[zim2dive]

Has anyone tried Solaris?


I'm only in my 1st month of attempting HTPC using *nix and am not yet attached to any particular distro and would be willing to try any if it accomplishes the job.. given the miserable full-screen Flash performance under linux (for hulu and The Daily Show), I noticed that there are distinct drivers for both Flash and nVidia.. which opens the possibility that they perform at better levels?


I don't need Myth... just mplayer or VLC, a music player, and Flash.


I'm hoping folks consider Solaris to live under the linux section of AVS....

 

[quantumstate]

I've considered OpenSolaris off and on over the past few years, but there is just absolutely nothing to run on it. Yeah, run Big Iron apps like database, but it's not really suitable for run-of-the-mill user stuff. I don't want any limitations in what I can do, whether I want to strip DRM, control X25, crack passwords, or watch TV.


I also tried Free and OpenBSD a couple times, but they are primitive compared with Linux.


Your flash performance is not a Linux problem. Runs perfectly fine for me on 64bit, although this is Hardy.

 

[blackoper]

solaris has like 0 drivers. only reason to run it is to get the native zfs filesystem support and run a file server off it.

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate /forum/post/15403376


Your flash performance is not a Linux problem. Runs perfectly fine for me on 64bit, although this is Hardy.

You are the only report I have seen after 2 weeks of searching that has full-screen flash running well (you can do full HD from hulu in HD?)... all the other reports are describing the same abysmal behavior I am seeing from Full screen flash. Unless you are running something other than nvidia, the nvidia folks all point the finger (I'm pretty sure its the middle one too) at Adobe. (I think I saw some reports that the Intel IGPs may do ok in this area), so please share your secret with us.


Given that my same hardware runs the same flash video at lightning speed under Windows, and reports are that one can run Wine inside Ubuntu, and get BETTER Flash performance under the virtualized Windows, then yes, I have to say the problem is linux specific.. whether it is the linux kernel, something specific to Intrepid (vs. your Hardy install), X11, Flash, or the nvidia drivers, is rather immaterial as there are no way to substitute any of them out with anything better other than virtualizing one's browsing experience (at which point I lose my ability to set up a cron job and pull up my favorite shows when I want)

 

[CJPC]

Your not alone, flash + linux - not the best, but throw in nvidia drivers and it makes it quite a bit worse, however!


You may want to try the new 180.18 beta nvidia drivers, ever since I upgraded to them, my flash performance has increased, and the amount of issues with flash has decreased quite a bit!

 

[quantumstate]



Quote:
Originally Posted by zim2dive /forum/post/15404432


You are the only report I have seen after 2 weeks of searching that has full-screen flash running well

Nope, haven't tried full-screen.


What's the point? I don't consider flash a primary viewing mode like TV.

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
What's the point? I don't consider flash a primary viewing mode like TV.

That's fine for you, but others do. On an OS platform where Flash performance has entered this decade, it allows you to cut the cord to some or even all of the cable channels... it gives me access to the 1-2 shows on channels outside my cable package that I'd like to view. Running from my 3 year old Mac Mini (which this box is attempting to replace), or my 6 year old Powermac, or from Windows (dual-boot on this new box), gives very good results (especially for saving $10-$20/month).. under Linux this is not the case.

 

[tux99]

There is all the basic freeware available for Solaris (stuff like gcc, gmake, libraries, etc) on:

http://www.sunfreeware.com/indexintel10.html


With those packages installed it's relatively straightforward to compile all the multimedia freeware like mplayer, xine, etc, therefore it could be possible to make a Solaris (x86) HTPC, but it will be long hours and a lot of manual work...


Personally I prefer Mandriva Linux which is more user-friendly, robust and 'slick' than Ubuntu, I have experienced several times Ubuntu installs that failed to recognize all hardware automatically while the same PC worked perfectly with Mandriva without any manual config work necessary.

 

[Rgb]

Due to the lack of drivers for a lot of hardware, Solaris x86 would probably be useless.


Now you begin to see the importance of Linux- it's the only widely used alternative to Win and OSX with reasonable hardware driver support for a breadth of hardware...

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Rgb /forum/post/15410249


Due to the lack of drivers for a lot of hardware, Solaris x86 would probably be useless.


Now you begin to see the importance of Linux- it's the only widely used alternative to Win and OSX with reasonable hardware driver support for a breadth of hardware...

As it is I have to install/update drivers for graphics, audio, and wireless (with an OS that was released only 2 months ago).. I have a 200-300 line install script I run every time I botch up one the nvidia drier installs and fubar my system.... can solaris be that much worse?

(LOL, is CDE still the graphics front end?

its the 1st thing I always change.. I use Solaris a lot in my work environments...)


I look at it this way.. Ubuntu _isn't_ cutting it for me.. Solaris would offer different drivers from both nvidia and Adobe, meaning things have a chance at being better... but it would be quite a bit ore work on my part.. (And probably no simply Wubi-like install that leaves my Windows section intact as a fall-back)

 

[Landris]

I would only consider OpenSolaris for a backend role. Actually, if it's ever possible to run a Mythtv back-end on OpenSolaris, I would definitely do that if only for ZFS.


I've been playing with their latest release, 2008.11, and it's a definite improvement over 2008.05 in terms of driver support and features like time slider, which is a slick system to track snapshots visually, in nautilus. They also added a repository for non-free things like flash.

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate /forum/post/15403376


Your flash performance is not a Linux problem. Runs perfectly fine for me on 64bit, although this is Hardy.

I can now categorically state its an nvidia driver problem..instead of upgrading to 180 (from 177)... rolling back to 173 does the trick.. for full-screen Flash.. .I can almost watch hulu HD with that.. .alas I then lose all sound (out HDMI audio)... so this isn't so much a solution as it is a root cause determination.


173 = real-time flash performance at full screen.. no sound

177, 180 = sound and crappy video


this is with the nvidia 8200

 

[quantumstate]

Which releases of 180 have you tried? .11? .18?

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumstate /forum/post/15412344


Which releases of 180 have you tried? .11? .18?

.11 and .16.


I have been unable to get .18 to install (which seems to be a rather widespread problem based on mutliple reports).

 

[jimwhite]

hmmmm... you have a problem that some others don't.... you can't install a driver that some others can... sounds like there might be a problem in your system that connects the two... no?

 

[mythmaster]



Quote:
Originally Posted by zim2dive /forum/post/15412333


this is with the nvidia 8200

I've seen many horror stories with that one...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Landris /forum/post/15411602


I would only consider OpenSolaris for a backend role. Actually, if it's ever possible to run a Mythtv back-end on OpenSolaris, I would definitely do that if only for ZFS.


I've been playing with their latest release, 2008.11, and it's a definite improvement over 2008.05 in terms of driver support and features like time slider, which is a slick system to track snapshots visually, in nautilus. They also added a repository for non-free things like flash.

As long as your backend hardware is supported, you could run anything you want in a vm if you don't want to compile everything. Looking at the snapshot (and other) capabilities of zfs, this doesn't seem like a bad idea at all.

http://opensolaris.org/os/community/xen/
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jimwhite /forum/post/15413257


hmmmm... you have a problem that some others don't.... you can't install a driver that some others can... sounds like there might be a problem in your system that connects the two... no?

No.


I've only seen one report of someone with an 8200 getting 180.18.. in general I've seen lots of reports from many folks with many GPUs having trouble getting 180.18 installed, so I see nothing special there. I was very able to get 180.11 and 180.16 installed just fine. Logic says there is a change in the needed install process for 180.18.


As for the 1st problem, I don't know of anyone with an 8200 that doesn't have Flash problems... only folks with other cards that do not.

 

[Landris]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mythmaster /forum/post/15413981


As long as your backend hardware is supported, you could run anything you want in a vm if you don't want to compile everything. Looking at the snapshot (and other) capabilities of zfs, this doesn't seem like a bad idea at all.

http://opensolaris.org/os/community/xen/
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Thanks, I have considered that. Actually, although not all tuners are able to be properly seen in a VM, since my tuner is an HDHomerun, it would work. I'll likely do that when my current desktop gets relegated to server duties.

 

[mythmaster]

Very interesting, indeed! Nexenta --> http://www.nexenta.org/os


Will discussions about running mythtv and xbmc, etc. with an opensolaris kernel be considered off-topic here? I'm about ready to have a go at it if my chipset is supported.

 

[zim2dive]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mythmaster /forum/post/15430933


Very interesting, indeed! Nexenta --> http://www.nexenta.org/os


Will discussions about running mythtv and xbmc, etc. with an opensolaris kernel be considered off-topic here? I'm about ready to have a go at it if my chipset is supported.

I certainly have a knack for straining the bounds of the forum definitions, but I would have to imagine solaris falls inside the imagined boundaries... ie. top group for Windows, the Mac subgroup, and the unix subgroup...


But as I said, I find that I tend to gives the mods anxiety attacks (or at least I did in the Mac subgroup)

and yes, Nexenta does look interesting...


If this is based on Hardy, wouldn't that mean there would be a lot of upgrades needed after install beyond what is available in the Hardy repo's? (or is that only for us saps with the bleeding edge hardware that is only barely supported in Intrepid)