First of all I would like to say I am new to KnoppMyth I was not sure which forum to post this question so I apologize in advance if this should really be posted to another forum.

I have read many posts about R5E50 and Nvidia install problems and suggestions but I can't figure out what to do to get this to work. Part of the problem may be that I need to install a legacy (96xx) driver so I don't think I can use any of the built-in drivers.


I am using KnoppMyth R5E50 and used the Auto Install option with the ‘tv’ switch.

I have spent a couple of days now struggling to get the TV-OUT to work on my old Nvidia MX440 video card. I have researched these forums and also Wiki pages and although I have found a number of suggestions nothing is working for me. Part of the problem is that the install method seems to be different between some builds. Although I am using trying to use the recommended flow for R5E50, it is not working for me.

Apart from the TV-OUT problem the install of KnoppMyth seemed to go very well, but the first thing I noticed is that when KnoppMyth starts to boot I see the message ..

“KnoppMyth: Found no multimedia video cards”

Yet just before it boots to MythTV I see an Nvidia screen pop up, so I assume some sort of basic driver must have been installed. All this is very strange since according to the KnoppMythInstall document on Wiki I should never have got to this point and it should have remained at the desktop, with it requiring me to manually install the drivers. I assume that R5E50 must be different, and install some basic Nvidia driver automatically. Anyway, although there is an Nvidia driver installed it is not working for me (or at least the TV-Out part isn’t),


So I did a <CTRL><ALT><F1> from MythTV and from the (fluxbox?) desktop I select apps/tools/NVidia TV-out, but nothing happens.


Then I tried selecting /apps/tools/nvidia-settings and an Nvidia setup window appears but it doesn’t show any options for TV-OUT. If I browse this setup window it shows that it has detected the correct type of GPU (MX440) and that Nvidia driver 1.0-8776 is installed.


Next I decided to install the latest Nvidia driver to see if it would enable my TV-OUT ..

From MythTV

Press <CTRL><ALT><F1>
log in as root.

I downloaded the latest Nvidia driver (NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9746-pkg1.run)

And started the install ..

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9746-pkg1.run

.. it fails, telling me that MX440 is not supported so need to download the latest legacy driver (96xx)


So I downloaded the latest legacy driver (9631), then tried the install again ..

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9631-pkg1.run


This time it fails, telling me that setup has detected that X is still running.


At this point I spent many hours searching these forums and found a number of suggestions on how to shut down X, and some suggestions that I can use ‘-force’ and don’t need to shutdown X, none of which appear to work with R5E50

From Wiki page for KnoppMyth, UpdateNvidiaDrivers ..


“Current way

Stop X

/etc/init.d/gdm stop”

.. this fails because R5E50 doesn’t seem to have gdm



Another method I read about was to run the install-nvidia-debian script and force the install, even though X is still running, this by using the ‘-force’ switch but that doesn’t work for me as it cannot find the necessary ‘.deb’ file in /usr/src/debs/latest/nvidia/latest (this appears to be where the script is looking for it).

e.g.

/usr/local/bin/install-nvidia-debian.sh 1.0-9631 –force

.. Fails


KmoppMyth and Linux are very new to me, and I don’t know how to take the pkg file and create a ‘.deb’ file so at this point I am completely stuck. I have tried to find the solution myself but at this point I am banging my head on a brick wall trying to figure this out, could someone please help,

Thanks,

Kevin

I found the following link related to solving black screen problems. Even though in my situation I don't get the back screen I am thinking that I could use the same technique to stop X and update the Nvidia drivers to try to fix my TV-OUT problem ..

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... terInstall

Anyway, it looks like renaming startx to prevent X from starting should enable me to install the latest Nvidia driver BUT from the above article it warns against using the latest Nvidia drivers, however I am not clear on whether this is just an issue for the 7300GT cards.

Can someone please advise if it is a good or bad thing to try to install 1.0-9631 under R5E50 ?

I am beginning to wonder if there has been some problem with the initial install of KnoppMyth as I see a lot of discussion about editing or backing up the XF86Config-4 file, but I cannot find such a file on my system.

If the auto install of R5E50 was truly successful, would I expect to see a XF86Config-4 on my system?

Kevin

Ok, I have figured out why I can't find any XF86Config-4, according to the release notes for R5E50 it looks like xFree86 has been replaced by xorg

I will try to install the latest legacy driver (76xx) by preventing xstart from running. Hopefully that will fix my tv-out issues.

If not, a friend of mine pointed me to nv-tv-out which looks to be a really useful tool to help get the tv-out to work but I am not sure it is compatible with the R5E50, has anyone used this, and do you know if it is compatible with R5E50?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nv-tv-out


I also have some issues with the DVD playback not being smooth and had read about changes needed to XF86Config-4, but since I don't have this any longer I will need to try to figure out how to customise xorg.conf instead. That's if the later nvidia driver doesn't do the trick.

BTW I forgot to mention earlier, but at this point I have no capture card installed. I wanted to get MythTV running on my existing hardware first before I spent out on a capture card. I have now ordered the capture card and expect to have it within a week,


thanks,

Kevin

Last night I tried to do the install of the nvidia driver after first preventing X from starting (by renaming 'startx'). Then the nvidia setup failed with a message about PATCHLEVEL. So I did a search for PATCHLEVEL and found the following post by whitepines who appears to have found the solution ..

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... patchlevel

I don't know anything about kernel's and are a little nervous about trying this but the instructions look very clear and I can always do a reinstall of KnoppMyth is it fails,

Kevin

Thought I better update this thread since I have made some progress since the last time I posted.

I found that there was no need for me to update to the latest nvida drivers in the end. I have been able to install R5B7 and R5E50 and my video card works ok* with both.

* I do see stuttering when playing HD content when using R5E50, I have been told of a change which I need to make to my xorg.conf which might help. If not I will go back and try R5B7 again (I was not able to tune to HD when I tried R5B7),

Kevin