Linux Mint for the O2 Joggler

[BuZz]

anyway - back to zram (and now zcache which seems like it might be better.)

both are included on my latest images. please let me know how you get on. cheers.

[trevordavies]

anyway - back to zram (and now zcache which seems like it might be better.)

both are included on my latest images. please let me know how you get on. cheers.

Dude!

it is sweet. I can run 3-4 tabs in chrome, terminal and package manager, no trouble... there may be more cpu usage but i slipped in some foil so i can run it hard.

i added to /etc/rc.local above the exit:

modprobe zram num_devices=2
echo 126897408 > /sys/block/zram0/disksize
echo 126897408 > /sys/block/zram1/disksize
mkswap /dev/zram0
mkswap /dev/zram1
swapon -p 1000 /dev/zram0
swapon -p 1000 /dev/zram1

the foil setup is simple dismantle see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjMLUIoYQm4
draw round the rubber heatsink on a piece of paper, just at the bottom add a L shape strip, that folds over and covers 2 chip depressions in the rubber. cut this shape out of 3-4 layers of foil.

the foil goes on the backside of the rubber -away- from the circuit board, but flip the l-shape arm around between the rubber sheet and the board..the foil strip -if you cut it right should contact 2 chips (they previously stuck hard into the rubber leaving an imprint so it's easy to position)

for safety stick cellotape on the foil strip where it doesnt cover the chips to prevent foil touching the circuit board.

ensure the foil contacts the metal heatsink at the top.

close it all up...feel the heat shoot thru to the top of the stand when watching flash video, smooth as silk

foil cooling your chips connects to the metal stand. becareful, but it works great.

[BuZz]

Interesting. Fixed with a bit of foil. I've always thought barely ay heat gets transferred to the stand - However I've been just letting mine get warm for ages and it hasn't really been a problem either (by changing the throttle temp).

[BuZz]

to add, I realise I havn't done a linux mint 12. Just didn't seem many using mint - if I get enough pressure I'll do it. anyone ?


s/pressure/pressies

[hawsey]

to add, I realise I havn't done a linux mint 12. Just didn't seem many using mint - if I get enough pressure I'll do it. anyone ?


s/pressure/pressies

Pressie ordered
I get the feeling people do use Mint but just as well as other distros so it doesn't seem to get much love however it is defenately appreciated .
An update would be more than welcome but the current distro one is still fine , so no pressure on you Buzz, just as and when .
Pressie was deffo well overdue , it was a toss up between what i ordered and " A squash and a Squeeze " which my 2 year old (Leon) can recommend , his name ,hence what i ordered .
Leon is one of my favorite movies

[BuZz]

very kind thanks those books are good I agree - got a few of them now (for my almost 3 year old, although I enjoy em too!) I will take a look at it mint, along with a kernel update for current distros.

[BuZz]

Linux Mint 12 currently building on the server. Linkage after a little snooze.

[roobarb!]

I've not played with Mint for some time. Going to have another look, I think.

[dwl99]

I just rebuilt my PC (new mobo, CPU, SSD) & tried the Live version of Mint & am very impressed with the simplicity & clarity of the interface. I think I might put it on my parents' PC which is starting to slow up a bit with WinXP.

[BuZz]

preview:

http://joggler.exotica.org.uk/img/linux ... rfs.img.gz
http://joggler.exotica.org.uk/img/linux ... xt4.img.gz

some notes

* It is heftier than xubuntu due to MATE Desktop (gnome2 fork) + mintmenu/mintupdate etc running
* switched login from lightdm unity greeter to gtk and added osk patch from launchpad.
* removed libreoffice, gimp, vlc to save some space as it was a little large for a 4gb stick (without compression).
* build still includes gnome3 but it doesnt work properly on emgd - boots into MATE desktop by default
* includes some MATE desktop updates.
* includes kernel 3.2.4

updates for other distros due shortly.

[hawsey]

Cheers for update Buzz thx

[neogramps]

Thanks for the new Mint build - I find it a bit faster and easier than x/ubuntu. Just got my joggler at the weekend and have tried all 3 of your builds - think I'll stick with Mint for the time being

[BuZz]

Updates to Linux Mint 11 and Linux Mint 12 now available 09/02/2012

* Kernel 3.2.4
* General package rollups for Linux Mint 11

[blc]

Just wanted to say thanks for this (and all the Linux builds, for that matter).

I've tried out all three of the Linux builds (including the xubuntu variant) and have to say that I prefer Mint so far; I agree that the performance seems slightly better than the others...

I especially appreciate the XBMC builds that are included. The theme takes a little getting used to - I usually use Confluence or Transparency! - but it seems ideally suited for touchscreen use. Opening the menu was a bit of a bugger until I figured it out - I kept opening the weather plugin when trying to open the menu! Opening the context menu can be a bit of a bugger too (usually you press "C" on the keyboard, or right click the mouse), but I've got a USB mouse & keyboard plugged in while I set up the libraries... I was pleased to see that HD iPlayer streaming (live and "watch again" programmes) works flawlessly; even better than the PnP iPlayer app in my case, as I always get choppy video when using the PnP version to stream "watch again" programmes (live TV is fine though). In fact, I plan to set up Mint to automatically open XBMC on boot, and use XBMC exclusively as the front end. I'll probably just have it automatically open on login though, rather than bypassing the window manager - being able to drop out to a normal desktop is handy.

One question regarding the hardware video acceleration though: what formats can the Joggler hardware actually accelerate? I've tried a playing few HD videos from my PC over the network (PC uses wired gigabit ethernet and Joggler uses the 802.11n WiFi) and I get really choppy video with lots of dropped frames. Some HD videos show the CPU usage @ 100% and some only show around 50% usage; I can't really tell if it's a network bandwidth issue, or if it's a case of the Joggler just not being able to handle it. I noticed that only VDPAU acceleration was enabled so I've turned on VAAPI acceleration also, but it doesn't really seem to make a difference. I've tried combinations of one without the other, which also make no difference. I'm going to try a wired network and local playback to try and rule out a bandwidth issue, but it would be handy to know which formats can be hardware accelerated.

Another question, while I'm thinking about it! How much of a performance benefit does Btrfs actually give? In the past, I've tended to stay away from compressed filesystems because the performance tradeoffs weren't usually worth it - extra storage space is cheaper than faster hardware. I'm using the ext version on my faster USB stick at the moment (13.5mb/s write rate, not sure about read), but eventually I plan to image the whole disk to one of my teeny Sandisk Cruzer Fit drives; these have much lower write speeds (around 6mb/s, tops) than the stick that I'm currently using. I will be turning off journalling, which should help.

[blc]

One question regarding the hardware video acceleration though: what formats can the Joggler hardware actually accelerate? I've tried a playing few HD videos from my PC over the network (PC uses wired gigabit ethernet and Joggler uses the 802.11n WiFi) and I get really choppy video with lots of dropped frames. Some HD videos show the CPU usage @ 100% and some only show around 50% usage; I can't really tell if it's a network bandwidth issue, or if it's a case of the Joggler just not being able to handle it. I noticed that only VDPAU acceleration was enabled so I've turned on VAAPI acceleration also, but it doesn't really seem to make a difference. I've tried combinations of one without the other, which also make no difference. I'm going to try a wired network and local playback to try and rule out a bandwidth issue, but it would be handy to know which formats can be hardware accelerated.

Never mind; I've found out which formats are accelerated thanks to the Wikipedia page... And my playback troubles seem to be a case of the Joggler just not handling it. Gigabit ethernet and local playback didn't really fix the problem. If it is network bandwidth related then the flash drive just may not be able to stream the data quickly enough... A USB hard drive would be a good test, but unfortunately I don't have one of those any more... Either way, playing 1080p content in a screen with a vertical resolution of 480 pixels rather defeats the object of HD video! Just a bit of a pain, as much of my content is HD now... At least HD iPlayer is OK.

[BuZz]

you cant do 1080p within xbmc from my tests but you can do it from mplayer with vaapi. might have to tweak buffers/cache size a bit for optimal playback. Check if I included vaapi enabled mplayer in /usr/local/bin/

720p h264 is fine in xbmc from my tests. vaapi support isnt perfect though, so some encodes do better than others.

[blc]

you cant do 1080p within xbmc from my tests but you can do it from mplayer with vaapi. might have to tweak buffers/cache size a bit for optimal playback. Check if I included vaapi enabled mplayer in /usr/local/bin/

720p h264 is fine in xbmc from my tests. vaapi support isnt perfect though, so some encodes do better than others.

To be honest, I haven't attempted mplayer but I'll have a look when I get home this evening.

I'm not overly concerned about not being able to play 1080p content. My plan is to use my joggler almost exclusively for XBMC and not use the normal desktop at all. It'll be living in the kitchen and XBMC can do everything I need; I am extremely biased though, as I fell in love with XBMC right back when XBMC meant "Xbox Media Centre", and I've stuck with it ever since. It also has a pretty high GAF (girlfriend acceptance factor ), as my other half is well used to using it on my main PC. The Xeebo skin seems ideal for touchscreen usage, so I see no need to re-invent the wheel and try to come up with my own solution.

TLDR; XBMC is awesome

[BuZz]

yeh xbmc is great and I use it a lot on the Joggler in my bedroom. I also still run it on the xbox1 downstairs. On my kitchen joggler I use XBMC for video stuff, and spotify and a bit of browsing etc (recipes)

[blc]

Another question, while I'm thinking about it! How much of a performance benefit does Btrfs actually give? In the past, I've tended to stay away from compressed filesystems because the performance tradeoffs weren't usually worth it - extra storage space is cheaper than faster hardware. I'm using the ext version on my faster USB stick at the moment (13.5mb/s write rate, not sure about read), but eventually I plan to image the whole disk to one of my teeny Sandisk Cruzer Fit drives; these have much lower write speeds (around 6mb/s, tops) than the stick that I'm currently using. I will be turning off journalling, which should help.

For anyone else interested in this, I've just been doing some digging and seem to have found a pretty comprehensive article:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... b_fs&num=1

The performance of different filesystem types - EXT3, EXT4, XFS, Btrfs, ReiserFS EDIT: and FAT32 - was tested on the same USB flash drive to compare the relative merits of each. It seems that EXT4 and Btrfs come out pretty much on top in most tests; although, bizarrely, FAT32 streaked ahead by miles on random writes. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of an explanation about that result as it seems anomalous (i.e. did they re-run this test, did they test larger file sizes, etc).

EXT4 does have the edge over Btrfs in some tests, but there are a few where Btrfs wins; though EXT4 with journalling will wear out the flash drive much quicker than a non-journalled filesystem.

[BuZz]

I'm not sure how relevant that benchmark is, due to the age (btrfs has changed a lot since then). We are also using btrfs with lzo compression which will affect the performance significantly (faster for some stuff, and possibly slower for other).

ext4 with journalling will not wear it out as quickly as you might think btw - I've seen a chart before from the author of ext4 showing that in most cases the journal will add less weites than you might think. Also, the simple wear levelling used by cheap usb flash seems pretty good. I have some keys I bought for joggler development that are still going strong, and others that have been in use since I got my joggler and are also fine. You can turn the journal off of course also.

I used to run btrfs, but due to still incomplete (and missing from my distros) real btrfsck, I am now using ext4 for stability. There have also been free space issues with btrfs which may or may not be fixed in the latest kernels I use. For my btrfs is quicker on usb flash, but for stability I'll stick with ext4 - at least until the EMGD drivers are better so the thing doesnt fall over as often.