Binary-only kernel modules may be banned [LWN.net]

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 14, 2006 8:11 UTC (Thu) by mcisely (subscriber, #2860)
In reply to: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned by drag
Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

I find that the Intel onboard stuff canNOT do everything. It will not render HD quality video via the X-video extension. SD video is fine, but up the resolution and the chip and/or driver chokes.

I'm not arguing in favor of nvidia. Far be it. I'd love to dump nvidia. But first there must be a viable replacement, and Intel isn't it. At least not yet.

-Mike

(Log in to post comments)

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 14, 2006 10:54 UTC (Thu) by bni (guest, #27103) [Link]

A radeon 9200 with free drivers connected to a HDTV by HDMI (DVI->HDMI cable) renders HDTV stuff just fine. For example h264 content performance is mainly due to having a fast dual core CPU. I am sure the result for Intel would be similar.

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 14, 2006 14:56 UTC (Thu) by vondo (guest, #256) [Link]

Right and I could junk my component only 1080i TV and shell out another $3000 for an HDMI TV and then everything would be fine and dandy.

I'm glad your setup works for you and I would welcome decent drivers and reasonably priced hardware that works for me. But the world isn't like that. Sometimes you've got to shoehorn a linux system into an existing setup.

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 14, 2006 11:37 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Read the man file for the driver.

Option "LinearAlloc" "integer"
Allows more memory for the offscreen allocator. This usually helps in situations where HDTV movies are required to play but not enough offscreen memory is usually available. Set this to 6144 for upto 1920x1080 HDTV support. Default 0KB (off).

Also, I am not sure what is aviable with the GMA chipsets yet, but it can support XvMC for mpeg decoding acceleration, but if you have a fast enough CPU that shouldn't be a problem either way.

I have a GMA 950, but right now it's in storage. I remember watching elephants dream with it and I had to bump up the 'LinearAlloc' to get it to work, but I don't remember exactly how well it worked after that. I think I got it to play fine without the XvMC stuff.

Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Posted Dec 15, 2006 0:06 UTC (Fri) by mcisely (subscriber, #2860) [Link]

I know this is getting off-topic, but a followup is briefly needed:

Strange thing. I did look at the man page, a month ago when I was trying to figure this out, and yet I missed this one. Setting LinearAlloc to 6144 indeed enables HD video.

For the record, I still don't have XvMC working. I don't think it's supported on my "Intel 82945G/GZ" (as reported in Xorg.0.log). However this is no great loss; unlike the system it replaced, the Intel E6400 Core 2 Duo I'm running seems to get along just fine using normal xvideo rendering.

Now if I can just get rid of a video noise pattern I'm getting when going through my KVM cable (a problem which didn't exist until switching to this mainboard) then I'll be perfectly happy and can finally say adios to nvidia.

Thanks.

-Mike