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This is an update on running linux on the appletv. The xvmc hang/video corruption (green block) has been solved. This means that reliable xvmc assisted HD decode of up to 1080i mpeg2 content is now possible. 1080i takes about 60 percent cpu in mplayer, mythfrontend is about 10 percent higher under current svn/trunk.
The trick was to underclock the gpu from 360MHz to 200MHz and overclock the vram from 720MHz to 800MHz. Other setting might also yield similar results. This problem has been the major stumbling block to reliable 1080i mpeg2 content decode and viewing on the appletv platform under a linux os.
Another performance point is 720p mpeg2 decode in software at 45-50 percent cpu. I've not done any mpeg4/h264 tests, I have no content in that format.
Once I finalize this round of testing and finish the new bootloader, I'll take a stab at getting XBMC (linux) running on the appletv for kicks. The OSX port has me interested.
See the following links if you are interested and want to play too.
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Apple_TV_Linux_Kernel
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV/Debian
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Apple_TV_Linux_IR_Howto
http://forum.awkwardtv.org/viewforum.php?f=23
Scott
Gamester17
2008-02-20, 12:13
Cool! (Note however that there is no XvMC support under Mac OS X, only Linux).
You should checkout this LiveUSB project => http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=30857
:grin:
There was some work done in the past to pass mpeg2 to the non-doucumented API under the DVD framework. This enabled hardware accelerated mpeg2 decode and actually worked. Search for Accellent, this is the original source. Also this code is current in mythfrontend for osx but no one is actively working on it.
This is also something I'm thinking about. It will have to wait until the boot loader is finished.
FWIW, if you can pull this off I'd be THRILLED to take my ATV back out of the box where it's been gathering dust and put it to good use. My attempts to get decent playback from it were unsuccessful and both I and a friend set them aside for XBMC on Linux w\PC hardware. If this can be made anywhere near as easy to setup I'll be all over it. Frankly I'd written off the ATV as being too weak, this is good news indeed.
I'd appreciate any details you'd care to provide so far as specific distro or the path that you followed to get there, I see a thread on Ubuntu, yes? I'm NOT Mac savvy but my friend is, I've got no issues pulling the drive etc. but have no access to a Mac myself. Might be fun to try if it's not too far over my head!:oo:
Godspeed sir!
Started with an Ubuntu 7.04 desktop, I have several Ubuntu boxes running separate mythbackend/frontend. Also Macs too.
One of my design requirements was everything must be build-able on OSX and Linux so the bootloader will not require a doner Intel MacOS. It only requires boot.efi which I can't distribute. It can be found on the internal hd (which means pulling it) or you can download the r1.1 update and pull it off that. You do have to decide to A) backup and use the existing drive or B) use a replacement and keep the original intact. It might also be possible to use an external USB hard drive but that might effect swap performance.
The whole thing should be easy to install if you have ever installed Linux.
I've installed Linux more times than I can count here recently but always from something pretty simple like Ubuntu. I understand not distributing the EFI, not an issue as I've got the original drive and a spare thanks to eBay. Pulling the drive is no biggie, it's seal has been popped before. If there's someplace specific I should look for a "start here" sort of spot I'm all ears. Else I'll happily stand on the sidelines a bit and cheer you on - you've caught my interest and that of others for sure!
The "Linux" forum is here
http://forum.awkwardtv.org/viewforum.php?f=23
Here are a few wiki pages
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV/Debian
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Apple_TV_Linux_Kernel
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV
The last one is really detailed and but can be very confusing. you will see references to http://www.mythic-beasts.com/resources/appletv/ but you need to be careful as it's very dated and there are several versions of mb_boot_tv (one of the bootloaders) of which only one works.
Basically all Intel Apple computers (including teh AppleTV) use gpt as a partition format.
The first partition is labeled "EFI" and is FAT but is has a special GUID. This partition is typically empty and only used for RAID drives on OS X desktop or server computers. The AppleTV disk does not really need this partition but I always include it because you never know.
The second partition is labeled "Recovery". It's a HFS-plus format but it also has a special GUID. The AppleTV keeps a disk image (dmg) of the OSBoot files. It's called Recovery because the AppleTV firmware can restore the next (OSBoot) partition in case it detects problems. When you select "restore" from the configure menu, that's where the AppleTV pulls an OS image.
The third partition is labeled "OSBoot". It's also a HFS-plus format and has the normal GUID for HFS-plus. This holds the normally booted AppleTV OS (which is a derivative of OS X 10.4.7) and FrontRow.
The fourth partition is labeled "Media". It's also HFS-plus and it only holds synced content. This partition can be reduced in size if you want to create more partitions for linux usage.
The AppleTV firmware boots by looking for a file called boot.efi on OSBoot. Boot.efi loads a darwin mach kernel (called mach_kernel) and drivers (kext). If it can't find boot.efi, it then looks for boot.efi on Recovery. We boot Linux by taking advantage of the recovery mode of the firmware. When the AppleTV OS boots, it resets an internal boot attempt count. If the count goes to zero, the firmware will look over the USB bus for a Mass Storage Device with a Recovery partition and attempt boot. You can also force the USB probe by holding down the "menu" and "-" buttons on the IR remote at powerup.
So to get Linux to boot, we create a proper Recovery partition with boot.efi and a mach kernel that is actually a secondary Linux boot loader. The firmware loads boot.efi which loads our "mach kernel" and a dummy kext, at that point we have control and own the box.
That's a short primer that will help make sense of the above URL links and forum discussions.
One final def. Patchstick is a USB pen drive that enabled one to install sshd into the AppleTV OS. Don't worry too much about a PatchStick, we can build a linux based Patchstick that takes much less effort plus we don't really need it.
S.
Thank you! As it happens I'm somewhat familiar with EFI and have a patchstick for my ATV - a friend with a MAC built it but I understand the concept. I'm aware of getitng it to boot off the USB via the remote too. I knew it had a recovery partition etc. but I appreciate the explanation. I remember when I pulled the drive and looked at it - looked WAY different than it did via SSH:shocked: I might have been looking at the wrong partition heh.
Anyway, that wasn't complete Greek and I've been doing some reading on the links posted earlier. Where it seemed a little confusing to me was seeing references to Gentoo when I thought Ubuntu was what you were using.???
Not to worry, I'll read more. Sounds like a pretty interesting project and that you've made some terrific progress! I really look forward to hearing how XBMC runs on the ATV when Linux is native.:nod:
Thanks for taking the time at writing up an explanation of terms etc!
Consider this a call for developers/testers in creating an AppleTV based XBMC distribution. I've svn commited atv-bootloader, it's still a work in progress but the basics of a kexec based appletv bootloader are present and working. It does not auto-boot (manual kexec'ing works) a secondary kernel yet and that's where I need some assistance in creating bash script tools to automatically locate and parse the default grub menu.lst. All code contributed must be GNU v2.
The first target is a USB based XBMC for Linux. The idea here is to create a USB pen drive based distro that one can boot XBMC for Linux without have to alter the original internal hard drive. Stick the USB pen in, re-boot and boot into XBMC instead of the AppleTV OS. I'd rather it be debian (Ubuntu) based as that's what I know best and it will most likely require at least a 4GB pen drive.
atv-bootloader is located here (http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/source/browse). The svn commit has both source and compiled bits so one does not need to recompile unless the initrd contents change. The initrd creation Makefile will be posted in a few days and it will support running a secondary bootloader script located outside the initrd.
atv-bootloader does not require EFI patches to the kernel and supports vesafb as a console framebuffer. I'm currently using standard 2.6.24.3 as the boot kernel but it should be able to kexec boot earlier kernels without problem.
Send me a PM if you want to contribute and I'll PM back with my email address so we can take this off list until we have something to really brag about.
Scott
Gamester17
2008-03-10, 22:58
Consider this a call for developers/testers in creating an AppleTV based XBMC distribution. I've svn commited atv-bootloader, it's still a work in progress but the basics of a kexec based appletv bootloader are present and working. It does not auto-boot (manual kexec'ing works) a secondary kernel yet and that's where I need some assistance in creating bash script tools to automatically locate and parse the default grub menu.lst. All code contributed must be GNU v2.
The first target is a USB based XBMC for Linux. The idea here is to create a USB pen drive based distro that one can boot XBMC for Linux without have to alter the original internal hard drive. Stick the USB pen in, re-boot and boot into XBMC instead of the AppleTV OS. I'd rather it be debian (Ubuntu) based as that's what I know best and it will most likely require at least a 4GB pen drive.Good initiative, ...but why not use Ubuntu Mobile (http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile) as the base? Ubuntu Mobile (http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile) is what we are most likely going to base the official XBMC LiveDistro on when we get to that stage. l.capriotti have already created a LiveUSB proof of concept, (he might even be willing to help if he owns an Apple TV), see:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=30857
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded
more discussion about LiveUSB in these topic threads:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31768
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=30752
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27428
[EDIT:] Would it by the way be possible to make one image that could be bootable on both the Mac mini and the Apple TV?, or would the fact that the Mac mini uses Intel GMA950 GPU hardware and the Mac mini uses NVIDIA cuase to much problems? ...I think that if it would be possible then you would get many more people willing to help out.
Best of luck!
[EDIT]: PS! You might want to consider creating a new topic-thread to announce your intentions and recruit people to the cause, as otherwise I think your post will be lost in this existing topic-thread.
I've seen the XBMC Ubuntu Mobile thread. It's interesting and I'll most likely start there. Ubuntu Mobile on x86 is still pretty recent. I was actually think something more along the lines of how MythBuntu works but this is not fixed in stone.
AppleTV or MacMini does not really matter. The AppleTV need atv-bootloader to boot Linux, a MacMini can boot Linux directly using either an EFI bootloader (elilo) or grub via the BIOS compatibility layer. While the USB pen drive must be gpt partition based, gpt does support a MBR compatibility. I've not tried it but one should be able to create a USB pen drive that supports both types.
Nvidia vs Intel does not matter, that's an X11 config issue. I'm also following the XBMC on OSX development and that works fine on my 1st gen 1.6GHz intel MacMini so a Linux based XBMC should be fine too.
If I don't get any responses, I'll create a new thread, too late now.
Scott
Gamester17
2008-03-10, 23:55
GeeXboX (LiveCD based) is probably also a good project to take inspiration from, see:
http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html
I would look at LinuxMCE. They have a wizard that can be started at boot time (by clicking shift) which guides you through a wizard. they also have a distro...
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/AVWizard_Step_by_Step
boot parser is done, I finally created a c command-line app that can parse grub, kboot, syslinux, ioslinux and mb_boot_tv bootloader config files, extract and format for a kexec load command. Now to integrate with the initramfs and soon, auto-boot.
I know where there are at least 3 aTVs just waiting to check this out. Mine being one of them but it's on the opposite coast for the moment. I'll have it home soon enough and would be happy to help test as would friends I think. BIG thumbs up for working on this, thank you!!
atv-bootloader released. see http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/ATVBootLoader.
This enables the installation of Ubuntu onto the AppleTV. The next step is building and install XBMC for Linux.
Attempting to follow your guide from the atv-bootloader page, but after running the command:
sudo parted -s /dev/sda mklabel gpt (which completes with no errors)
I then go on to the next command, which is to run parted and have it print information regarding the drive. After I type:
sudo parted /dev/hda (and then print, after parted as loaded)
I get Error: /dev/hda: unrecognised disk label
I've been following all instructions verbatim, and am using a Mythbuntu install CD (pretty sure, version 7.10, just downloaded and burned it) as a LiveCD to work with the ATV drive.
Are you using a LiveCD as well to access the drive? Are there modules that must be loaded in order to use gpt? It seems parted was correctly installed, it is version 1.8.8 and I can see gpt in the list when I type help mklabel in while running parted.
Output of uname -a:
Linux ubuntu 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun Oct 14 23:05:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
Any ideas? ;]
sudo parted -s /dev/sda mklabel gpt
sudo parted /dev/hda
one of your parted commands references "sda" then other "hda". "sda" != "hda".
I think you want "sudo parted /dev/sda" instead.
ubuntu 2.6.22-14-generic does not reference disks as "hdx". All drives are "sdx".
URL Correction: http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/
I reinstalled again last night to re-verify the MythBuntu install instructions. Everything was done using the LiveCD including building the patched parted and hfs_support tools. No problems.
This time I installed both mythtv frontend and backend. The front/back end combo is too much for the 256MB ram that the AppleTV has and MythTV is a pig regarding memory. Linux swaps like crazy. This is doing 1080i/720p decode/display from a HDHomeRun. MythFrontEnd is fine to a separate MythTV backend.
The other thing I noticed was that when using the drive attached via USB, boot time to Linux/ATV logo is about 11 seconds. When using the drive attached to the internal ata bus, boot time to logo increased to greater than 60 seconds. This is a mystery that I need to solve. My previous Linux installs take the standard 11 second to logo attached to internal ata. The only real difference is the MBR that grub wrote. gpt format includes legacy MBR support so the there should not be a problem. Should take a day or so to find out the reason.
Oops, thats a typo on top. I copied and pasted that from your guide. I have the Apple TV hard drive hooked up to my computer with a 3.5->2.5 adapter -- so it's attached to my main ide controller. I'm very sure that it is /dev/hda ;]
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo parted /dev/hda
GNU Parted 1.8.8
Using /dev/hda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) mklabel
New disk label type? msdos
(parted) print
Model: FUJITSU MHW2040AT (ide)
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
(parted)
But when I change it to gpt:
(parted) mklabel
Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/hda will be destroyed and all data on
this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue?
Yes/No? yes
New disk label type? [msdos]? gpt
(parted) print
Error: /dev/hda: unrecognised disk label
(parted)
The 40 gig drive is definitely the Apple TV's hard disk, and I can only not print the list of partitions when the label type is gpt.
sometime I've noticed parted doing strange things so generally I womp the disk with "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1M" to "clean it"
then "sudo parted -s /dev/sda mklabel gpt"
This is the patched parted, correct? And you removed the previous parted "atp-get remove parted" before building the patched parted.
I've never seen this error and I can't believe it a 3.5->2.5 adapter issue. The "hda" naming is strange. Ubuntu changed from using "hdx" to "sdx" after breezy. I remember that well;>.
So you boot off the LiveCD, install the build tools, then build parted and hfs-support tools. Basically following this (http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/PartitioningLinux).
paste the output of "cat /proc/partitions" here so I can see it.
I'm following the guide exactly. ;] I've wiped it with zeros -- twice now, as I tried it again in case something went wrong the first time.
I didn't check to see what version of parted comes with Mythbuntu 7.10, but parted displays 1.8.8 as it's version. And when I run apt-get remove parted, it (after uninstalling it when I ran it the first time) tells me it is not installed.
It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that my drive came from a Take 2 ATV, could it?
once you wipe the drive, it does not matter where it came from, the contents and partition formats are gone.
can you post the output from "cat /proc/partitions"?
ubuntu@ubuntu:~/hfs_support$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name
3 0 39070080 hda
8 0 312571224 sda
8 1 312568641 sda1
7 0 419644 loop0
Hmmm, I wonder what went wrong. I went through and manually did the steps from all the .sh files myself, and now it's working?
Something must have failed with the parted build the first time? ;]
Like I said, parted is funny sometimes. I would love to get these patches into parted. They were created and submitted about a year ago and the parted dev was going to add them but then dropped it with no explanation.
Here's the original thread (http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/parted-devel/2007-May/001732.html).
The boot.efi I'm using is from my hard drive before I wiped it. Is there any difference between the Take 2's boot.efi and the one you are using? (I believe yours is from the 1.1 update?)
Oh, and at the end, with the copy commands, I'm having to use sudo to copy them.
The boot.efi file is identical for r1.0, r1.1 and r2 versions. My instructions detail how to extract it from the r1.1 update. I, myself, am using my original boot.efi from a r1.0.
Oh, and at the end, with the copy commands, I'm having to use sudo to copy them.
instructions have been updated.
I typically do a sudo -s to which to root privileges. It can be dangerous which is why I don't do that in the instructions.
When you get it booting -- how long from power-on or reboot to Linux/ATV logo?
I'm at work sshing to hack on it now, but I'm at the point where the command line isn't going to help me anymore. ;] When I get home from work today, I'll finish the install and see what happens.
Are you referring to the time it takes to boot while the drive is back in the ATV or while in the normal PC?
When in the atv (internal ata). I am gathering info about the boot to logo time.
Installer crashes when Configuring mythtv. I am using advanced setup, front end only. Gonna try both front and back end and see what happen. I really dont care about mythtv, I'm not going to use it. ;]
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 212, in <module>
main()
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 207, in main
install(args[0])
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 65, in install
ret = wizard.run()
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/mythbuntu_ui.py", line 252, in run
self.progress_loop()
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/mythbuntu_ui.py", line 330, in progress_loop
(ret, realtb))
RuntimeError: Install failed with exit code 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/share/ubiquity/mythbuntu_install.py", line 288, in <module>
install.run()
File "/usr/share/ubiquity/mythbuntu_install.py", line 100, in run
self.configure_mythbuntu()
File "/usr/share/ubiquity/mythbuntu_install.py", line 179, in configure_mythbuntu
raise InstallStepError("MythbuntuApply Debconf Xfer failed with code %d" % ret)
InstallStepError: MythbuntuApply Debconf Xfer failed with code 255
Frontend assumes the existence of an existing mythtv backend so that might be what happened.
If you don't want MythBuntu, you can always install from the standard Ubuntu 7.10 gutsy LiveCD. It's very similar and does not have the mythtv dependencies.
I have three builds to do tonight, two for the AppleTV (MythBuntu and Standard 7.10 Gutsy) and one to rebuild my main mythbackend that I messed up two nights ago. The standard AppleTV gutsy build is a base for building XBMC. From the other posts, svn looks pretty stable.
I'm not worried about it, install when through just fine this time. I can just prune out what I don't want, but I'll continue using what ever environment you are, for ease of comparison.
Ok, boots, takes about 30-45 seconds of hard drive clicking for tux to show up. I never see what ever other logo you are referring to.
Not all of the scrolling boot messages fit on the screen. ;] Gets to a point that I assume is a login prompt or something.
Once it has booted, how are you accessing it?
Once MythBuntu comes up, you should see a normal X11 type desktop, there's a menu entry that can bring up a terminal window. sshd is alive so you should also be able to ssh into it.
say more about what you are seeing. sounds like it's not fully booting.
I have a USB hub with mouse and keyboard for development work.
it must not be, X never loads, thats for sure.
since I was unable to get it to turn off, I pulled the plug.
and now its flashing a atv and a ? and then back to a tux, while the led in the front is flashing two colors.
which tux, upper left corner or tux riding the atv?
long boot time (30 to 60 seconds) to tux riding the atv is solved. It's an easy fix. I'll have a write up and download file on the wiki in a few hours.
does not start loading linux at all, flashes between atv/? and tux riding the atv. thought it was sitting there doing it indefinately, but I will leave it on and see how long it goes. worked first time, after that this is what has happened.
i also tried reinstalling it from standard ubuntu this time, but it didnt ask me about my video card or about IR.
to clarify, it started doing the flashing ? and riding tux thing before I tried installing it using standard ubuntu instead of mythbuntu.
The standard Ubuntu install does not ask about video but you can the nvidia binary. It's part of the restricted driver modules. I about an hour behind you. Can't find my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop CD so have to download another (37min remaining). Since I assume (being is the XBMC for Linux) that you really want to get XBMC for Linux working. In that case I would install the Ubuntu 7.10 desktop. It is much closer to the XBMC dev environment than MythBuntu.
If you see the riding tux, then efi firmware found boot.efi and it found com.apple.Boot.plist. The riding tux logo is loaded from there. But boot.efi is not happy about something so it abort the boot and goes looking for another boot disk. Need to see why boot.efi is not happy so have to turn off the riding tux logo so we can see the boot output (verbose mode).
To turn on verbose mode, edit com.apple.Boot.plist on the Recovery partition and add "-v" to the "Kernel Flags". So "Kernel Flags" should be "-v atv-boot=auto video=vesafb"
Then watch for the error message.
sort of hard to read as it's repeating and flashing, but this is what I think it says:
boot file path:\boot.efi
.Looking for kernel cache file 'System\Library\Caches\com.apple.kernelcaches\kern elcache.A417E5EA'
Loading 'mach.kernel'...
......Error allocating 0x206 pages at 0xb008000 alloc type 2
Error loading kernel 'mach.kernel' (0x80000009)
check the recovery partition for "/System/Library/Extensions/KernelMemoryAccess.kext", the kext must be present.
if present, then just re-copy the contents of recovery.tar.gz into recovery and osboot. Make sure it has a mach_kernel. An early release of recovery.tar.gz did not have mach_kernel inside. The atv-bootloader site now has a direct download link so you don't have to pull from svn.
Long boot time 30-60 seconds to tux/atv logo) issue solved. I've heard of this but never saw it until recent. This issue is that if the MBR is not a "proper" gpt protected MBR, the AppleTV will refuse to boot the disk first few times it looks around. Eventually, finding nothing else, it will accept the disk and boot.
My original Linux drives (from long ago) were partitioned on OSX so the proper MBR gets installed. I'm now using the patched parted process (which I think also places a MBR) and doing standard Linux distro installs.
My boot method looks for a grub menu.lst so one need to allow grub to install but grub also installs it's own MBR which the AppleTV efi firmware does not accept first time around.
I've placed instructions at http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader in the installing linux section and there a good MBR in the download section.
I'll continue to investigate this as it would be nice to have both grub and fast efi boot enabled.
Did a total reinstall, everything all over again except redoing the partitions. Used the link for the recovery tarball to populate the two paritions, put the boot.efi file with 'em. installed grub this time, and it boots fine on my standard pc.
when i put it back in the atv, same problem. turned on verbosity and its the same error.
Not a clue, 0xb000000 is the mach kernel load address. It's complaining about "allocating 0x206 pages at 0xb008000", I don't allocate anything in the bootloader so that's boot.efi with the error message.
Need to think on this a bit and try some boot failures after work. Do you have a small USB pen drive? Use patched parted to put a recovery partition and the recovery contents and boot.efi on it. Stick it in and see if it will boot.
Followed guide all the way over again, including DDing with zeros. Same results? I tried my old patchstick and it boots fine (and fails to patch the original ATV software, of course.) I'm lost. ;]
when you copied the contents of extracted recovery.tar.gz, did you "cp" or "cp -arp"?
davilla,
You mentioned you did a standard ubuntu install as well as a mythbuntu one. Doing the standard install how did you get the correct video drivers in place and configured?
I was able to get the system to boot to the desktop with myhtbuntu, but since I am looking to do XBMC I wanted to do the standard ubuntu install. I got the basic system on there and the tv does switch over to ubuntu but after a page or two of startup output it is replaced by just a blinking cursor. I am assuming this is the system trying to display using drivers or configuration which is not compatible with the tv.
thanks for any info,
Andrew
adefa,
Post the output of the patched parted print command, before you do the print, type "unit s" to change from bytes to sectors. If you want, tar up the contents (minus boot.efi) of Recovery and email it to me so I can check it. It's my name here @4pi.com. My mail server can handle large files.
annagel,
I was almost at the same point as you a few days ago, then I hosed my primary mythtv backend doing silly things with MythBuntu on the AppleTV. You need to get it to boot using "safe mode" that does minimal video probing or force it to use the vesafb. Or boot or chroot into it on standard PC hardware and install the nvidia binary driver using apt-get. Don't manually install from a download from nvidia's web site. This will confuse the Ubuntu install. Google for "Envy" and "Nvidia" and you will find the info.
You can also convert the MythBuntu into a full Ubuntu desktop using apt-get. There's info about that on the MythBuntu web site.
annagel,
Did you follow the steps for adding "fbcon" and "vesafb" and rebuilding the initramfs. It's the same for Ubuntu 7.10 desktop and MythBuntu 7.10.
yes I did that, caught onto that pretty early in the process since I forgot the first time and the system didn't get out of the bootloader.
For anyone interested in what I did to get it up:
Steps to get Ubuntu Gutsy working After the install
Go through davilla's steps but before you do
sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /media/disk/etc/
sudo mount --bind /proc /media/disk/proc
Now once you are chrooted:
uncomment all the sources...not sure which ones were important in vi 'x' will delete the character under the cursor so just delete the '#' key in front of every comment once you are done :x will exit writing out the new file
vi /etc/apt/sources.list
#install ssh
apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
hook up the drive and boot, you might see a login prompt you might not I did but my plan was to use ssh anyway so i could sit down and not be looking up at the tv.
Get logged in at the keyboard or via ssh
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-new
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable
now go through a set-up...pick the right driver nvidia obviously, the rest i dk I guessed on a bunch of them but you can always try it a few times if you get it wrong.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Next on the list is wireless and MAYBE screwing the bottom back on tv. On a somewhat random note, when I first cracked open my tv several months ago-only to give up on the XBMC dream for a while and now come back to it-I accidentally ripped the rubber footpad. Does anyone know of a place I could buy a new one? I am contemplating just checking out the Apple Store as I will be down in that area tomorrow hope maybe they have a way to get one if I am willing to pay...
Great, that's good into. I'll poke around to try and see why the default video failed on first boot since one can ssh in. If not, there should be a way to pre-setup the correct nvidia driver for X11 and I'll add that to the wiki.
I did find another issue, the installed 100.14.19 nvidia driver does not change the gpu clock so underclocking is not working. This means that eventually xvmc decode will eventually hang/video corruption. Going to either 100.14.23 or the 169 series and using "Envy" to update should fix it. If you have to update the nvidia driver, might as well move to the 169 version.
Sorry no source for the rubber footpad. I don't think the Apple store will be able to help. All AppleTV go back to the "factory" for service and I've never see any parts list (I'm a Select Apple Developer). Maybe a trashed one on ebay?
If you go to the Apple Store check out the iPod Touch, very nice.
Wireless is working...sort of. Installed the dell driver using ndiswrapper, only getting 2.4 (b/g/crap n) GHz networks though which is disappointing. I have the N airport base station which I am running a 5Ghz a/n network off of. A must for living in an apartment were the sheer number of wireless networks makes stable b/g connections pretty much an exercise in futility.
Has anyone heard of getting the 5Ghz a/n functionality of the tv hardware working? Or is my best bet an 802.11a game adapter?
Andrew
The AppleTV uses the same wi-fi hardware as the MacMini and MacBook so I'd google for what other have done using these under linux.
The AppleTV uses the same wi-fi hardware as the MacMini and MacBook so I'd google for what other have done using these under linux.
Not the same as the MacBook..tv is Broadcom(sp?) and MacBook is Atheros. Atheros you can get 5ghz a and you can see 5ghz n (though connections do not work) using the MadWifi driver. All the non-ndiswrapper info I have found thus far on the chipset in the tv seems to suggest ndiswrapper is the only way to go for now...just wanted to see if anyone else had seen differently.
In other news after an exhausting (2AM here) compile that felt like it took at least an hour, I have XBMC on the tv :)
Thanks for your help davilla direct, through past posts (I swear at this point if you have a Linux on tv question the most efficient way to get an answer is googling davilla and your question), and obviously for the atv-bootloader...not having to embark down the kernel patching path to get this working sure makes it an easier and far less daunting path.
One final question before I try and get some sleep. Should I be enabling analog audio using the patch linked here (http://forum.awkwardtv.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=167&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=70#p1855) or is there a newer solution to this issue?
Andrew
That's the description, the link there is broke so here's another one,
http://forum.awkwardtv.org/download/file.php?id=44
It's a pretty easy patch, check with --dry-run first though.
So you did the compile for XBMC not the deb install? How's it working?
That's the description, the link there is broke so here's another one,
http://forum.awkwardtv.org/download/file.php?id=44
It's a pretty easy patch, check with --dry-run first though.
So you did the compile for XBMC not the deb install? How's it working?
Considering that I just got Ubuntu all the way up a couple hours ago it is running pretty well....full screen is not really full screen....haven't even looked at any of the set-ups or anything like that but it is a good start...of course now this is easter weekend so I probably won't get to look at it again until middle of next week which sucks.
I got it booting again, it seems when I have it hooked up (via component) to my standard definition tv, it hangs. But when I hook it up to my plasma, it boots fine? All the text still doesn't fit on the screen, but I'll investigate more once I find myself a USB keyboard. ;]
Well, that's good, I was afraid that you stumbled onto a hidden fault with atv-bootloader.
The failure is the same you previously reported correct? I'm doing component to a SD tv for testing too, 480i. HTDTV is downstairs but it's not really setup for heavy software development.
If you install sshd, like annagel did a few messages back, then you could ssh in from another box.
Yeah I was stuck on that same error until I plugged it back into my plasma. Then it worked. Just got back from Staples with a USB Keyboard, gonna hook it up. I think I can barely see at the bottom of the screen ubuntu linux or something like that, so I'm gonna see what I can do. Once sshd is installed, this will be much easier. ;]
Able to scroll up and check the boot process out, it seems the kernel does not recognize my partition table type on sda. Busybox loads and my username and password do not work. This is exactly as far as I had gotten it to boot before.
Able to scroll up and check the boot process out, it seems the kernel does not recognize my partition table type on sda. Busybox loads and my username and password do not work. This is exactly as far as I had gotten it to boot before.
Ok, it's penbuntu that I end up with. Logged in with root/root. It does not read my partition table on sda for sure, no numbered sda nodes show up in /dev. parted fails when trying to print partition list. works fine when hooked up to my PC, able to mount the disk with no problems there.
Something is fishy, never seen this. Can you put the drive back in the PC and catpture the output of a parted print so I can see the partitions.
This is internal ata correct, not USB to ata.
Right, internal ATA. I'll put it back in my computer right now and hook you up with the info you need.
OK so I went and installed the alsa patch...everything seemed to go ok....though I was also trying to get component working which didn't go so well....is this possible? I thought it was but then I went back and read the what was working thread and it sounded more like component was working as composite rather than component.
Has anyone gotten the component outputs working as component? I had been using HDMI, but the TV I was to put the tv on will not accept audio for HDMI over anything but HDMI, so this means if I want hi-def I need to use component with analog (no optical in on the TV) or buy a sound system to handle the audio for me in which case the HDMI/optical pairing would work.
My first choice is component if it is possible, but is it? Starting up I got no signal on the TV at all not in console or once the system has presumably started up all the way.
Andrew
component works, that's how I'm doing most of my dev work. SD TV though. I have also done HD component and HDMI. The trick is configuring xorg.conf. Stay away from modelines. Nothing but trouble.
see http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ComponentOut , the section using metamodes.
This parted output is from booting my ATV hard drive in my PC from internal ata.
trevors@AppleTV:~$ sudo parted /dev/hda
[sudo] password for trevors:
GNU Parted 1.7.1
Using /dev/hda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 20.5kB 25.0MB 25.0MB fat32 primary boot
2 25.0MB 50.0MB 25.0MB hfs+ primary
3 50.0MB 75.0MB 25.0MB hfs+ primary
4 75.0MB 38.9GB 38.8GB ext3 primary
5 38.9GB 40.0GB 1108MB linux-swap primary
(parted)
I have my atv hooked up to my TV using component cables. But at this point I'm still in text mode.
component works, that's how I'm doing most of my dev work. SD TV though. I have also done HD component and HDMI. The trick is configuring xorg.conf. Stay away from modelines. Nothing but trouble.
see http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ComponentOut , the section using metamodes.
Should I at least be seeing the boot console stuff though regardless of my xorg.conf file?
The thing to remember is that the AppleTV is a dual headed video. In xorg,
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
is component output.
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT"
is HDMI.
So in the Section "Screen"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
Option "TvOutFormat" "Component"
Option "TVStandard" "HD720p"
Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1280x720 +0+0"
will force 720p over conponent
Should I at least be seeing the boot console stuff though regardless of my xorg.conf file?
It depends, neither atv-bootloader nor vesafb can alter the console mode. Only the nvidia binary driver "knows" how to get there. There is a video bios but I can't seem to it. The nvidia binary can find it.
It depends, neither atv-bootloader nor vesafb can alter the console mode. Only the nvidia binary driver "knows" how to get there. There is a video bios but I can't seem to it. The nvidia binary can find it.
Ah, so me not seeing anything during boot is not necessarily a negative sign of anything? Thanks for the xorg.conf tips, I will be trying that out next.
This parted output is from booting my ATV hard drive in my PC from internal ata.
trevors@AppleTV:~$ sudo parted /dev/hda
[sudo] password for trevors:
GNU Parted 1.7.1
Using /dev/hda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 20.5kB 25.0MB 25.0MB fat32 primary boot
2 25.0MB 50.0MB 25.0MB hfs+ primary
3 50.0MB 75.0MB 25.0MB hfs+ primary
4 75.0MB 38.9GB 38.8GB ext3 primary
5 38.9GB 40.0GB 1108MB linux-swap primary
(parted)
I have my atv hooked up to my TV using component cables. But at this point I'm still in text mode.
Well, it looks fine, parted is the normal installed not patched (Parted 1.7.1), atvrecv is missing but that because this version is not patched and does not display atvrecv.
So this is from your atv drive, connected to internal ata booting MythBuntu 7.10? It says hda. The standard Ubuntu/MythBuntu install will not show hdx but sdx for all disk devices, ata, scsi, usb, etc.
So what did you install? Let me see "uname a".
OK so I went and installed the alsa patch...everything seemed to go ok....though I was also trying to get component working which didn't go so well....is this possible? I thought it was but then I went back and read the what was working thread and it sounded more like component was working as composite rather than component.
Andrew
Where did you pull the alsa patch. I don't see any downloads yet on the wiki. I added a section today to patch the realtek and enable analog audio?
adefa,
And also just the default boot from grubs menu.lst.
Mine is
title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
root (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=d439b2bb-deec-4c07-b2bc-d97aca8c44f3 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet
well this one makes me feel stupid....I got no display because one of the cables was unplugged and my TV will show nothing if it is only getting a signal from 2 out of 3 of the component cables!
So component is check, now no audio so I definitely messed something up in the alsa re-install but I will start looking at that tomorrow
thanks for the help, even though it did end up being my stupidity that caused my problems!
Andrew
Where did you pull the alsa patch. I don't see any downloads yet on the wiki. I added a section today to patch the realtek and enable analog audio?
Pulled it off of the link you put up here the other day.
Pulled it off of the link you put up here the other day.
The info in the wiki and patch in downloads was done today. It's a rebuilt of linux-ubuntu-module with deb install. patch was built fresh from the source install so it should apply clean against the 2.6.22-14 based realtek.c. Came right on after reboot. Look for "hda_codec: Detected AppleTV RealTek Subsystem ID" in dmesg.
I'm doing the IR patch now, 4 hours into some deb kernel build and it just barfed, died and kicked me out of one ssh session. Maybe I should not ignore the funny grunting sound the hard drive is making every now and then ;) Upstairs to see what happened.
I'm doing the IR patch now, 4 hours into some deb kernel build and it just barfed, died and kicked me out of one ssh session. Maybe I should not ignore the funny grunting sound the hard drive is making every now and then ;) Upstairs to see what happened.
Well, that's "game over" for that drive. Does not even spin up. It's reinstall time to another.
Well, it looks fine, parted is the normal installed not patched (Parted 1.7.1), atvrecv is missing but that because this version is not patched and does not display atvrecv.
So this is from your atv drive, connected to internal ata booting MythBuntu 7.10? It says hda. The standard Ubuntu/MythBuntu install will not show hdx but sdx for all disk devices, ata, scsi, usb, etc.
So what did you install? Let me see "uname a".
root@AppleTV:~/work/hfs_support# parted /dev/hda
GNU Parted 1.8.8
Using /dev/hda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Model: FUJITSU MHW2040AT (ide)
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 20.5kB 25.0MB 25.0MB fat32 primary boot
2 25.0MB 50.0MB 25.0MB hfs+ primary atvrecv
3 50.0MB 75.0MB 25.0MB hfs+ primary
4 75.0MB 38.9GB 38.8GB ext3 primary
5 38.9GB 40.0GB 1108MB linux-swap primary
root@AppleTV:~/work/hfs_support# uname -a
Linux AppleTV 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
root@AppleTV:~/work/hfs_support# hdparm -i /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Model=FUJITSU MHW2040AT, FwRev=0081000C, SerialNo=K00FT81298S1
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78138047
IORDY=yes, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: unknown: ATA/ATAPI-2,3,4,5,6,7
* signifies the current active mode
## ## End Default Options ##
title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
root (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=45a9e00c-55b9-484f-b0bd-59ddbbe29545 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
quiet
Can't think of any other info to provide you.
This is the Apple TV hard drive, using a 2.5->3.5 adapter, on my main IDE controller on my PC. Booting from it.
Well, it looks perfectly fine aside from the hda vs sda difference. The only other difference I can think of is you are using a 2.5 -> 3.5 adapter to install but that should not cause any differences. I generally use a 2.5 to USB adapter, can boot from it too. This reduces the connect/disconnect cycle to the internal cable. The internal cable is fragile and others have see it start to get flaky over time with rough handling.
Since you can boot on a normal PC, that means there's a grub MBR on the drive. That should only make the time boot longer as efi firmware will ignore the drive at first. After 30-60 seconds efi firmware will eventually boot it. There's a proper EFI MBR in the wiki downloads but if you over-write your current one, you will remove the ability to boot the drive on a normal PC. Make a copy of your current one if you try this.
dd if=/dev/hda of=grub_mbr.bin bs=512 count=1
Since I have to do a reinstall anyway, I can do it using a 2.5 -> 3.5 converter and see if I can replicate your problem. My drive was an older one that I guess just finally died, it started making bad drive noises yesterday during a massive kernel deb compile. I'll keep the grub MBR installed too.
It's going to take a bit, I have to dig up a plant (honey do) this morning and do some other things.
ok, installed MythBuntu using a 2.5 -> 3.5 drive adapter. Used recovery.tar.gz from the wiki downloads. Used my original r1 boot.efi.
Since it installed grub, I check the boot on normal PC hardware. X11 did not work as I selected the nvidia binary in the install and the PC hardware only has built in intel video. So screen is blank but I can ssh in.
I see sda, sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4 and sda5 in /dev. Typed "sudo partprobe" which mounts
/dev/sda2 ->/media/Recovery
/dev/sda3 ->/media/OSBoot
/dev/sda4 ->/media/disk
download recovery.tar.gz, extract it and "cp -arp" the contents into /media/OSBoot and /media/Recovery. Add boot.efi into both of the above.
chroot in and do the fix ups for console frame buffer, rebuild the initrd.
Dismount all, shutdown, insert into AppleTV internal. Powerup, about 60 seconds later, I see tux/atv logo, few seconds later into atv-bootloader with tux in upper left corner, atv-bootloader kernel boot (penbuntu) output then search for grub menu.lst and second kernel boot. wait a bit, X11 comes up and Mythfrontend auto starts.
I'm stumped as to why yours is failing to boot the second kernel. Edit the grub menu.lst and remove "quiet splash" from the kernel line. Maybe that will give more info.
davilla,
For the instructions on the wiki I needed to install fakeroot and kernel-wedge
adefa,
I might a fix, I understand the error better. 0x206 pages is the size of the section holding the linux kernel. boot.efi can't alloc memory for it.
I'm at work right now so I can't test it to see if my AppleTV is still ok. I'll need to get you a new build of mach_kernel. I don't want to put it in the download section of atv-bootloader as anything I put there sticks forever.
davilla,
For the instructions on the wiki I needed to install fakeroot and kernel-wedge
ack, I'll update the wiki, my previous apt-gets must already installed them.
Ok, I'm at work as well right now. Just let me know how ya wanna schlep the file to me, and I'll test it tonight.
Davilla will you guys eventually just do a distro for the Apple TV or will this remain a mostly manual process? Mine should be home in the next week or so and I'd love to be able to just write an image to a disk and go! Are there IP issues with trying to do that?
ack, I'll update the wiki, my previous apt-gets must already installed them.
Also not a bad idea for at least anyone doing ubuntu, dumping a disc image of the ubutu installer onto the drive before sending it off on its own so you can mount it to /media/cdrom when apt-get starts asking for it. Though I feel like there must be other ways around this as well, I just do not know what they are...
A distro is hard to do right now. Because of the console video assumptions that Ubuntu uses for it's installer, the installation has to be done on using normal PC hardware (I'm still working on solving this). A deb for after install could be created, I'm deb creation stupid right now so that will have to wait until either I learn more or someone else volunteers. It's looking like we will need the nvidia driver updated to the 169.xx series to get the gpu to underclock, analog audio needs a simple patch to the realtek module and that's part of linux-ubuntu-modules. IR support needs a simple patch to another kernel module but that in linux kernel image (it's only two lines of code). Both of these are loadable kernel modules so it possible to pre-create and manually patch but that's going to break if the kernel gets updated. Since Ubuntu (and MythBuntu) has strictly defined updates, it might be possible to pre-compile modules for all updates and use a deb to control. Just don't know that much about debs.
A generic preconfigured disk image could be created but I don't have the hosting space at googlecode and it's going to be big, about 1.5G or more extracted so maybe 600MB compressed.
IP is not an issue as only boot.efi is required and that can be extracted from Apple r1.1 update, the atv-bootloader wiki has instructions for this. Any image or dep cannot distribute this file so it will have to be fetched before or live during the install.
USB pen drives are possible but not really a usable solution. With only 256MB of ram, swap is required and swap on flash is very slow and will eventually kill the flash drive.
USB hard drive are quite usable, I do this right now for testing cases, it's much easer to plug/unplug USB than the internal ata. Little slower than using internal ata but not much. This also means that you could leave your original atv hard drive unchanged.
MythBuntu install is mostly debugged now. Ubuntu Gutsy install is in progress and should be firmed up in a few days.
For XBMC, I would choose an Ubuntu Gutsy install, it's going to be much closer to what the XBMC on Linux devs are using.
Tracking a boot failure issue using the internal ata disk with a small number of AppleTVs. Think I understand why and can fix this issue, don't know why it only affects a small number of AppleTV and not all of them.
Well, my thought was an image so I guess distro was a poor choice of words - just a preinstalled already done up image that could be DD'd to a drive ready to roll. I understand about the disk space but I'll bet we could do a torrent easily enough. Find a good tracker and off you go, TPB for instance would work. The first upload would take awhile depending upon upload speed but once up and seeded it would roll - I'd help for sure.
The IP in it would be a problem but if it's just one file that could be worked around easily enough - just add a text file describing how to do it. If you get things to a point to try that by all means I'm onboard. I need to get my routers straight so my machine can be accessed to speed up seeding but that's already on my list:nod: I've got good upload speed to burn so lemme' know if you are ever to the point where you're comfortable doing that.
Is there any way to use a screen resolution but have Ubuntu just shrink itself by some amount? Basically just make itself slight amount smaller than the screen technically allows. I am using this screen entry in my xorg.conf file:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
Monitor "mon1"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Option "Coolbits" "1"
Option "UseEDID" "False"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
Option "TvOutFormat" "Component"
#------------480p Group-----------------------------
# Option "TVStandard" "HD480p"
# Option "metamodes" "CRT: 720x480 +0+0"
#------------720p Group-----------------------------
#Option "TVStandard" "HD720p"
#Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1280x720 +0+0"
#------------1080i Group-----------------------------
Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1920x1080 +0+0"
# Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1388x768 +0+0"
Option "TVStandard" "HD1080i"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "720x480" "1280x720" "1920x1018"
EndSubSection
EndSection
If I combine this with System->Prefs->Screen Res->1920x1080 I get a slight amount of overflow on the screen but I am at least filling the screen...so it seems like it should be easier to get the desktop to be not quite as big as it could be right?
overscan?
Option "TVOverScan" "0.6"
into xorg. It's a nvidia option.
Yes, one tester reported back that a second internal build fixed the error with boot.efi loading mach_kernel.
The fix actually makes perfect sense now that I see what was happening. Duh -- the error propagates from the original bootloader. Details will get it's own wiki page later. Basically a base load address error, boot.efi say "I can't load you there, I have reserved memory in that location". The reserved address location wiggles around depending which efi firmware mode is running. There are at least three and I suspect more. So, sometimes there is a load address conflict, sometimes not.
I'm waiting on one more response back for verification then I'll post an update to recovery.tar.gz and update svn. svn commits are also changing to only have source now that builds are in the download section. svn commits are eating up my 100MB allocation with googlecode.
Thanks for everyones help in tracking this down.
davilla,
When you upgraded the nvidia driver to 169.x did you just use the installer from the nvidia site or an alternate method?
Andrew
First time I used "Envy". That worked but I don't like how it did every thing, seems really complicated.
Second time, I removed the restricted driver and installed from the nvidia download. It worked fine until I rebooted, then it broke, X11 could not find a screen. Something stupid somewhere. It was late last night so I'll take another stab at it tonight.
I updated the MythBuntu install docs to include the update of the nvidia driver but it's not complete yet.
rasmusth
2008-03-25, 19:12
First I'd like to honor you guys, davilla in particular for this wonderful idea. I'm currently running xbmc on my old xbox, packed away in a drawer under my tv. I'm a total mac-fanatic, so the idea of my beloved XBMC running on an AppleTV is absolutely gorgeous.
The only thing I wonder is if the AppleTV is indeed strong enough on the hardware front to perform playback on 720p in the x264 format?
Thanks again, Rasmus TH.
First I'd like to honor you guys, davilla in particular for this wonderful idea. I'm currently running xbmc on my old xbox, packed away in a drawer under my tv. I'm a total mac-fanatic, so the idea of my beloved XBMC running on an AppleTV is absolutely gorgeous.
The only thing I wonder is if the AppleTV is indeed strong enough on the hardware front to perform playback on 720p in the x264 format?
Thanks again, Rasmus TH.
Some bit rates of x264 720p will be possible, high bit rate maybe not. No one does gpu accelerated x264 under Linux so have to do software decode which means ffmpeg. This area has not been fully explored as to the absolute limits, there a lot of testing with different ffmpeg params and ffmpeg is a moving target with respect to x264.
The AppleTV has a 1GHz pentium-m which is pertty fast for its clock rate but it does not compare to say a 2.5GHz Core2 Duo2.
If you have sample files (less than 50MBs) of 720p x264 that you want tried, post a link and I will try them when I get time.
Second time, I removed the restricted driver and installed from the nvidia download. It worked fine until I rebooted, then it broke, X11 could not find a screen. Something stupid somewhere. It was late last night so I'll take another stab at it tonight.
This was my experience as well with the nvidia installer, install went easy enough but then no go once I restarted.
Andrew
This was my experience as well with the nvidia installer, install went easy enough but then no go once I restarted.
Andrew
Check these links, there's more to remove/add it seems.
http://darpanetwork.blogspot.com/2008/02/update-nvidia-drivers-on-ubuntu-gutsy.html
http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/blog/?p=265
Some info I wish I had before I tried to upgrade:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72490
Looks like having any old nvidia drivers installed is going to cause issues with getting a successful install of the 169.x driver according to this post at least.
I hear your pain, I'm headed that way too. I understand the whole restricted drives approach but why did they make it so difficult to just download the standard nvidia installer and use it to install.
Maybe another approach is to get the source for the restricted drivers deb and patch that to install the 169.xx driver instead of the 100.14.19 version.
169.x is working these are the steps I followed from a clean install following the steps on the wiki minus
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-new
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable
sudo nvidia-xconfig --cool-bits=1 --no-composite --no-logo
and with the sshd install which is commented out
booted and logged in via ssh, though I don't think there is any reason you couldn't do all this from chroot
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential gcc gcc-3.4 xserver-xorg-dev
sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-glx nvidia-settings nvidia-kernel-common
#ran this because it was on the instructions I found
#but it did nothing, can't hurt
sudo rm /etc/init.d/nvidia-*
sudo vi /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common
#change to DISABLED_MODULES="nv"
#might need to add nvidia_new if you had that installes
#would be DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"
#download the installer
wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/169.12/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
#not needed if you were running from chroot
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
#run installer
sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
sudo reboot
booted right to graphical login, running on HDMI at the moment component and the GPU under-clock next
Oops, I guess I just started X and did not reboot, well I am running the new install updates at the moment so that is going to take a good 45 minutes guess I have to wait till then to see if I can survive the reboot.
Oops, I guess I just started X and did not reboot, well I am running the new install updates at the moment so that is going to take a good 45 minutes guess I have to wait till then to see if I can survive the reboot.
Worked fine after reboot
Great, I'll give this a run when I get home and update the wiki.
Did you have any problems installing ssh via chroot? My last attempt failed but I was also ssh'd in to the LiveCD when doing it. That's why it's commented out in the wiki right now.
Great, I'll give this a run when I get home and update the wiki.
Did you have any problems installing ssh via chroot? My last attempt failed but I was also ssh'd in to the LiveCD when doing it. That's why it's commented out in the wiki right now.
No problems installing, the one thing I had to do was copy the resolv.conf file into the image, also I was doing it on a fill Ubuntu install on my MacBook not from the liveCD...
I've seen the issues where installing the binary driver in (k|x)?ubuntu causes it fails after a reboot (with the message in your kdm.log / gdm.log about version not matching) quite often.
To fix, edit the file "/etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common"
and add "nv" (and maybe "nvidia_new") to DISABLED_MODULES
ie.
DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"
Then reboot.
This should disable (k|x)?ubuntu's default nvidia driver and let you use the one you installed.
Cheers,
xgrep
I've seen the issues where installing the binary driver in (k|x)?ubuntu causes it fails after a reboot (with the message in your kdm.log / gdm.log about version not matching) quite often.
To fix, edit the file "/etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common"
and add "nv" (and maybe "nvidia_new") to DISABLED_MODULES
ie.
DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"
Then reboot.
This should disable (k|x)?ubuntu's default nvidia driver and let you use the one you installed.
Cheers,
xgrep
Thanks, added to the atv-bootloader wiki.
Davilla,
I believe I followed all your instructions in setting up the under-clock of the GPU correctly, but when I run:
sudo nvidia-settings -q all
I am still getting 360/720
How can I check to be sure the script to set these is actually being run on startup? I had to create the autostart folder myself and I have a feeling that whatever is supposed to run scripts from there isn't...
Andrew
First see if you manually under-clock.
To under-clock at all, you need two items set correctly and running a 169.xx nvidia driver.
1) option "CoolBits" "1" in xorg.conf, easest way is to use
sudo nvidia-xconfig --cool-bits=1 --no-composite --no-logo
This add the coolbits option in the correct place.
2) normally nvidia-settings will ignore clock changes for mobile chipsets so we have to over-ride this by adding
options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PerfLevelSrc=0x2222" NVreg_Mobile=0
to "/etc/modprobe.d/options" . If you added that to the "/etc/modprobe.d/lrm-nvidia" (think that's the name) but then updated to the 169.xx driver, the "/etc/modprobe.d/lrm-nvidia" is not active anymore and you have to add it to /etc/modprobe.d/options".
need to reboot (or unload/reload the nvidia module) to get the last change.
Now if you did the above correct. you should be able to do
sudo nvidia-settings -a GPUOverclockingState=1
sudo nvidia-settings -a GPU2DClockFreqs=200,800
then
sudo nvidia-settings -q all
to see the change. if it does not change, then something out of place and need to find that first before trying to get the auto apply working.
If you can manually under-clock, then check the menu entries for something called "auto start" or similar. You are looking to the place to add an application to auto run when X11 is up and running.
If you can manually under-clock, then check the menu entries for something called "auto start" or similar. You are looking to the place to add an application to auto run when X11 is up and running.
Ended up having to add it to System->Preferences->Sessions
Manually specified it there and I was good next reboot.
I have been working at trying to get lirc up and running (my last non-xbmc task) but have not been able to get the patched kernel module compiled. I keep running into what appears to be this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-kernel-headers/+bug/179114 has anyone else had any luck here?
That's a Hardy bug, are you running Ubuntu Hardy beta?
SredniV over at
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=720676&page=4
was able to get IR working. It was a MuthBuntu install but MythBunutu uses the same kernel debs build as Ubuntu. You might ask him over there.
You could always build the kernel the normal way, copy the current kernel config from /boot. Follow the patch from
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Apple_TV_Linux_IR_Howto
and do the build directly. Then copy the built usbhid.ko manually into /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/drivers/hid/usbhid/usbhid.ko
I've not gotten to IR yet, taking a small break.
UPDATE
Ubuntu on the AppleTV seems pretty stable so far. There have been several updates to the atv-bootloader wki (http://atv-bootloader.googlecode.com/) that describe the installation process. Installation should be pretty straight forward. Video (Nvidia XvMC), audio (analog and digital), and IR (Apple IR remote) are all working. Wireless is next but should be pretty simple.
You don't need to modify the original internal hard drive, this processes works fine from an external USB hard drive which can be a 2.5 or 3.5 hard drive depending on your external USB hard drive enclosure. I highly recommend starting with a external USB hard drive setup as this does not require altering the original internal hard drive.
As stated before, you do not need to open the AppleTV as everything required can be downloaded from network sources.
This project does require normal PC hardware booting the Ubuntu LiveCD for the initial setup/installation as installation directly from the AppleTV is not possible at the current time (still looking in to this). In addition, there are several patch/build steps which are detailed in the wiki. As such, this project is NOT a click-n-install and requires some familiarity with Ubuntu and Linux.
XBMC is also up and running under an Ubuntu 7.10 desktop install using the newly created XBMC PPA package (see http://xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=177266&postcount=58). SD content (mpeg2 480i/p) seems fine and I'll be testing 720p and 1080i mpeg2 content later as soon as I figure out how to access my mythtv backend content.
Enjoy
Nice!!! Anxious to see the results for 720p....
Just got 720p going, something is strange. I select it, get a few second blip of audio, the about 30 second wait of nothing, then video/audio starts to play. Little choppy on the audio, smells like a buffer issue. Still investigating.
Ok, the strange delay was due to the presence of the 720p file in the same directory as the 1080i. Something that XBMC does not like about the 720p file. Why it causes the long delay in viewing the other content, not a clue. Renaming it from "720p.ts" to "720p.save" hides it from XBMC and long delay is gone.
Any updates on performance on an AppleTV?
720p mpeg2 is still troublesome and the existence of the 720p file in a scanned directory will cause problems with long delays viewing other formats. This makes no sense as mplayer and others has no problems with these 720p mpeg2 files.
It's an XBMC on Linux issue but I don't know enough about the internal video playback details to resolve. I do know that mplayer can handle 720p and almost 1080i mpeg2 using Vx. Using XvMC with 720p and 1080i mpeg2 is trivial but I don't know how to get XBMC to use XvMC. I see it listed in a config file.
It seems like I should be able to use mplayer instead of dvdplayer but the docs are sparse and circular on details of the video playback setup aside from what is present in the video setup screen. The different settings made no difference in 720p nor the other video resolutions. I'd have to dig into code and figure out how playback works, how it's really configured and what to do to fix it.
I've searched the forums for others with similar issue and found nothing relevant.
So unless someone can point me to instructions on how to tweek the video playback or use mplayer vs dvdplayer, there's not much more I can do besides wait for the next alpha release and try again.
I really need to get back to enhancements and refinements with atv-bootloader. I'd like to get direct boot LiveCD install of the OS working (oh so close) and much faster boot times and possibly a BIOS emulation layer (a truly obscene desire to boot WinXP on it just so show it can be done).
I redid some mplayer tests,
mplayer using -vo vx -- 720p is fine, and 1080i is fine but close to max cpu.
mplayer using -vo xvmc -- 720p is fine and 1080i is fine with plenty of cpu capacity remaining.
mplayer using -vo gl -- 720p bad as is 1080i.
mplayer using -vo gl2 -- 720p plays but stutters as does 1080i.
So using this info, XBMC has to use at least Xv for playback to do 720p and 1080i.
I did find a thread about enabling an external player for XBMC on Linux. Seem to be a sensitive issue with some devs.
I might try a build with this patch and see what happens if I have time.
Gamester17
2008-04-02, 13:29
MPlayer (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=MPlayer) is not available in XBMC for Linux (and it probably never will be, any missing features will be added to XBMC's DVDPlayer (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=DVDPlayer) instead), see previous discussion here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=29273
XBMC for Linux does not support XvMC yet, (XBMC's DVDPlayer (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=DVDPlayer) uses FFmpeg as its base so it could be possible to enable it there, I do not know?), see here:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=DVDPlayer
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Hardware_Accelerated_Video_Decoding
MPlayer (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=MPlayer) is not available in XBMC for Linux (and it probably never will be, any missing features will be added to XBMC's DVDPlayer (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=DVDPlayer) instead), see previous discussion here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=29273
XBMC for Linux does not support XvMC yet, (XBMC's DVDPlayer (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=DVDPlayer) uses FFmpeg as its base so it could be possible to enable it there, I do not know?), see here:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=DVDPlayer
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Hardware_Accelerated_Video_Decoding
I'm aware of the issue regarding mplayer and understand the concerns on both sides of the coin. So let's ignore mplayer for now.
Implementing XvMC would be a bold first step, I think doing Xv first would be a better first step. As I think I understand it, XBMC on Linux uses some form of gl for rendering. Has anyone looked into Xv support? Not asking for someone else to do it but it's always useful to check the state before starting to look into it.
nobody has looked into xv since we threw it away as a uninteresting solution in the first place. xv means overlays which means no blending and in general very bad for having nice transparent ui elements on top of the video. those who have tried the hw overlay render on xbox knows what i'm on about.
now, a xv based renderer would certainly be interesting to have nontheless, as an option. xvmc will be much more hassle though (as that involves codec level things such as mc dcts etc) and will require you to dig much further into the ffmpeg libs
as a first stop, you could use the patch sitting on our patch tracker that enables launching an external application to play vids. this ofc means even worse ui integration, but atleast you have a neat launcher for mplayer ;)
I did a quick check through the XBMC code and it would be a large task to enable Xv. Maybe too large given the GL push. As GL seems fine for boxes with lots of ponies, the need for something like Xv is limited to boxes with restricted cpu resources. Maybe a lost cause give the current development priorities.
as a first stop, you could use the patch sitting on our patch tracker that enables launching an external application to play vids. this ofc means even worse ui integration, but atleast you have a neat launcher for mplayer ;)
I did try the patch, aside from having to clean up the double insertion of ExtVideoPlayer.h and ExtVideoPlayer.cpp before it could build without errors. The external player did not appear after recompile so something else is missing. Given that the patch was in such sorry shape (the patch, not the content) to begin with that could mean some critical piece is missing/removed or I'm XBMC stupid which could certainly be true.
I was hoping to play a bit with the vf_overlay patch for MPlayer that provides an overlay surface that can be blended with low cpu overhead. The development Freevo code base seems to be using it with good results.
Guide to the backup and restore an AppleTV, see http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/ATVBackup
This guide also includes a section on completely restoring an AppleTV to "Factory" without having a existing backup.
Note that this does not backup any content on "Media" or "OSBoot". This is method to backup and restore your AppleTV to "Factory" fresh condition.
Enjoy.
Oh and forgot to mention the new page on installing direct from a LiveCD. No more doner PC required for partitioning and installation.
Nice updates Davilla! Appreciate the log too. I've yet to get back to working with my aTV but these pages make it look easier than it has been :) I will see if I can get another drive in there and give it a shot. I for one really appreciate the hard work you've put into this.
davilla,
Thanks for your great effort especially your detailed documents.
One thing I am not sure (cannot test right now) is that will the factory shipped ubuntu kernel to work in atv out of the box apart from the vesafb stuff? How about the clock patch?
Cheers,
s7mx1
davilla,
Thanks for your great effort especially your detailed documents.
One thing I am not sure (cannot test right now) is that will the factory shipped ubuntu kernel to work in atv out of the box apart from the vesafb stuff? How about the clock patch?
Cheers,
s7mx1
Yes, no patching of the kernel required to boot. The only patching required is for IR and analog audio and I think I can do them without patching the kernel with a module option for usbhid (IR) and patching ALSA instead of the kernel for snd-hda-intel. The dev blog on the wiki has details. I've not had time to verify and update the wiki regarding Ubuntu.
Yes, no patching of the kernel required to boot. The only patching required is for IR and analog audio and I think I can do them without patching the kernel with a module option for usbhid (IR) and patching ALSA instead of the kernel for snd-hda-intel. The dev blog on the wiki has details. I've not had time to verify and update the wiki regarding Ubuntu.
Thanks for the detailed info. I will give it try when I have time. The snd-hda-intel actually does not need to be patched. If you just want to get it working add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/options
options snd-hda-intel model=imac24
and you probably would need a recent kernel. Tested it with 2.6.23.9.
Thanks for the detailed info. I will give it try when I have time. The snd-hda-intel actually does not need to be patched. If you just want to get it working add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/options
options snd-hda-intel model=imac24
and you probably would need a recent kernel. Tested it with 2.6.23.9.
options snd-hda-intel model=macpro
can also work. It has the same un-mute the second gpio issue as the AppleTV and iMac24.
atv-bootloader wiki updated to include a guide for creating a USB flash drive that will boot LiveXBMC on the AppleTV.
See http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloa...nstallLiveXBMC
Re: xvmc and gl, hasnt mythtv implemented something along those lines? I realize of course the projects are different, but I'm sure some input could be had from their code.
Maybe I don't fully understand something here, but isn't the only gain we get from using xvmc is acceleration of MPEG2 in hardware? All the rest (CSC, scaling) is done in hardware anyway using OpenGL. If this is indeed the case, then I wouldn't bother. Once (and if) Nvidia will release drivers that does H.264 in hardware, then it would be worth while.
Maybe I don't fully understand something here, but isn't the only gain we get from using xvmc is acceleration of MPEG2 in hardware? All the rest (CSC, scaling) is done in hardware anyway using OpenGL. If this is indeed the case, then I wouldn't bother. Once (and if) Nvidia will release drivers that does H.264 in hardware, then it would be worth while.
That's absolutely correct. The only gain in using XvMC is to hit 1080i mpeg2 decode and display. If you don't have 1080i mpeg2 content, then XvMC is useless. The CoreAVC stuff is interesting. It might work quite well if XBMC can take advantage of it through ffmpeg.
There is another performance aspect, Xv is faster than GL for rendering. XBMC uses GL and only GL for rendering. I get much better performance using Xv that GL using MPlayer. However, GL has much better for overlay, scaling and alpha blending than Xv.
Here's a tip with the nvidia chipset in the AppleTV. You need to under-clock the GPU to get reliable XvMC operation. If you don't use XvMC then you can actually over-clock the GPU/VRAM. Using nvidia-settings to determine the amount of "safe" over-clock, you get a substantial increases in GPU and VRAM clock speeds which should reflect in better GL performance. Also the chip temps don't increase that much when over-clocked to a speed set by nvidia-settings.
Halloween Jack
2008-08-09, 05:35
I have been trying to get LiveXBMC to boot from usb thumbdrive. However, I keep getting "No Screens Found" - ideas?
THX
Jacqueline
I have been trying to get LiveXBMC to boot from usb thumbdrive. However, I keep getting "No Screens Found" - ideas?
See my response to your other post.