fglrx and underscan

Since about a week I got a new monitor ( Samsung Syncmaster S24B350 ) and the first thing I noticed when I booted in my Windows(tm) partition was weird black borders around the desktop. Not being able to use “auto-adjustment” I scratched my head over this and went into the Catalyst settings. Here I noticed I could disable underscan and get this problem fixed for Windows(tm). The same problem occurred in Sabayon. The same solution applied using the /opt/bin/amdcccle tool but the settings were gone after a reboot. Obviously not using that gui tool right.. even as root I could not get it to save my settings.

To perm fix this, from a root shell run:

/opt/bin/aticonfig –set-pcs-val=MCIL,DigitalHDTVDefaultUnderscan,0

Hope it helps somebody.

Testing Steam Linux Beta

Not that I wish to support this highly experimental piece of software, but let me show you how I would try to install the Steam Linux Beta client on Sabayon Linux.

1. You will need to add a custom overlay called steam-overlay

Edit /etc/layman/layman.cfg and add file:///var/lib/layman/my-list.xml  to the overlays section. Mind you, it only works if it is tabbed in position right under http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/overlays/repositories.xml. (smells like Python nazi stuff to me)

Now you must create /var/lib/layman/my-list.xml and add to this file:

<?xml version=”1.0″ ?>

 <repositories version=”1.0″>

   <repo priority=”50″ quality=”experimental” status=”unofficial”>

     <name>steam-overlay</name>

     <description>Gentoo overlay for Valve’s Steam client and Steam-based games</description>

     <homepage>https://github.com/anyc/steam-overlay</homepage&gt;

     <owner>

       <email></email>

     </owner>

     <source type=”git”>git://github.com/anyc/steam-overlay.git</source>

   </repo>

</repositories>

If you didn’t have git installed, use Entropy to install it.

2. layman -f -a steam-overlay

3. emerge –sync 

4. emerge -av steam-meta

ANY dependency that gets pulled in from Portage you should install using Entropy first until you end up with a list like this:

[ebuild N ] games-util/steam-installer-9999::steam-overlay 1,297 kB
[ebuild N ] games-util/steam-client-meta-9999::steam-overlay USE=”-flash -windows-games” VIDEO_CARDS=”-intel” 0 kB
[ebuild N ] games-util/steam-meta-9999::steam-overlay USE=”installer -testdeps” 0 kB

Remarks :

- Those ebuilds can be broken ( because upstream changes allot causing the manifests to fail )

- We are playing with an experimental binary blob here, it could include code that makes kittens die, so be warned!

More info here:

http://wiki.gentoo.org/index.php?title=Steam&redirect=no

https://github.com/anyc/steam-overlay

Edit: I had to remanifest and redo the patch for steam since upstream just changed things:

remove-ubuntu-specifics.patch

— usr/bin/steam.orig 2012-11-30 21:04:16.370876939 +0100
+++ usr/bin/steam 2012-11-30 21:09:32.650054985 +0100
@@ -108,27 +108,6 @@ function setup_variables()
fi
}

-function install_extra_packages()
-{
- EXTRA_PACKAGES=”$*”
-
- # Get the list of packages which are already installed
- INSTALLED=”$(dpkg –get-selections $EXTRA_PACKAGES 2>/dev/null | grep “\binstall$” | cut -f1 | sort)”
-
- # compute the list of packages that need to be installed
- NEEDSINSTALL=”$(comm -23 <(echo “$EXTRA_PACKAGES” | tr ‘ ‘ ‘\n’ | sort) <(echo “$INSTALLED”) | xargs ) “
- NEEDSINSTALL=${NEEDSINSTALL## } # remove leading space
-
- if [ "$NEEDSINSTALL" ]; then
- # Call to actually do the work
- MESSAGE=$”Please enter your password to complete the Steam installation.
-
-Steam needs to install these additional packages:
-”$NEEDSINSTALL
- run_sudo “$MESSAGE” apt-get install $NEEDSINSTALL
- fi
-}
-
function install_bootstrap()
{
STEAMDIR=$1
@@ -159,8 +138,6 @@ function install_bootstrap()
# Restore the umask
umask $omask

- # Try and install any extra packages
- install_extra_packages jockey-common python-apt
}

function repair_bootstrap()

Missing gtk+ icons/font render problems?

On my test weekly system I noticed that gcc wasn’t updated first. The order of things sometimes matter! If you see messages like this error while loading shared libraries: libffi.so.6 during package updates, you are surely affected by this. So if you notice problems with icons go missing, weird colors on gtk apps:

# equo install x11-libs/pango x11-libs/gdk-pixbuf x11-libs/gtk+:2 x11-libs/gtk+:3

Playing with Plymouth

If you ever wondered why Fedora and Ubuntu have such nice animated boot screens, let me enlighten you on this subject. They are using Plymouth to achieve this.

If you want to play with this I have some instructions for you to follow but be warned that you should know what you are doing and let me start with summing up some known issues:

All following problems should be solved when Plymouth is finally integrated with OpenRC.

1. Because Plymouth is taking over the control of tty1 it might mess it up. Although they should no longer occur with 0.8.3-r3.
Line endings might be messed up.
Password typed in tty1 might be not hidden. Switch to another tty to login.
2. Plymouth turns on OpenRC’s interactive mode. The workaround is to disable it permanently in /etc/rc.conf.
3. Splash might freeze on some stages and not respond immediately.

http://dev.gentoo.org/~aidecoe/doc/en/plymouth.xml

If this didn’t scare you away yet here are the steps to make it work on a Sabayon system:

equo install dracut plymouth

change Openrc configuration:
edit /etc/rc.conf

rc_interactive=”NO”

list plymouth themes and select one:
plymouth-set-default-theme –list

we select the solar theme:
plymouth-set-default-theme solar

generate initramfs:
dracut -H

NOTE: Whenever you change plymouth theme regenerate initramfs:
dracut -H -f

when you generate a new initramfs notice this line:
I: -rw-r–r– 1 root root 4050903 Mar 6 21:04 /boot/initramfs-3.2.0-sabayon.img
this is the location of the generated initramfs we need to add to the next step.

edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom

add:
menuentry “Dracut” {
linux /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86_64-3.2.0-sabayon root=/dev/sda1 video=uvesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap,800×600-24@60 quiet splash
initrd /boot/initramfs-3.2.0-sabayon.img
}

regenerate grub.cfg:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

reboot and select the Dracut entry from grub

Reverting xorg-server

We are going to revert to xorg-server-1.10.4
After some discussion we decided that we are not going to ship latest and greatest xorg-server due some issues:

- FGLRX broken with Xvideo (VLC/mplayer/etc can crash X)
- Legacy NVIDIA drivers do NOT work with latest xorg-server
- No noticeable new features in latest xorg-server.

It almost never happens we decide such a thing after sending out packages to main repository. The package “downgrades” will follow soon.

GNOME 3 Shell and fglrx fixed in next driver!

So we all complained about fglrx not working with GNOME Shell and it was evil AMD closed source drivers ignoring GNOME users, at least that is what you would think.

The opposite is true here it seems.
As we can read in this bugzilla report. A bugzilla that is not owned by AMD.

We can see AMD respond explaining they noticed the problem 2011-08-10 and it was fixed within 2 days.
They also explain that it takes 4 weeks to go through QA testing before it finally gets released. That obviously makes sense to anyone.

So how can things take this long? Didn’t GNOME developers actually test gnome-shell with fglrx drivers? Didn’t distributions that noticed the bug realize the Bugzilla wasn’t even owned by AMD at all? What would have happened if GNOME developers actually reported this to AMD while GNOME Shell was in a more early development cycle back in 2010?

**facepalm

Thank you AMD! Looking forward for the 11.9 driver that will hopefully come out within 4 weeks.

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=652029
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=649666

“Nelson Marques 2011-05-25 23:30:05 UTC
ATI/AMD needs to fix this, not really us… I’ve opened this bug report on
their end, and other distro’s have the same issue…”
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=685691

I installed Sabayon 6 what now?

Here is a very short guide what I would do directly after install.

Open a terminal and become root. (you type in su and hit enter and then give your root password)

Now the first thing would be to update the repository database:
equo update

It will now tell you there is 1 update available, glibc. This is an update that always must be installed before anything else so go ahead.
After installation it will re-spawn Entropy and continue asking to install the additional updates.

We stop here and first install the new entropy code with a trick so it doesn’t start pulling in huge dependency trees. Entropy does not need them to run anyway.

equo install entropy equo --relaxed

Once done we need to sort the mirrors. I noticed that on my test case it was set to a mirror in Australia. This is the other side of the globe and obviously not the best speedy connection I could get.

equo repo mirrorsort sabayon-weekly

Wait for it to test and then continue.

equo upgrade

And there you have it.

Testing GNOME 3

About 2 weeks ago GNOME 3 was added to the testing repository and I think it is good enough for more experienced users to go and play with it. I’d like to state that if you like GNOME 3 or not, we cannot help that.

*** PHAT WARNING ***
If you use fgrlx drivers (<=11.7) do not migrate yet, GNOME Shell doesn't work with it!
You can get it to work if you remove ati-drivers and move to the OpenSource ati driver and switch to Gallium3d (eselect mesa)
*** END WARNING ***

To give you a head start here let me give you a quick howto migration guide.

1. Add Limbo (obviously)
2. Upgrade your system completely
3. Restart your system (A new gdm is installed and for me it required me to reboot or restart dbus)

If you log in the first time you will notice a warning and the Fallback desktop will load. This is wanted behaviour.

4. Install gnome-shell and log out
5. log in and there you go.

Some tweaks to apply:

- install gnome-tweak-tool
- install gnome-extra/gnome-shell-extensions-activities-button

Open gnome-tweak-tool and then:

File manager – Put all options on if you want desktop Icons
Interface – Select the Elementary icon theme as your default theme

Have fun!

Sabayon Nostalgia

I came across a post made by Jeff Hoogland on his blog back in March. I never was much of a KDE user myself, but I recall how fast and stable it was in early Sabayon 3.

If you didn know it yet, KDE 3 has been removed from Gentoo Portage tree a while back. Same goes for Qt version 3 and the qt3 useflag.
Being removed from Portage tree does not mean it isn’t available anymore, actually, it still is and is being maintained too!

Everything got moved out tree into the sunset overlay.

I went ahead investigate what it would take to get it running on a current Sabayon 6 installation.

Sync Portage tree and add the sunset overlay:

emerge --sync
layman -a kde-sunset

Now I noticed that so far the only “big” change would be that I needed avahi from kde-sunset overlay. Since kdelibs:3.5 has a dependency on avahi with qt3 useflag.

Look at /etc/portage/package.use and add the qt3 useflag to the avahi entry so it looks like this:
net-dns/avahi howl-compat mdnsresponder-compat dbus gdbm -gtk python autoipd -qt4 qt3

Now we can go ahead and merge kde-base/kdebase-startkde. I tend to always install this one instead of kde-meta. It makes a nice minimal KDE installation.

Remember that you can use Entropy to install additional build tools, to keep as much insync with Entropy.

emerge -av kdebase-startkde:3.5

And there you have it!

Notice the :3.5 I used here. This is NOT a version it is a SLOT.

If you later want to install additional KDE 3.5 programs, e.g. ksnapshot or konsole do it like this:
emerge -av konsole:3.5
emerge -av ksnapshot:3.5

For Entropy users:
Mask avahi, otherwise Entropy will pull in the Entropy version (without the qt3 flag enabeld/available)
equo mask avahi
Finally sync Entropy database, so it is aware of the changes you made:
equo rescue spmsync

Speed up Entropy

If you experience a low download speed when upgrading your system with Entropy there are several things you can do to try speed it up.

Select the best mirror
equo repo mirrorsort sabayonlinux.org

This will do some tests and evaluate the results automatically. Then sets the mirrors in the correct priority and writes the changes in /etc/entropy/repositories.conf

Use multifetch
If you do have a better internet connection, you can change the way how Entropy downloads the packages you need for installing.
Open /etc/entropy/client.conf and change multifetch as follows:
multifetch = 10

Don’t forget to remove the # comment char, otherwise the line would still be skipped over.

Use delta technology
When we create a new version of a package on the server, the REAL difference (delta) between them could be small. Sometimes we just need to recompile a package because it got broken because some library got a new API version or whatever. So on a 16MB package, that diff could be as little as 100kb!
In the Entropy package manager we’ve build in a feature that could actually download the difference and then patch the old package and use the newly created on on your machine. In order to have this working you should keep a copy of your downloaded packages. (So don’t run equo cleanup!)
If you are on lower bandwidth but have enough disk space on your system you might want to consider enable packages-delta.

Open /etc/entropy/client.conf and change packages-delta as follows:
packages-delta = enable

Don’t forget to remove the # comment char, otherwise the line would still be skipped over.