Savage2 and Heros of Newerth on Fedora 15 using ATI/Gallium/Mesa 7.11

I was having some weird issues with Savage2 and Heroes of Newerth on my ATI/Gallium/Mesa 7.11 setup. They would crash stating that either OpenGL 2.0 was unavailable or an extension was missing. I was finally able to track this down by useing LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose

LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose ./savage2_update.bin
warning: The VAD has been replaced by a hack pending a complete rewrite
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib64/dri/r600_dri.so
libGL error: dlopen /usr/lib64/dri/r600_dri.so failed (/home/kdekorte/Savage2/libs/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.15' not found (required by /usr/lib64/dri/r600_dri.so))
libGL error: unable to load driver: r600_dri.so
libGL error: driver pointer missing
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib64/dri/swrast_dri.so
libGL error: dlopen /usr/lib64/dri/swrast_dri.so failed (/home/kdekorte/Savage2/libs/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.15' not found (required by /usr/lib64/dri/swrast_dri.so))
libGL error: unable to load driver: swrast_dri.so
libGL error: reverting to indirect rendering
Savage2 - Fatal Error: OpenGL 2.0 not available.
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

So I went into /home/kdekorte/Savage2/libs/ (this is where I installed Savage2) and renamed libstdc++.so.6 to old.libstdc++.so.6 and tried again. After that Savage2 started working. I did the same thing with Heroes of Newerth and that solved its problem as well.

GMTK Ported to GTK3

As part of the next release I wanted to be able to have gnome-mplayer be able to be compiled against GTK3. Since GMTK is the core of the next release, I needed to port it first. It only took about an hour to complete the work. gnome-mplayer will take more time to convert, but it should be something I should be able to do in a few hours.

GTMK running under GTK3

So I need to finalize 1.0.3 and then on to this work. It appears that GTK3 may not be able to be ported to Windows, because of the embedding in GTK3 being X specific.

Avant Window Navigator vs Gnome Shell Dock

The other day I wrote up how I liked the Gnome Shell Dock but it still left a little to be desired. Additionally, I was missing the weather app and some other functionality. So I installed the Avant Window Navigator and the AWN Extras package.

AWN with some minor customization

I found that this dock gives a little more flexibility. I particularly like the Simple Switcher and the Weather Applet. The Simple Switcher gives me the ability to flip between workspaces with just my mouse, something that I found missing in the Dock.

Gnome Shell Dock Extension

With Gnome Shell, I was feeling that I was going to the Activities menu quite a bit to switch tasks. The constant movement of the mouse from left to right was a little annoying.

I then found the Dock extension (RPM name is: gnome-shell-extensions-dock). And that actually seemed to make the shell much more enjoyable.

The dock is on the right of the screen

Clicking on the icons activated tasks that were active and I could start a new task by middle clicking on the icon, which is helpful for multiple terminals. I really recommend this extension.

Update: I have found that I prefer the Avant Window Navigator over the Dock Extension.. see this post 

Fedora 15 Bluetooth

After I upgraded from Fedora 14 to Fedora 15 I found that Gnome was not showing my bluetooth devices and in fact it didn't detect any. However, lsusb found them with no problems.

I found bug #695588 at RedHat and it looked like systemctl may have not started it.

#systemctl status bluetooth.service
bluetooth.service - Bluetooth Manager
      Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service)
      Active: inactive (dead)
      CGroup: name=systemd:/system/bluetooth.service

#systemctl enable bluetooth.service
ln -s '/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service' '/etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.bluez.service'
ln -s '/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service' '/etc/systemd/system/bluetooth.target.wants/bluetooth.service'

#systemctl start bluetooth.service

After running those three commands, gnome now shows my devices.

Bluetooth devices

 

Fedora 15 PreUpgrade

Well, I wanted to upgrade my primary machine to Fedora 15, so that I could starting working on making gnome-mplayer work with GTK3. It didn't go so well. I ran the preupgrade tool to go to the beta, and after a long download and a reboot, I ended up with a machine in limbo between Fedora 14 and Fedora 15. I think I am going to be able to recover from it without a reinstall, but so far I got kind of a mess.

Update:

I was able to recover from it, package-cleanup --cleandups and then reinstalling the kernel got me back.

Had some trouble with clutter, I had to remove some self installed source code, so did that one to myself.

Anyway, it is up and running now.

More testing on r600g

A few weeks ago I posted about some testing I did with the r600 Gallium (r600g) drivers in Mesa 7.9 on my Radeon HD3650 (rv635) card. Well, I've been keeping up with the testing and all I can say is that it keeps getting better. Today, upgraded some more components (xorg) and did some more testing, with the power settings on high. Lowering the cards power setting to 'med' can drop the FPS by 20-30%.

Current packages installed
kernel 2.6.36
libdrm 2.4.22
mesa git
xf86-video-ati git
xserver 1.9

With this setup my desktop (gnome 2.30 with compiz 0.8.6) things seem pretty smooth. Scrolling seems better in Firefox and other things seem correct. I still have some problems with fullscreen video tearing in flash (10.2.161) videos. But mplayer and totem seem to run fine. Clutter apps still don't work quite right on my machine even though I have upgraded clutter to 1.4. But I think I am down level on some of the requirements.

Testing results
nexuiz-glx, normal settings, 1024x768 windowed, 30fps (about the same)
vdrift, 1024x768 windowed, 30-60fps (this is a big improvement)
openarena, 1024x768, windowed, 50-60fps (no change)
etracer, 1024x768, 25-30fps

What is funny is just having the blogger editing screen open seems to drop the FPS of games by about 30%. So the editor code at blogger needs some help.

Nautilus script to create mp3s from video files

Do you ever download a video off youtube and think "gee I wish I had an mp3 of that". Well here is a script for nautilus (the gnome file manager in linux) to help you create that mp3.

Create the file in $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts

I named it "Convert to MP3" and set the execute flags on the script (chmod a+x $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Convert\ to\ MP3)

#!/bin/bash

in_file="$1"
out_file=`echo "$in_file" | sed 's/\.\w*$/\.mp3/'`

ffmpeg -i "$in_file" -f mp3 -ab 128000 "$out_file"


This script requires ffmpeg to be installed for it to work. Once you install this script you should see a new menu item on the context menu of the files named Scripts if it was not already there, and then you should see your "Convert to MP3" option.

 

Select any video file, choose the "Convert to MP3" option and after a few seconds (depending on the size of the file) an mp3 file will be created with the same name as the original file. 

Hope you found this useful.

Radeon Power Management in Linux

In addition to my desktop computer that has a Radeon 3650 video card in it, I have an Lenovo T400 laptop that has and Intel and an ATI video card in it. I have been using the Intel card primarily as it gives good battery life and the fan in the machine does not run much. With the Linux 2.6.35 kernel being out that supports Radeon power management I thought I would give it a try.

Fedora 13, my OS of choice, currently only has kernel 2.6.34 available. So I went to koji and grabbed the latest kernel source package. I made sure I had the dependencies for building the kernel installed, by running yum-builddep kernel. I then took the kernel source package I had and rebuilt it using rpmbuild --rebuild [kernel src rpm]. This process took awhile, but eventually I got a set of kernel packages. I then changed to the ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64 directory and ran yum --nogpgcheck upgrade kernel*. Once that was installed I rebooted into the new kernel. I then followed the wiki to enable dynpm. I actually placed the options in my /etc/rc.local file so they were applied on every reboot. The system seemed to work ok, but had a little flashing every now and then do the video clocks changing, so I upgraded the xorg-x11-drv-ati rpm using the same process as I did for the kernel and rebooted again. So far the ATI card seems to be working fine, I still have a few flashes every now and then and the battery life is not as good as when using the Intel card. But the 3d performance is much better.

I have not upgraded Mesa on this machine yet, so it is still using Mesa 7.8.

Mesa's r600g Driver Test Drive

There has been alot of talk about the Mesa driver in Linux. One of the new things that has been talked about as the savior of 3d graphics on Linux is the Gallium technology. This technology is supposed to make writing drivers easier and to allow for much more functionality in the Linux 3d stack.

While I am not a gallium expert, I know enough to build the driver and test it out. So I started with my stock Fedora 13 setup (64bit, Q6600, 8GB RAM). I followed the wiki and installed the Kernel, libdrm, mesa and the ATI driver all from git. It took a little while, but it was reasonable to get going. It really helped that I had built many of these components before when the r600c driver originally came out, so I knew the process.

So after installing all the components I booted my machine and plymouth came up, but GDM was a black screen. So I disabled rhgb on the kernel boot line and rebooted. This time I got a working GDM. I fixed the plymouth problem by running /usr/libexec/plymouth/plymouth-update-initrd.

I logged into my normal desktop and compiz was running fine. I verified that I was indeed running gallium, by using glxinfo.

glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on RV635
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.10-devel
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

I then did a few tests with the r600g to see how things were working. glxgears seems to work as did many of the other demos (tunnel, tunnel2, geartrain, dinoshade, etc). All the demos were running right around 60fps, which is the refresh rate of my monitor, so far so good.

I ran IOQuake 3 in a window on my desktop (1024x768 I believe) and averaged around 30fps. With r600c I got around 90fps. So I'm not sure if that is due to the change in mesa to reduce tearing or not.  Vdrift and Extreme TuxRacer both ran at around 20fps both in a 800x600 window on my desktop. That is the fastest Vdrift has ran on my machine. Google Earth also ran quite well even in 32bit mode.

I ran Diablo II via wine in both directdraw and opengl mode and it ran at a solid 25fps for the few minutes I played it.

So far the r600g driver appears to be working decently, I'm sure there are things to fix as it is still in development. But, it appears to be working well.

Fedora 12, WebCam in Flash

If you are using Fedora 12 and the webcam is not working in Flash applications (the camera is not found). Then add this to $HOME/.bash_profile

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
export LD_PRELOAD

If you are on a 32bit machine change 'lib64' to 'lib'

Then logout and log back in and your webcam should start working.