request for some help with performance and sound

[Richard Doyle]

On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 15:42 -0500, Patrick McKnight wrote:
> Ah, good catch.  I am not sure about the driver (I cannot check it
> right now because I am not in my lab).  If I specify the via driver in
> the lts.conf file, I suspect it is using the stock xorg driver.  Is
> that true?
Yes.

> If so, I think this might be the problem.  By the way, my server video
> performance is horrible as well.  Perhaps that is the common thread. 
Sounds likely. 

> Is there a way to stick with the Gutsy install but use the via driver
> from previous versions?  I know xorg is quite finicky about driver
> compatibility but perhaps the versions are not so different in driver
> specs.
As far as I know, your xorg drivers need to match your kernel, and each
version uses a new kernel, so...

With Feisty, we're using a driver compiled from source and the via
binary, as described at:

http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/via%20linux%20unichrome%20kernel%20driver%20source%20code%20installation%20guide%20v0%5B1%5D.83.gz

Unfortunately, there isn't anything comparable for Gutsy, and the
openchrome, xorg, and unichrome open source drivers gave unacceptable
performance, or at least I ran out of time to find a way to make any of
them work.


> 
> Thanks for the questions.  They are leading me at least in a direction
> to figure out the source of my problem.
> 
> On Feb 5, 2008 3:11 PM, Richard Doyle <rdoyle at islandnetworks.com>
> wrote:
>         
>         On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 14:50 -0500, Patrick McKnight wrote:
>         > Richard,
>         >
>         > Thanks for the quick reply and sorry about excluding
>         relevant
>         > information.
>         
>         Were you using the default Via driver (the xorg version) in
>         both
>         instances?
>         >
>         > I am using 7.10 (Gutsy) now.  The install is the AMD64
>         version on my
>         > server and I boot off a i386 image for my clients.
>         
>         Log into the system console on the client, as root, and
>         inspect the Xorg
>         log (in our system it is named Xorg.6.log) for clues. See
>         >
>         > With respect to the drivers and kernel, yes, I suppose the
>         via driver
>         > changed from the Dapper ltsp install to the Gutsy Edubuntu
>         ltsp
>         > install.  I would not expect the driver to account for the
>         extreme
>         > difference but perhaps that is the case.
>         
>         I agree, but only if you were using the xorg driver in both
>         cases. The
>         xorg driver works, but performanace is poor. In my experience,
>         the only
>         driver to provide decent performance is the proprietary
>         version from
>         Via, and that only with the pre-gutsy version. We've reverted
>         to Feisty
>         for this reason.
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         --
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> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> 
> Patrick
>