How to emerge SAA7134 driver?

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

Hello,
I have a SAA7134 base video card and I want to install the module for it. I downloaded it fomr bytesex.org, but it didn't work with my kernel (a lot of unresolved symbols). Is there any how-to or so available?

CU

Ari Rahikkala · Guru Joined: 02 Oct 2002 Posts: 370 Location: Finland

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

I do not know what patches exactly I have to download from bytesex.org, and I also do not know how to apply them... I didn't find a step by step explanation on the site.

I had my card running more or less under Mandrake wiht modprobe saa7134...

So do you know a good website or sth else on how I can apply these patches?

CU

darket · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 43

which kernel do you use? AFAIK, the gentoo-kernel since 2.4.20-r3 has the v4l2-patches integrated. so you just have to follow these instructions (http://bytesex.org/v4l/build.html) at "building the driver(s)"

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

I use the kernel 2.4.20 gentoo r 5 and I did it as it was said on this site.

First, I did without this KDIR-option, there were no errors and I have now in the directory /lib/modules/2.4.20-gentoo-r5-pingpampel2-stable/v4l2 4 files like saa7134.o

When I now do a modprobe saa7134 thes module cannot be located.

Second, I specified the KDIR-option to /usr/src/linux and did a make install, then I get unresolved symbols.

BTW, Video for Linux is compiled as a module in the kernel, is that correct?

CU

dessaliness · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 6:33 pm Post subject:

Innocentbeats:

My experience has shown that the drivers and patches provided by bytesex.org works perfectly, but not on the kernel sources provided in portage. I find that when I download a fresh kernel from kernel.org and compile and patch it myself I have no problems. To get the sources from portage working I gather that you need to edit both the driver and the kernel patches provided at bytesex.org. One problem I can speak of immeidately is that the patches for my kernel point, for example, to linux-2.4.20 in the /usr/src/ directory. The folder which holds the kernel sources whcih come form portage actually has a different name, a longer one to be certain. The same principle would apply for the installation of the driver since it is build against the kernel sources.

The moral of the story? Download a fresh kernel from kernel.org and compile it yourself unitl some guru can put all the stuff related to the saa7134 driver into portage :wink:

. To make the task easier just copy the .config file in your kernel sources directory to your home directory under some other name (cp /usr/src/linux.../.config /home/yourname/kernelconfig ). After you extract the sources from kernel.org to your /usr/src/ directory just copy back the config file you have saved to the new directory and compile the kernel. Do you know how to do this? If not I will go in some more details for you. Right now I have to get back to work.

dessaliness · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 6:40 pm Post subject:

By the way, depending on the brand of the card the remote control should work too. What kind of card is it?

Gots to run 'Maassa (My Boss) iz uh comin'

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

Thanks for your information.

Yes, I think I know how to build a working kernel, my gentoo sources kernel is working perfectly right now. I think, I will give it a try. The problem is, that this card (it is a Medion card from the Medion Titanium 8000) has run very unstable with Mandrake, so I do not know if I will do it.

Is it possible to download the kernel.org kernel in another directory, so that the gentoo sources are still there?

CU

dessaliness · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:06 pm Post subject:

Sure. If you look in the /usr/src/ directory you will see that the folder which holds the extracted gentoo kernel sources has a longer name than say linux-2.4.20. The patches which are downloaded from portage look for that particular name. To be safe you can down load the compressed file from kernel.org to your home directory and extract it there to verify that it has a different name. Afterwards, move it to your /usr/src/ directory and prceed to compile. after you do the make bzImage and and then make modules and make modules_install parts just copy the image made in /usr/src/linux-2.4.20/arch/i386 to you /boot/ directory and tada! Now you can alaways go back and copy the one in you gentoo sources directory if you are not satisfied

dessaliness · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:22 pm Post subject:

Sorry I had to break, You know who :evil:

was coming.

As I was saying, You can always copy over the new image you put in the /boot/ directory with the one that is in you gentoo kernel sources directory if you are not satisfied. (Remember that you have to mount the partition that holds the boot directory first --- "mount /dev/hd(whatever) /boot" before you can copy whichever bzImage to /boot).

Remember that to save time you can instead of going through the bother of reconfiguring the kernel you can copy the .config file in the gentoo kernel sources directory which you have gotten from portage to the directory that holds the extracted kernel.org sources. And dont forget to patch with the patches provided by bytesex.org.

For the remote, check:
http://users.tpg.com.au/atko/gpf/ir/

Your remote might need some tweaking to get it going.

Good Luck

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

Thanks. I already did it that way. But it did not work with the .config (there came some errors) so I just reconfigured the official kernel (I now know the options to choose by heart :wink:

)..

Now I am trying to install saa7134, I applied the kernel patch for 2.4.21, that went well, but when I install the drivers, I still get unresolved symbols.. I will now go on and try a bit ;-)

CU

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

So I have played around a bit, but it still does not work.

What I did:
I downloaded the 2.4.21 kernel from kernel.org.
I applied the patches from Bytesex.org for this kernel.
http://bytesex.org/patches/2.4.21/11-v4l2-api-2.4.21-rc4.diff.gz
http://bytesex.org/patches/2.4.21/patch-2.4.21-rc4-kraxel.gz
(This went well, no errors).

Then I built the kernel, also with no errors. I have included v4l and i2c support (in character devices) as a module
<M> I2C support
< > I2C bit-banging interfaces
< > I2C PCF 8584 interfaces
<M> I2C device interface
<M> I2C /proc interface (required for hardware sensors)

I bootet the new kernel and I startet to install the drivers:
( as said on http://bytesex.org/v4l/build.html "build the drivers")

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

Now I read here in the forum to use the vanilla sources, I also did that an applied the patch...kraxel from bytesex.org, now I get already an error, when compiling the kernel...

dessaliness · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 10:07 pm Post subject:

Sorry for not replying sooner but my job is in the area of community development so it takes me out of the office a whole lot.

Now Lets see....

Hmmmmmm........

You will notice when you tired to install the drivers for kernel 2.4.21 that you get, as stated above:

dessaliness · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 10:12 pm Post subject:

By the way, You can always do the same to recompile the modules for your original kernel. :wink:

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

dessaliness · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:11 pm Post subject:

Tell you what. I am going to experiment with the 2.4.21 kernel when I get home. The one you are working with currently, where did you get if from? I dont have any such problem with kernel 2.4.20 from kernel.org. Anyway whenever I install and have anything unresolved I usually draw for the snaphots though unstable they my be at times :twisted:

Like I say however I going to experiment.

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

I tried it with the gentoo vanilla-sources (emerge vanilla-sources), which is the official stable version of 2.4.21 and I also tried it with the official 2.4.21 from kernel.org. I also tried one of the 2.5 and 2.6 unstable kernels, (where the driver is included), but they do not compile right...

So thanks for helping me !

CU

dessaliness · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 7:18 am Post subject:

Good News

I have everything, remote and all, working with the version of kernel 2.4.21 provided at kernel.org. The problem is with the snapshot provided at bytesex.org which extracted becomes version 0.2.9 of saa7134 driver. The stable version, 0.2.8 works just fine. Give it a try and tell me what happens. I have reverted to version 0. 2.7 because I think the picture quality is better and because it is the version that the patch for the remote is specific to.

I think I will stick with this new kernel. Thanks for giving me a reason to try it. I must say though that I hardly see any significant difference worthy of note. My dvd play is stiill choppy :roll:

dessaliness · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 2:01 pm Post subject:

Well.....
How goes it for you?

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

Hi, I now tried it again (kernel.org 2.4.21), and it worked... Now I can modprobe saa7134 without any errors... I have now to emerge a tv programme... I will tell you if I can see something!

CU

dessaliness · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 8:24 pm Post subject:

Try xawtv. The original and still the best. If you run it with the option pointing it directly to the video source it gives high quality picture with deinterlace and all (xawtv -d /dev/v4l/video0) :wink:

What desktop are you running?

innocentbeats · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

Yepp! Thats works, I now found out, that my card has type 16 and it works... Now I have to get the audio to work, I have 2 soundcards in my system, one SB Live (emu10k1) and one on-board intel8x0. The intel is connected to the videocard, but I cannot get it to work... Maybe I just connect the card to the SB Live...

CU

dessaliness · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 2:28 pm Post subject:

Stick with the soundblaster it rockz. Lemme know if you get sound. What settings do you have in /etc/modules.d/ for your tvcard?