some 64Studio questions and comments

[Dave Phillips]

Greetings:

First, I apologize if this message is sent to the wrong group(s). I'm
not sure which is the preferred forum for reporting user-level
experiences with 64Studio.

Next, I want to send compliments to Daniel and Free for 64Studio. I've
been using it more & more, it looks as if it will soon replace my aging
Demudi installation as the default system here at Studio Dave. Nice
work, my compliments to the chefs. :)

Re: nVidia video: I discovered that the on-board nVidia chipset includes
only 64 MB video RAM, which I believe was why I couldn't get any decent
performance from the kernel nv driver. To be blunt, the Debian Way of
installing nVidia's own driver simply sucks, and I'll be going back to
using nVidia's installer when I receive my new video card. Meanwhile the
vesa mode works well, except that dragging a window in GNOME is
surprisingly s-l-o-w. Is GNOME so bloated that it causes this behavior
on an AMD64 3200 ?! Or is it a driver issue ?

Next question: What about tuning drives with hdparm on a 64-bit system ?
Does 64Studio automatically optimize drive performance or is that
something I need to do myself ?

How do I ensure that the snd-virmidi module gets loaded at boot ?

I've set up a complete build environment and have been compilling
various applications. The latest bleeding-edge DOSemu can now be built
for native 64-bit mode, I've been having fun running Voyetra's Sequencer
Plus Gold with it. How strange: a 16-bit DOS MIDI app running on a
64-bit Linux machine. I love it. I also built Leonard Ritter's Aldrin,
it works fine. Ditto for Ardour2.

I'm having trouble building 64-bit Csound5, the build fails at a problem
with FLTK :

g++ -o frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.o -c -fexceptions -Wall
-g -gstabs -O2 -fPIC -DLINUX -DPIPES -DHAVE_LIBSNDFILE=1016 -DHAVE_FLTK
-DBETA -DHAVE_FCNTL_H -DHAVE_UNISTD_H -DHAVE_STDINT_H -DHAVE_SYS_TIME_H
-DHAVE_SYS_TYPES_H -DHAVE_TERMIOS_H -DHAVE_SOCKETS -DHAVE_DIRENT_H -I.
-IH -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include -I/usr/X11R6/include
-Iinterfaces -I/usr/include/freetype2
frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp
frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp: In constructor
'CsoundGlobalSettings::CsoundGlobalSettings()':
frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp:47: internal compiler error:
output_operand: invalid expression as operand
Please submit a full bug report,
with preprocessed source if appropriate.
See <URL:http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html> for instructions.
For Debian GNU/Linux specific bug reporting instructions,
see <URL:file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-4.1/README.Bugs>.
Preprocessed source stored into /tmp/ccDt1tHZ.out file, please attach
this to your bugreport.
scons: *** [frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.o] Error 1
scons: building terminated because of errors.


If any C++ gurus out there have any suggestions for a fix I'd love to
hear 'em. Cs5 builds and runs without trouble in 32-bit mode, but it
should build for 64-bits too. John Fitch has compiled for AMD64, but he
stated that he used GCC3, I'm using GCC4.

So, I'm very pleased with 64Studio. Thanks again to the developers, and
I hope to make more reports soon.

Best,

dp

[Daniel James]

Hi Dave,

Post by Dave Phillips
I'm
not sure which is the preferred forum for reporting user-level
experiences with 64Studio.

I do understand the confusion. We don't have a 64studio-users list yet,
but probably should have one for the 1.0 release. Ideally, we'd have
seamless integration between a Mailman list and a web forum, but I don't
know of a site that's achieved that.

Post by Dave Phillips
I discovered that the on-board nVidia chipset includes
only 64 MB video RAM

Check your BIOS - if it's shared memory, you may be able to allocate more.

Post by Dave Phillips
Meanwhile the
vesa mode works well, except that dragging a window in GNOME is
surprisingly s-l-o-w.

It shouldn't be like that, even with 64MB video RAM. A 32MB Matrox card
like a G550 handles 2D very well, and I run the vesa driver on my HP
laptop (ATI 200M chipset) with acceptable 2D results. It could be some
video acceleration problem on your particular hardware, perhaps. If you
are able to improve performance, please let us know.

Post by Dave Phillips
Next question: What about tuning drives with hdparm on a 64-bit system ?
Does 64Studio automatically optimize drive performance

DMA and 32-bit I/O should be on by default. Of course you can tweak
other hdparm settings (as root).

Post by Dave Phillips
How do I ensure that the snd-virmidi module gets loaded at boot ?

Put a line for it in /etc/modutils/alsa-base perhaps? We haven't tested
that though.

Post by Dave Phillips
I'm having trouble building 64-bit Csound5, the build fails at a problem
g++ -o frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.o -c -fexceptions -Wall
-g -gstabs -O2 -fPIC -DLINUX -DPIPES -DHAVE_LIBSNDFILE=1016 -DHAVE_FLTK
-DBETA -DHAVE_FCNTL_H -DHAVE_UNISTD_H -DHAVE_STDINT_H -DHAVE_SYS_TIME_H
-DHAVE_SYS_TYPES_H -DHAVE_TERMIOS_H -DHAVE_SOCKETS -DHAVE_DIRENT_H -I.
-IH -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include -I/usr/X11R6/include
-Iinterfaces -I/usr/include/freetype2
frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp
frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp: In constructor
output_operand: invalid expression as operand

We haven't run into this one, but then none of our testers have
mentioned running Csound. I'd take it to the Csound list - please let us
know what they say.

Cheers!

Daniel

[Damien Cirotteau]

Hi Daniel,

On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:03:38 +0000

Post by Daniel James
Hi Dave,

Post by Dave Phillips
I'm
not sure which is the preferred forum for reporting user-level
experiences with 64Studio.

I do understand the confusion. We don't have a 64studio-users list
yet, but probably should have one for the 1.0 release. Ideally, we'd
have seamless integration between a Mailman list and a web forum, but
I don't know of a site that's achieved that.

Check this
http://gmane.org/

This is not exactly a mailing list <-> webforum, but instead a mailing
list <-> news. However, you can display the news on the web in a
forumish (well threadish maybe) fashion.

Here is the agnula one:
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.agnula.general
or
also in a bloggish fashion:
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.linux.agnula.general

cheers,
damien





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[Daniel James]

Hi Damien,

Post by Damien Cirotteau
Check this
http://gmane.org/
This is not exactly a mailing list <-> webforum, but instead a mailing
list <-> news. However, you can display the news on the web in a
forumish (well threadish maybe) fashion.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that - I'll check it out.

Cheers!

Daniel

[Free Ekanayaka]

Hi Dave,

thanks a lot for your appreciations.

|--==> Dave Phillips writes:

DP> card. Meanwhile the vesa mode works well, except that dragging a
DP> window in GNOME is surprisingly s-l-o-w. Is GNOME so bloated that it
DP> causes this behavior on an AMD64 3200 ?! Or is it a driver issue ?

It could also be related to the rt patch in the kernel, which makes
video slower. The counter proof would be to test the system with a
stock, unpatch, debian kernel. If you could do that it would be great.

DP> Next question: What about tuning drives with hdparm on a 64-bit system
DP> ? Does 64Studio automatically optimize drive performance or is that
DP> something I need to do myself ?

No, it's not doing that at the moment, and I'm not sure if it 100%
safe to do that. Anyway

DP> How do I ensure that the snd-virmidi module gets loaded at boot ?

You can simpy add it too:

/etc/modules

As I think it's harmless to do that in every 64 Studio install, we
could think to do that automatically.

DP> I've set up a complete build environment and have been compilling
DP> various applications. The latest bleeding-edge DOSemu can now be built
DP> for native 64-bit mode, I've been having fun running Voyetra's
DP> Sequencer Plus Gold with it. How strange: a 16-bit DOS MIDI app
DP> running on a 64-bit Linux machine. I love it. I also built Leonard
DP> Ritter's Aldrin, it works fine. Ditto for Ardour2.

Great!

DP> I'm having trouble building 64-bit Csound5, the build fails at a
DP> problem with FLTK :

DP> g++ -o frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.o -c -fexceptions -Wall
DP> -g -gstabs -O2 -fPIC -DLINUX -DPIPES -DHAVE_LIBSNDFILE=1016
DP> -DHAVE_FLTK -DBETA -DHAVE_FCNTL_H -DHAVE_UNISTD_H -DHAVE_STDINT_H
DP> -DHAVE_SYS_TIME_H -DHAVE_SYS_TYPES_H -DHAVE_TERMIOS_H -DHAVE_SOCKETS
DP> -DHAVE_DIRENT_H -I. -IH -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include
DP> -I/usr/X11R6/include -Iinterfaces -I/usr/include/freetype2
DP> frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp
DP> frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp: In constructor
DP> 'CsoundGlobalSettings::CsoundGlobalSettings()':
DP> frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.cpp:47: internal compiler
DP> error: output_operand: invalid expression as operand
DP> Please submit a full bug report,
DP> with preprocessed source if appropriate.
DP> See <URL:http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html> for instructions.
DP> For Debian GNU/Linux specific bug reporting instructions,
DP> see <URL:file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-4.1/README.Bugs>.
DP> Preprocessed source stored into /tmp/ccDt1tHZ.out file, please attach
DP> this to your bugreport.
DP> scons: *** [frontends/fltk_gui/CsoundGlobalSettings.o] Error 1
DP> scons: building terminated because of errors.

DP> If any C++ gurus out there have any suggestions for a fix I'd love to
DP> hear 'em. Cs5 builds and runs without trouble in 32-bit mode, but it
DP> should build for 64-bits too. John Fitch has compiled for AMD64, but
DP> he stated that he used GCC3, I'm using GCC4.

Definitely it looks a gcc4-related issue. You may try to apt-get
install gcc-3.3 or gcc-3.4 from Debian, and ask Fitch to fix this
upstream.

DP> So, I'm very pleased with 64Studio. Thanks again to the developers,
DP> and I hope to make more reports soon.

We are pleased of hearing that!

Ciao,

Free