Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

> mplayer -vo cvidix dvd://1  - sort of works.  But the image is
> transparently on top of the original text.  I can see the numbers go up as
> it plays.  Interesting effect.  It fills the entire screen.  Vesa only
> fills about 3/4 of it.

If I switch vts I still get the image on top of the text.  I typed clear 
and then cd .. and could watch the movie full-screen with only a prompt in 
upper left.  But the sound got out of synch and stopped.  I switched back 
to the original vt to stop mplayer and was told something about too many 
video packets in the buffer.  -cache 8129 did not help.

This is AFTER I fixed this sound problem by enabling prefetch for 
secondary controller (disabled by default, and it had also been slowing 
down any hard drives on secondary controller).  -vo vesa now works 
perfectly without the need for -framedrop or -cache 8192.  It is not quite 
full-screen - is there some way to enlarge it other than by adjusting the 
monitor?



> And 'Your system is too SLOW to play this!' - try -ao sdl or ALSA, try a
> different -vo driver or -framedrop, slow media such as DVD (try -cache
> 8192) etc.  I could try a different DVD drive with vesa.  This one is nice
> because the CD part is not broken and the door works all the time.

> Now the sound is dead.  That has been happening a lot.  Maybe the vesa
> driver conflicts somehow (it is the one where sound lags and then stops).
> So I can't test -cache 8192 with vesa.  This sound card shares IRQ5.


(I had plugged the speakers into the onboard sound and loaded drivers for 
the sound card.  Fixed).


> Maybe riva has buggy vidix as well as xfbdev.  I knew I should not have
> closed up the case so soon ;=(  This card lets me view at 1600 in full
> color and the matrox has only 2MB RAM so I may stick with x11 -framedrop.

-vo vesa has no stuff around the edges like x11 does
I did not check if x11 still needs -framedrop.

> Why would a monitor start squealing after a while?

This explains why I lost VGA video - I had turned it off to stop the 
squeal.  ....................


> >  I seem to have lost BOTH my VGA vts now and will have
> to reboot to get sound and video back first.

Was not necessary ;=)

The lucent PCI modem has connected at 44000, 42666 and 45333.  At 45333 I 
got two retrains (maybe down to 42666?) then a stable connection and so 
far no disconnect.  And streaming audio is working perfectly (on the sound 
card, not the onboard chip). It was unusable on the external modem at 
45333.  Maybe the lucent has the sense to stay at the lowest speed.

Can I determine current connect speed? 
I should look up the command for setting lucent to 42666.


----------------

Still on the topic of onboard sound ;=)

Since onboard sound is not usable and I had to replace flakey onboard USB 
and the lucent modem (which works with internet radio) took up a slot
I am still short one slot and had to remove the ethernet card.

There are USB ethernet adaptors.  Designed for laptops but could work in 
this computer without enough slots left for ethernet card.

PGENET10 Tigerdirect had them in 2002 new for $5 plus $7 S&H.
Ebay had them for $1 plus $11 S&H.

They were selling more recently for $2 plus $7 S&H.  Or $7 plus $3. Or 
$0.28 plus $11. Or $2 plus shipping from Hong Kong.

USB to RJ45 LAN 10/100 Ethernet Networking Adaptor D04

A forum says 'networking with USB is not only "just wrong" it is a real 
pain....the best solution is to not use it'.  But I don't have a PCMCIA 
slot so cannot add a network card.  The adaptors put more load on the cpu.

usbnet.o:  'The GNU/Linux "usbnet" Driver' has 32 pages and a section on 
Ethernet Adapters.  It works with some devices (D-Link DUB-E100, Hawking 
UF200 etc) which are based on ASIX 8817x chips, while others have their 
own drivers.  As with wireless cards, linux users should choose carefully.

There are USB wireless devices which work with linux.  The one I saw had a 
non-cardbus PCMCIA card inside it and used orinoco_usb.o driver.
PCMCIA cards have low-range antennas and you can't attach an external one.

Sindi