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View Full Version : [ubuntu] 11.10 64bits on Zotac Zbox NANO VD10



antoine_agthe
November 17th, 2011, 09:35 AM
Hello,

I try to install Ubuntu 11.10 64 bits on my brand new Zotac Zbox Nano VD10, but the HDMI signal is lost during installation, after the second screen (the violet one, with Ubuntu title and the four twinkling points).

The computer dosen't seem to be broken down because the two first screens are displayed correctly?

Is there a problem with the VIA Chrome9 chipset driver ?
In this case, how can I fix that ?

andre@robipro.com
November 17th, 2011, 10:19 PM
I have the same problem. I don't think the problem is with the chipset but rather with the driver. I am using a USB key to install Ubuntu and I am trying to find out a way to insert the proper driver onto my USB key. I have found this link in the community (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenChrome) but it just doesn't work the way I want. I'm still searching and I will let you know if I find anything.
Cheers

damian.obrien
November 23rd, 2011, 09:15 PM
Same exact problem for me. The screen blanks out, but I can get to the terminal using Ctrl-Alt-F1. It seems like others have gotten the VD01 working though. Still researching....

damian.obrien
November 27th, 2011, 05:35 AM
Update...I'd been hearing good things about Mint, so I tried installing on the VD01. The installer had the same issue, BUT they also had a 'compatability mode' option. Using this works (with restrictions), as far as getting X to display. I'm sure it is the Chrome9 Driver. I'm trying to get the driver to work. Right now, I'm stuck in 1024x768, with no hardware acceleration working. My xorg.conf will probably work in Ubuntu as well. It reads:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection


#--------------------------
I'm working on getting the Via Chrome9 driver working with either this:
http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action

OR

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenChrome

....will update back with progress

damian.obrien
November 29th, 2011, 11:48 PM
Progress....sort of. After doing a bunch of searching, it looks like the VIA drivers just aren't up to date enough. What I ended up doing is installing Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit, and I grabbed the 10.04 drivers from VIA:

http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action
OS: Ubuntu 10.04 (the first one on the list)
Platform: VX900

This let me run the vinstall successfully. It broke as soon as I started X:
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so

I looked in the log file and noticed it complained about:
dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

I saw the '32' and figured it didn't like the 64 bit OS. So I then installed 10.04 32 bit, grabbed the VIA drivers, ran the vinstall command, rebooted, and I was running in full resolution and all hardware acceleration seems to work. I installed XBMC without issue.

I am not hooked up to my TV right now, but I suspect HDMI audio isn't working out of the box based on what I read before...I will get back to this.

Also, the internal bluetooth adapter is not working right now...I will also work on getting this working. Once I have HDMI audio, IR remote, and bluetooth working again, I think I will be happy. I will still confirm that the SD reader, eSATA, and other connections are all working as expected.

I was getting worried that this may end up as a Win 7/8 box, and that isn't why I got it. I think things will work out in the end though.

phelian
December 17th, 2011, 11:15 AM
Hi,

Of course i have the same issue, since i have the same hw as you guys.
I'm very interested in your work damien, but there is one thing i dont understand:

How did you manage to install the VIA drivers without seeing anything?

I actually only want to use this device as a server so i don't really care about sound/graphics (other then i want to be able to install) Then i was planning on using ssh only.

The older (lenny i think) debian installer that uses ncurses worked fine, except that it did not recognize my SSD disk :'(

I would very much like to know how you managed to install the VIA drivers!
Thanks

damian.obrien
December 19th, 2011, 05:36 PM
phelian-
I downgraded the OS to Ubuntu 10.04. I think the graphics worked by default, but you can do it all using command line anyway. If you can't see anything, hold Ctrl-Alt-F1 and that will drop you to a shell. You should be able to login and run the graphics installer. It is easiest if you have them on a USB drive, then pop that in, and look in the /media folder. BUT....if you are running above 10.04, I don't think you will be able to get hardware acceleration working at all. What OS are you running?

Trenton_net
December 29th, 2011, 03:35 AM
Did you manage to figure out how to get audio out of the HDMI connection? I assume 1080p mkv videos from XBMC has no other issues aside from audio?

phelian
December 30th, 2011, 09:34 AM
Hi,

I was trying with the 11.10 version, i will try with both jumping to a TTY on 11.10 and 10.04 if that is not working for me!

Newyear planning/Celibration first though..

Thanks!

damian.obrien
January 3rd, 2012, 09:58 PM
I haven't had luck with the HDMI yet, I spent a few hours trying, but nothing promising. However, my main concern now is the video. The video loses signal randomly while connected to the tv via HDMI. I've read that this happens to other people as well. If you want to use it for XBMC, I think it may be a lost cause. I'm tempted to either make this a non-media PC, or run Win 7...

phelian
January 7th, 2012, 07:27 PM
Hi All,

it ended up with me installing debian on it instead, i'll be using it as an server anyway so debian suits me just fine for that.

Good luck with your configurations!

DLabz
February 3rd, 2012, 01:08 PM
Any news on getting this to work?

I don't really care what version of ubuntu, as long as I get XBMC running on my VD10...

damian.obrien
February 14th, 2012, 05:58 PM
Progress....sort of. After doing a bunch of searching, it looks like the VIA drivers just aren't up to date enough. What I ended up doing is installing Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit, and I grabbed the 10.04 drivers from VIA:

http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action
OS: Ubuntu 10.04 (the first one on the list)
Platform: VX900

This let me run the vinstall successfully. It broke as soon as I started X:
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so

I looked in the log file and noticed it complained about:
dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

I saw the '32' and figured it didn't like the 64 bit OS. So I then installed 10.04 32 bit, grabbed the VIA drivers, ran the vinstall command, rebooted, and I was running in full resolution and all hardware acceleration seems to work. I installed XBMC without issue.

I am not hooked up to my TV right now, but I suspect HDMI audio isn't working out of the box based on what I read before...I will get back to this.

Also, the internal bluetooth adapter is not working right now...I will also work on getting this working. Once I have HDMI audio, IR remote, and bluetooth working again, I think I will be happy. I will still confirm that the SD reader, eSATA, and other connections are all working as expected.

I was getting worried that this may end up as a Win 7/8 box, and that isn't why I got it. I think things will work out in the end though.

Hey guys...I had given up on this and dual-booted Windows 7 Ultimate on the box (this works pretty cleanly), but I came back to this thread to check if anyone had made any progress. I checked the via driver link I posted earlier, and sure enough, they put out a new driver after I my original post.

SO, I decided to try again with the Dec 8 64b 11.04 driver. I downloaded 11.04 64 bit and the installer craps out. I'm guessing the vid drivers didn't work enough to get through the setup. I didn't see an easy way to CLI install 11.04 desktop, so I installed 11.04 64b server (no Xorg). I tried to install the driver, but it needs X installed first. So, I installed gnome desktop http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-gui-on-ubuntu-11-04-natty-server.html.

Now, I was able to stall the driver using ./vinstall. At this point, when I reboot, I can see that the console text looks like it is working. My resolution before installing the driver was something like 600x800 and afterwards it was displayed at 1920x1200. Now, when I try starting X, I get a segmentation fault. I spent I couple hours trying a few different things, but I didn't make any progress.

Has anyone installed the new driver successfully? I'm going to retry installing the desktop version again when I have a little more time.

deport
May 13th, 2012, 02:01 AM
I had no luck with a VIA driver and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise. The PC wouldn't give me a screen if I rebooted, couldn't tell in keyboard was working. Eventually gave up and reinstalled 12.04. So all I have is basic VGA, no graphics card extras. Though the resolution is 1000x900 or thereabouts.

The link you show for the VIA drivers is all that I'm aware of. Another angle is to get the source for the drivers, and compile them and your own PC. Usually a C compiler is included, but you might have to download that and some C library files which the drivers depend upon. Having said that, I haven't tried that either.

Full support for hardware is not here, though it's probably much improved from the past.

Sorry I couldn't provide more help.

thedarxide
June 14th, 2012, 11:23 PM
Zotac offers beta drivers for 11.10 on the VD01 now.

http://www.zotacusa.com/downloads?cat=284#downloadscontent

Also in the BIOS update there is this in the release notes:
2K111222 .Update for Linux compatibility Version

After updating the BIOS, I was able to install XBMCBuntu and get all the drivers installed, but playback causes a kernel panic and the system halts.

Initially I had just installed the Graphics driver and tried playback before continuing on, and it worked decent. But then I installed the video drivers, VDPAU Wrapper package and HDMI Audio drivers before trying playback again and it was busted after installing all of those.

Also the IR Remote doesn't seem to work (yes I enabled it in XBMC settings), guess I need to find a linux driver for that or something.

I figured I'd post this info to hopefully help you help me as I am a bit of a linux n00b.

thedarxide
June 15th, 2012, 11:04 PM
It seems the HDMI Audio drivers were the cause of my issues. Without that installed I have both a 1080P h.264 avi (big buck bunny) and a 720P mkv playing back with hardware acceleration.

There are some dropped frames happening, but with the 720P file it wasn't extreme at all.

I just have it hooked up to a monitor, so I am not sure if the generic HDMI audio drivers are working yet.

The internal CIR doesn't seem to register the remote at all, the usb plugin one does work, but not all of the buttons function as expected in XBMC. But there are guides to fix button function mapping that I have yet to follow.

denk_mal
June 21st, 2012, 11:32 AM
The internal CIR doesn't seem to register the remote at all, the usb plugin one does work, but not all of the buttons function as expected in XBMC. But there are guides to fix button function mapping that I have yet to follow.

Sorry for asking, but have you enabled the internal CIR in the BIOS?

thedarxide
June 21st, 2012, 05:21 PM
No problem asking, that is certainly a plausible mistake, but wasn't mine.

The internal CIR registers itself as /dev/lirc0 where the lirc daemon kept binding to /dev/lirc and I had a lot of trouble getting it to bind to the correct device. In the end I don't even know which change worked, but something did and the remote is working great now. I recorded my own remote file, since not all the buttons worked (I guess maybe it isn't perfectly MCE compatible?). I think I missed the back button though as it didn't seem to work in XBMC, I'll have to recheck my config files later.

I'd be happy to share my lircd.conf, lircd.conf.zotac, and Lircmap.xml files with anyone that needs them. Just PM me.

The HDMI Audio driver is another story, though I found some promising links. It installed fine and XBMC still plays the files, but just without audio and with the "failed to load audio" message in the bottom right.

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-VIA

According to ALSA it looks like I have to install the hda-intel module to get the VD01's sound card (VT8237A) working. I'll update when I have tried that.

lepetit
June 26th, 2012, 06:05 AM
new via driver for vx900 & ubuntu 12.04 64 bits
http://linux.via.com.tw/support/beginDownload.action?eleid=645&fid=947

JustinWI
June 29th, 2012, 12:27 AM
No problem asking, that is certainly a plausible mistake, but wasn't mine.

The internal CIR registers itself as /dev/lirc0 where the lirc daemon kept binding to /dev/lirc and I had a lot of trouble getting it to bind to the correct device. In the end I don't even know which change worked, but something did and the remote is working great now. I recorded my own remote file, since not all the buttons worked (I guess maybe it isn't perfectly MCE compatible?). I think I missed the back button though as it didn't seem to work in XBMC, I'll have to recheck my config files later.

I'd be happy to share my lircd.conf, lircd.conf.zotac, and Lircmap.xml files with anyone that needs them. Just PM me.

The HDMI Audio driver is another story, though I found some promising links. It installed fine and XBMC still plays the files, but just without audio and with the "failed to load audio" message in the bottom right.

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-VIA

According to ALSA it looks like I have to install the hda-intel module to get the VD01's sound card (VT8237A) working. I'll update when I have tried that.

Sent you a PM about getting those files. I have spent two days trying to get the internal IR to work. It works in evtest and ir-keymap, but no luck in lirc

mensfort
June 29th, 2012, 07:18 PM
Progress....sort of. After doing a bunch of searching, it looks like the VIA drivers just aren't up to date enough. What I ended up doing is installing Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit, and I grabbed the 10.04 drivers from VIA:

http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action
OS: Ubuntu 10.04 (the first one on the list)
Platform: VX900

This let me run the vinstall successfully. It broke as soon as I started X:
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so

I looked in the log file and noticed it complained about:
dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

I saw the '32' and figured it didn't like the 64 bit OS. So I then installed 10.04 32 bit, grabbed the VIA drivers, ran the vinstall command, rebooted, and I was running in full resolution and all hardware acceleration seems to work. I installed XBMC without issue.

I am not hooked up to my TV right now, but I suspect HDMI audio isn't working out of the box based on what I read before...I will get back to this.

Also, the internal bluetooth adapter is not working right now...I will also work on getting this working. Once I have HDMI audio, IR remote, and bluetooth working again, I think I will be happy. I will still confirm that the SD reader, eSATA, and other connections are all working as expected.

I was getting worried that this may end up as a Win 7/8 box, and that isn't why I got it. I think things will work out in the end though.



@Remark: I also try to use ZOTAC NANO and experience problems at 60HZ, so I change to 56HZ... that works correct. When I change to 60HZ, then the screen is slowly fading and getting noisy until it's probably over-heated...
Problem left is the Wifi, which makes my customer mad at me. I think quality of this device is very low... I better go back to the Asus DE2700, DE7000 etc...

thedarxide
June 30th, 2012, 04:26 AM
I figured I should just load my lirc config files here for everyone, so people do not have to wait for me to reply to PMs.

About to tackle the HDMI audio too. Has anyone else gotten this working?

thedarxide
June 30th, 2012, 06:16 AM
Followed the guide in the link I posted previously for HDMI audio, but it failed.

XBMC still fails to load the drivers, probably has to do with all the errors on the last step of the guide, but I'll have to try again another day.

Did anyone else get HDMI audio working?

JustinWI
June 30th, 2012, 06:51 PM
I have HDMI audio working in XBMC and Ubuntu (12.04). How far along in the process are you? I had to make one change in the Ubuntu settings and then use a custom passthrough in XBMC. I also had to disable menu sounds in XBMC.

JustinWI
June 30th, 2012, 11:20 PM
I figured I should just load my lirc config files here for everyone, so people do not have to wait for me to reply to PMs.

About to tackle the HDMI audio too. Has anyone else gotten this working?

Files worked great. Thanks

thedarxide
July 5th, 2012, 08:25 PM
I have HDMI audio working in XBMC and Ubuntu (12.04). How far along in the process are you? I had to make one change in the Ubuntu settings and then use a custom passthrough in XBMC. I also had to disable menu sounds in XBMC.

I take it you started with a from scratch install of Ubuntu 12.04 and then installed xbmc? I was lazy and used XBMCBuntu which is 11.10 based.
Does the desktop fit on your TV screen? My desktop goes off screen.

As for how far along I am, I tried following the ALSA guide and it failed big time, didn't really take note of the error messages but it was failure all over the place.

I wouldn't mind getting your custom passthrough string for when I try again (maybe starting with Ubuntu 12.04). Mind passing that along?

Thanks!
PS. Glad the config files worked for you, I have been meaning to get around sending the remote record into the lirc project, will get to it eventually I suppose.

JustinWI
July 10th, 2012, 02:09 AM
I take it you started with a from scratch install of Ubuntu 12.04 and then installed xbmc? I was lazy and used XBMCBuntu which is 11.10 based.
Does the desktop fit on your TV screen? My desktop goes off screen.

As for how far along I am, I tried following the ALSA guide and it failed big time, didn't really take note of the error messages but it was failure all over the place.

I wouldn't mind getting your custom passthrough string for when I try again (maybe starting with Ubuntu 12.04). Mind passing that along?

Thanks!
PS. Glad the config files worked for you, I have been meaning to get around sending the remote record into the lirc project, will get to it eventually I suppose.

Yes, I started with a clean 12.04 and installed xbmc. I am using the version with the xvba drivers included in Eden.

My desktop does fit to the screen after playing with the overscan settings in the Catalyst control panel. I had to do it for a bunch of resolutions and refresh rates.

First, make sure that HDMI is selected for audio out in Ubuntu. Mine was set to analog jack. The audio output device is set to "Defaults (Alsa)" and the pass through is "custom" with a device of "plughw:0,3"
After I set this up, I had menu sounds working but nothing else. Disabling the menu sounds allowed the audio for everything else to work.

thedarxide
August 1st, 2012, 07:12 PM
Been having nothing but trouble trying to install anything on this box!

Lubuntu 12.04 Desktop: Black screen of death during install
Lubuntu 12.04 Alternate: Partitioning stage wouldn't recognize the SD card
Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop: Black screen of death during install
******* 7: Couldn't find the SD card to install to

I am going to try Ubunutu 12.04 alternate, but I suspect I'll hit the SD card wall with that too.

I have no Idea why the XBMCbuntu installer worked fine to the SD card. But I just couldn't get HDMI Audio working with XBMCbuntu.