PLEASE HELP!! ATIX1650

[mbc0]

LinuxMCE Vs Windows MCE - The Video - It was massively Bias towards Linux MCE & The video made everything in Linux look soooo easy!! How wrong I was!!

I have always had the temptation to try Linux & in fact did about 2 years ago, but everything seemed so "over complicated" as it was so much easier to do the things I wanted to do in Windows... After seeing the Video on LinuxMCE I knew I had to have a go as it looks simply amazing! everything that I want in a media center.

I have built a Home Theatre PC specifically for this purpose, All I want is Linux MCE to be running in my box in the TV Cabinet...

I have downloaded Kubuntu 7.04 & Linux MCE 1.1 Beta.  I cannot get as far as to install Linux MCE as I am unable to get my ATI X1650 card to output from the S-Video connector.  I have an S-Video to Composite adapter, which I have been using to display Windows MCE on My HD TV.  But now when I turn my PC on it will display all the lines of text from my Bios & even as far as the Loading GRUB but then blank!  I have had to connect a monitor to my card to see what was going on.  basically as soon as the Kubuntu logo comes up on the screen my card stops/is unable to display out through the S-Video connector, but on the monitor everything seems fine. In Kubuntu I can enter the Monitor Options & Select the 2nd display, but the apply button is greyed out! (yes I have clicked the administrator button)  I have downloaded the latest driver from ATI, but after installation instead of getting what I expected I get a black screen with a flashing curser in the top left... thats it! I then have to re-install EVERYTHING again just to get the same result.

Can anyone PLEASE help me before I regrettably have to go back to Windows....

Many Many Thanks for reading this

[sharlee_angelo]

if you cannot enter Monitor Options and apply them, then write the configurations in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

[mbc0]

Hi, thanks for your reply,

On the basis that this is really the first time I have run Linux, can you please give me an idea as to what I have to do in the command line?

Many Thanks

[martijn]

If the only problem is editting a file in the console:
sudo kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf   (something like wordpad, graphical)

or

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf  (something like edit in DOS)

[wsuetholz]

The ATI fglrx driver includes a command line tool that will allow you to modify the xorg.conf file.  This will allow you to enable and disable the composite/svideo out vs the VGA out for the card.  You might wish to google for "fglrx composite out" or "fglrx tv output".  That's what I had to do.  Just being told how to get into an editor for the xorg.conf file will not be enough.  For doing this kind of stuff, I will normally open up a terminal window and do a "sudo su -" in it, to have root access.

Just be warned, the current LinuxMCE has a bias towards NVidia based cards, because of 3D composting capabilities that are not included in the ATI driver.  That is what allows the fancy UI2 menus that are shown off in the video you saw.  I eventually gave up messing with the ATI video driver when I found out that the ATI based system board I was using couldn't run both the VGA and Composite/SVideo at the same time!  Good thing I didn't buy that $300 case that has the VGA LCD on the front!  I am presently using the ATI based machine as my core in the "server room"(basement). 

And, yes the video shows you what all this work to set it up is for :-)  It's unfortunate that the installation is not as simple as it could be, but things are actually getting better.

The actual commands I would do in the terminal window are like this...

xhost +localhost
sudo su -
DISPLAY=:0.0
export DISPLAY

Then I would start up an something that needs to display to the screen like xterm just to verify that root can display to the screen.  That's what the xhost line is for.  If xhost +localhost doesn't work, then do xhost + instead.  The reason why I don't recommend that, is that it allows anybody on any machine to access your X server.  The +localhost only allows access from your local machine.  127.0.0.1 should be equivalent to localhost.  You can close the extra xterm right away if you want, it really only needs to be done once to verify that the xhost line is correct, after you determine the proper xhost command you don't need to perform that test again.

Hope this helps a bit..

Bill

[mbc0]

Hi Bill,

Thanks very much for the info...

Can I just clear something up... even if I can get the display working in the component out.. It wont look like the video because ATI doesn't do composting?


Cheers

[mbc0]

Can anyone answer at all?

Thanks