Linux and audio pro 1106

On Tue, 31 May 2005 12:21:52 -0700, Noah Roberts

Yea and why don't you tell them about the week you spent installing Gentoo?

Sure, and this is what you had to go through to install gentoo Linux:

For the basic system:

Then you go here to get X and a gui installed:

Then if you have an Nvidia card (you better have Nvidia!) you go here:

Here is a little snippet of that section:

nstalling the Appropriate Drivers

The nVidia drivers include kernel modules that must integrate in your current kernel. To accomplish this, your kernel must support the loading of kernel modules. If you used genkernel to configure the kernel for you then you're all set. If not, double check your kernel configuration so that this support is enabled:

Code Listing 1.1: Enabling the Loading of Kernel Modules

* Enable loadable module support

You also need to enable Memory Type Range Register in your kernel:

Code Listing 1.2: Enabling MTRR

* MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support

nVidia's modules and libraries are combined in two packages: nvidia-glx and nvidia-kernel. The former are the X11 GLX libraries while the latter are the kernel modules. Since nvidia-glx depends on nvidia-kernel, installing nvidia-glx is sufficient:

Code Listing 1.3: Installing the nVidia modules

# emerge nvidia-glx

Once the installation has finished, run modprobe nvidia to load the kernel module into memory.

Code Listing 1.4: Loading the kernel module

# modprobe nvidia

You probably want to have this done each time you boot your system, so editetc-modules.autoload.d-kernel-2.6 (or kernel-2.4) and add nvidia to it. Don't forget to run modules-update afterwards!

Code Listing 1.5: Running modules-update

# modules-update

Configuring the X Server

Once the appropriate drivers are installed you need to configure your X Server (XFree86 or Xorg) to use the nvidia driver instead of the default nv driver.

Openetc-X11-XF86Config (oretc-X11-xorg.conf) with your favorite editor (such as nano or vim) and go to the Device section. In that section, change the Driver line:

Code Listing 1.6: Changing nv to nvidia in the X Server configuration

Section "Device" Identifier "nVidia Inc. GeForce2" Driver "nvidia" VideoRam 65536 EndSection

Then go to the Module section and make sure the glx module gets loaded while the dri module doesn't:

Code Listing 1.7: Updating the Module section

Section "Module" (...) # Load "dri" Load "glx" (...) EndSection

Next, in section Screen, make sure that either the DefaultDepth directive is set to 16 or 24, or that you only have Display subsections with Depth settings of 16 or 24. Without it, the nvidia-glx extensions will not start.

Code Listing 1.8: Updating the Screen section

Section "Screen" (...) DefaultDepth 16 Subsection "Display" (...) EndSection

Run opengl-update so that the X Server uses the nVidia GLX libraries:

Code Listing 1.9: Running opengl-update

# opengl-update nvidia

Adding your Users to the video Group

You have to add your user to the video group so he has access to the nvidia device files:

Code Listing 1.10: Adding your user to the video group

# gpbuttwd -a youruser video

This might not be totally necessary if you aren't used udev but it doesn't hurt either and makes your system future-proof :)

Testing your Card

To test your nVidia card, fire up X and run the glxinfo grep direct command. It should say that direct rendering is activated:

Code Listing 1.11: Checking the direct rendering status

$ glxinfo grep direct direct rendering: Yes

To monitor your FPS, run glxgears.

Enabling nvidia Support

Some tools, such as mplayer and xine-lib, use a local USE flag called "nvidia" which enables XvMCNVIDIA support, useful when watching high resolution movies. Add in "nvidia" in your USE variable inetc-make.conf or add it as USE flag to media-video-mplayer and-or media-libs-xine-lib inetc-portage-package.use.

Then, run emerge -uD --newuse world to rebuild the applications that benefit from the USE flag change.

2. Troubleshooting

Getting 2D to work on machines with 4Gb or more memory

If you are having troubles with the nVidia 2D acceleration it is likely that you are unable to set up a write-combining range with MTRR. To verify, check the contents ofproc-mtrr:

Code Listing 2.1: Checking if you have write-combining enabled

# catproc-mtrr

Every line should contain "write-back" or "write-combining". If you see a line with "uncachable" in it you will need to change a BIOS setting to fix this.

Reboot and enter the BIOS, then find the MTRR settings (probably under "CPU Settings"). Change the setting from "continuous" to "discrete" and boot back into Linux. You will now find out that there is no "uncachable" entry anymore and 2D acceleration now works without any glitches.

I receive warnings about unsupported 4K stack sizes

nvidia-kernel packages older than 1.0.6106 only support kernels using an 8K stack size. More recent kernels (2.6.6 and higher) have support for 4K stack size's as well. Do not select 4K stack size in your kernel configuration if you are using such an nvidia-kernel package. You can find this option in the section Kernel Hacking.

Now if you want kde, which chances are you will:

Interested in having sound with gentoo Linux?

(that one is a beauty!)

And then you have a bunch of other things you have to set up in order to get Gentoo Linux working.

So you see, when Noah tells you all he did was 'emerge ardour' he is technically correct. However, he left out a few minor details needed to install gentoo, the Linux that uses the emerge command.

Now.....Of course you can install something like Fedora, but then you will be met with 100 different dependency problems trying to install ardour and you will spend a week or so resolving this.

Bottom line is your time is either easted up front, or later on.

Sorry Noah, but your little sidestep didn't work.