Howto: Install and use projectM music visualizer with pulseaudio support on Hardy

[TehDooMCat]

Hey, is there a way to compile it to -not- use PulseAudio?

I'm using OSS4, and while PulseAudio would be useful over it I can't even use PA with it because it only supports OSS3.

The test app looks very slick on my comp though, even with all my Compiz settings ramped right up and the texture size on projectM doubled

[struktured]

castles,

The "Connection failure: connection refused" line probably implies that your pulse audio setup is not working correctly. When projectM-pulseaudio can't open a legitimate pulse audio connection to the server, it doesn't always handle shut down very gracefully (a known bug I let pass for the 1.1 release).

However, the ASSERT failure makes me nervous- I hope that's not a separate issue. Either way, make sure your pulse daemon is running properly, and I'll someday get around to fixing some of the shutdown bugs and report a nice pretty error in a qt dialog window...

[struktured]

TehDoomCat,

Run "ccmake ." in projectM-Trunk/src

After pressing 'c' and maybe 'g' you should see options like INCLUDE-PROJECTM-PULSEAUDIO. Turn that one off. Turn on/off anything else you care about. For instance, if you don't want jack or pulse audio turn off projectM-qt as well. There is no projectM-test with the qt back end yet.

[castles]

castles,

The "Connection failure: connection refused" line probably implies that your pulse audio setup is not working correctly. When projectM-pulseaudio can't open a legitimate pulse audio connection to the server, it doesn't always handle shut down very gracefully (a known bug I let pass for the 1.1 release).

However, the ASSERT failure makes me nervous- I hope that's not a separate issue. Either way, make sure your pulse daemon is running properly, and I'll someday get around to fixing some of the shutdown bugs and report a nice pretty error in a qt dialog window...

Thanks struktured, maybe its got something to do with the fact that I've been trying to run projectM in xfce. I managed to get it working fine on my other computer running a default Hardy install. So I'm following the steps fine.

I haven't had much of a chance but I will see if pulse audio is working. Does anyone know if mythbuntu comes with pulse by default?

[TehDooMCat]

TehDoomCat,

Run "ccmake ." in projectM-Trunk/src

After pressing 'c' and maybe 'g' you should see options like INCLUDE-PROJECTM-PULSEAUDIO. Turn that one off. Turn on/off anything else you care about. For instance, if you don't want jack or pulse audio turn off projectM-qt as well. There is no projectM-test with the qt back end yet.

I tried compiling projectM without PA/Jack/ALSA etc., no dice - is the only projectM standalone app projectM-pulseaudio? How can I set it up/run it through gst-visualize-0.10? It can't see it on any media players that use libvisual.

[struktured]

First of all, make sure "INCLUDE-PROJECTM-LIBVISUAL" is turned on. Change your CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX (I believe) to = "/usr" as the tutorial suggests. Then press 'g' and do a make install. If it installed ok, find the directory that contains your libvisual plugins. Something like...

ls /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/*.so

/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_bumpscope.so  /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_lv_analyzer.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_corona.so     /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_lv_gltest.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_flower.so     /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_lv_scope.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_gdkpixbuf.so  /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_madspin.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_gforce.so     /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_nastyfft.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_infinite.so   /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_oinksie.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_jakdaw.so     /usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/libprojectM_libvisual.so
/usr/lib/libvisual-0.4/actor/actor_JESS.so

Does it appear there like mine does? Another good test is to run "amarok_libvisual" with no arguments:

amarok_libvisual

jess
bumpscope
corona
lv_flower
gdkpixbuf
gforce
infinite
jakdaw
lv_analyzer
lv_gltest
lv_scope
madspin
nastyfft
oinksie
projectM

Tell me what happens from these two tests

- struktured

[mocha]

For those of us with the seg faults, when you're in the cmake just turn "off" USE_FBO. Works like a charm now!

[punkrockguy318]

It seems like there is some developer activity in this thread; I have a question: where is a good place for feature requests?

It would be really nice for double clicking on a projctm instance to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode. Perhaps right click could be next preset.

[bejurne]

Thanks for this extensive howto.

I get this error when I try to configure with ccmake:

 CMake Error: This project requires some variables to be set,
 and cmake can not find them.
 Please set the following variables:
 QT_FONTCONFIG_LIBRARY (ADVANCED)
 QT_XI_LIBRARY (ADVANCED)
 QT_XRANDR_LIBRARY (ADVANCED)
 QT_XRENDER_LIBRARY (ADVANCED)

I did install the dependencies you listed in the beginning of the howto.
I wouldn't mind setting these values manually, if I knew what values to set these variables to...
Some pointers would be appreciated.

BTW: I had to force the install of libqt4-opengl-dev to work around this bug (#228148 ). Before I worked around this bug with dpkg --force-overwrite, ccmake wanted to know the value of "QT_QTOPENGL_INCLUDE_DIR"

UPDATE: I figured out how to fix this myself with some synaptic search. The following additional packages need to be installed to make this work

libfonconfig1-dev
libxi-dev
libxrandr-dev
libxrender-dev

Would be cool, if you added this to your howto to spare others the trouble.

[sammydee]

It seems like there is some developer activity in this thread; I have a question: where is a good place for feature requests?

It would be really nice for double clicking on a projctm instance to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode. Perhaps right click could be next preset.

Another nice feature would be cursor hiding in full screen mode after maybe five seconds, just like when watching a video.

Sam