s-video on my xubuntu box

saimike · 12-18-2006, 01:34 PM

i'm trying to convert an old pc (p3 celeron 1.1ghz, 384mb ram, creative tnt2 ultra) into a media/bittorrent pc in the living room. as such, i would like to pipe the s-video out on my tnt2 ultra to the tv and use it as a monitor/tv-out. i have already loaded the latest xubuntu on it.

question is: how do i make the s-video the "default" video port?

johnson_steve · 12-18-2006, 06:26 PM

your going to need the drivers from nvidia for this. my tnt2 needed the 'legacy' driver as it is so old.

saimike · 12-18-2006, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnson_steve

your going to need the drivers from nvidia for this. my tnt2 needed the 'legacy' driver as it is so old.

I think I found it on nvidia.com ... after I install it, how would I config it to do what I want?

johnson_steve · 12-18-2006, 10:09 PM

you edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (for X.org I believe thats what xubuntu uses) and set it up for the driver. this is out of mine:

Code:

Section "Device"
  BoardName    "Geforce4 MX4000"
  BusID        "1:0:0"
  Driver       "nvidia"
  Identifier   "Device[0]"
  Screen       0
  VendorName   "NVidia"
  Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
  Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
  Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
EndSection

you may have to change that a little but it should get you started. post your xorg.conf if you get stuck.

Guttorm · 12-20-2006, 07:42 AM

Hi

I did this a lazier way. First I installed Dapper on the computer (with an old monitor connected), attached the S-video to the TV, and while doing a reboot, I could see the computer booting on the TV

But the problem was, when X started, the resolution got too high for the TV. Simply unplugging the monitor solved that (After a reboot).

I don't know about XUbuntu, but for me, it worked with Dapper with no configuration or messing with drivers. Impressive

To watch movies or play music I ssh to the computer and start mplayer from the command line.

I had to do two things for this to work:
export DISPLAY=:0.0
login to Gnome with the same user account as the one I use with ssh.

I put the DISPLAY line in bash_profile so I don't have to type it after every logon. From the menus in Gnome, there was a way to set it so it logs in to Gnome automaticly on every boot.

And of course, I needed a cable for audio to my Stereo, which worked great too, with no configuration.

Only thing that didn't work out of the box was codecs. I installed Automatix, and got lots of codecs, fairly easy.

I don't know if I was just lucky? Anyway Ubuntu impressed me

saimike · 12-22-2006, 01:23 PM

this is silly. i'm trying to kill x-server (nvidia wants me to do so before installing) but it refuses to die! i goto runlevel3 and it still tells me x is running. where is etc/inittab?

when i do control-alt-backspace it just brings me to the graphical login. even when i do init 3, x-server seems to be running still.

johnson_steve · 12-22-2006, 10:48 PM

it's /etc/inittab. runlevel 3 doesn't mean no X. runlevel 3 usually is multi-user no X but it depends how your init scripts are set up; on all my gentoo systems 3 was the default runlevel and I never changed this but I did install X so they are running in 3 with X under normal circumstances. if you suspect X is still running even in runlevel 3 this isn't horrible the only thing I ever had to totaly shutdown X for was installing the nvidia driver; try 'killall X' as root after 'init 3' this should do exactly what it sounds like.

kev000 · 12-23-2006, 12:47 AM

You could also just boot to your "recovery mode" kernel to install the nvidia driver. I think that will work also

f76 · 12-23-2006, 11:09 AM

How about ctrl alt F1 ? maybe you can kill x there.. it works for me.

saimike · 01-15-2007, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by f76

How about ctrl alt F1 ? maybe you can kill x there.. it works for me.

this didn't work either ...

saimike · 01-15-2007, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kev000

You could also just boot to your "recovery mode" kernel to install the nvidia driver. I think that will work also

this puts it in run level1, and the install program complains that "certain programs may not run well" etc.

saimike · 01-15-2007, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnson_steve

it's /etc/inittab. runlevel 3 doesn't mean no X. runlevel 3 usually is multi-user no X but it depends how your init scripts are set up; on all my gentoo systems 3 was the default runlevel and I never changed this but I did install X so they are running in 3 with X under normal circumstances. if you suspect X is still running even in runlevel 3 this isn't horrible the only thing I ever had to totaly shutdown X for was installing the nvidia driver; try 'killall X' as root after 'init 3' this should do exactly what it sounds like.

when i typed "killall X <enter>" ... it did nothing ...