record 8 channels simultaneously with nearly no latency
one of the downsides would be not being able to boot from as grub still has issues with /boot on xfs i think and much badder xfs being really crappy for many little files such as a package manager's database (pacman/portage/you name it).
I don't disagree...not talking about the whole system, just media mounts.
mythmaster Wrote:Also, don't use ReiserFS -- that guy's in jail for murdering his wife!
That's the main reason I'm still using it! :p
Last I checked ReiserFS wasn't written by just one person. I'm okay using it if it suits the purpose.
Hi miljbee,
I have the same mainboard GIGABYTE MA78GPM-DS2H and setup (HDTV over HDMI). Since the first installation of my htpc I'm using linux (gentoo). It all works fine. The graphics driver I'm using is the closed source fglrx-driver from ATI - no problems with that so far.
The only throwback is that there is no hardware GPU video acceleration (yet) for the IGP. You should consider to add a low-budget nvidia card for VDPAU support.
Tariella Wrote:You should consider to add a low-budget nvidia card for VDPAU support.
He will - he mentioned a 8400GS lying around.
mythmaster Wrote:@miljbee:
I have similar 780G board (GA-MA78GM-S2H) with nvidia 9300GS. You will NOT be able to use HDMI audio without ATI video driver. If your hifi has any kind of inputs at all, you can use analog audio from the board with adapter cable.
Before installing Linux, I have decided to install the 8400GS and configure it with windows to see if i may run into some problems. Guess what : I have problems !
My problem is related to audio. As explained before, I need to pass the audio through the hdmi cable. The 8400GS has an S/PDIF input connector, and the mobo an internal S/PDIF OUT. So I Plug between this two connectors the cable bundled with the 8400GS for this purpose. Unfortunately I can't get audio out to HDMI. Worst, it seems that the board is sending a blank audio signal to the tv, which means that the tv refuses to switch to analog audio input for this source.
Then I remember what you wrote here mythmaster. Can you elaborate on how I could get it working ?
Currently, I have disable the HD3200 from the bios and set the bios to init the first display on PCIE. I Kept the ati drivers installed and downloaded and installed the nvidia ones.
Do you mean I should re-enable the HD3200 into the bios ? But then where should I plug the hdmi cable ? to the Nvidia board, or to the Integrated HD3200 ?
Won't I get more problems If I have two Graphics board enabled in my Computer ?
Thank you for your advices !
Is your cable using the correct polarity (which is to say, did you plug it in correctly)? As far as I can tell, it should work.
However, unless this is a hardware issue, testing it in windows won't tell you much about its performance under linux.
[Edit: Are you using a generic dvi-to-hdmi adapter, or the one that (presumably) came with the board? I'm not entirely sure that a generic plug can pass sound over dvi, as this card is trying to do.]
Yes, the S/PDIF cable is properly plugged to the mainboard. For the HDMI plug, I don't use any DVI/HDMI adaptator since the nvidia board has an integrated HDMI port.
miljbee Wrote:Before installing Linux, I have decided to install the 8400GS and configure it with windows to see if i may run into some problems. Guess what : I have problems !
My problem is related to audio. As explained before, I need to pass the audio through the hdmi cable. The 8400GS has an S/PDIF input connector, and the mobo an internal S/PDIF OUT. So I Plug between this two connectors the cable bundled with the 8400GS for this purpose. Unfortunately I can't get audio out to HDMI. Worst, it seems that the board is sending a blank audio signal to the tv, which means that the tv refuses to switch to analog audio input for this source.
Then I remember what you wrote here mythmaster. Can you elaborate on how I could get it working ?
Currently, I have disable the HD3200 from the bios and set the bios to init the first display on PCIE. I Kept the ati drivers installed and downloaded and installed the nvidia ones.
Do you mean I should re-enable the HD3200 into the bios ? But then where should I plug the hdmi cable ? to the Nvidia board, or to the Integrated HD3200 ?
Won't I get more problems If I have two Graphics board enabled in my Computer ?
Thank you for your advices !
I meant that in order to get HDMI audio from the mobo, you have to use the ATI igp video and driver. This is not what you want.
I don't know how to help you get HDMI audio from the 8400GS using spdif connection from mobo, but it should work. Maybe the spdif channel is muted?
If you are happy with analog audio, you can see
this thread for instructions on how to disable the blank HDMI audio signal (in linux).