X failing on HP T5545 with VX800

[ldc-sb]

I am hoping to roll out Porteus Kiosk on about 100 HP thin clients over 3 locations. The client models are mixed. Porteus-Kiosk boots just fine on the HP T510s with the VIA N3410 (using the vesa driver). But, X hangs on startup on HP T5545s with the VIA VX800. startx kicks off and then just spins. /var/log/Xorg.0.log stops logging looking for appropriate resolution with the last lines typically like this:
[ 88.328] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "1024x768" (no mode of this name)
[ 88.328] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "800x600" (no mode of this name)
[ 88.328] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "640x480" (no mode of this name)

strace of the startx PID shows it waiting eternally for response from something. It never crashes, it just hangs.

We can't seem to find appropriate openchrome drivers (is openchrome development completely dead?).

Has anyone seen similar behavior? Any recommendations?

Thanks much!

[fanthom]

hi ldc-sb,

if this is really openchrome GPU then we are in troubles. anyway - please boot Porteus Desktop edition on HP T5545s (if you wont be able to enter GUI then please boot to text mode) -> open terminal -> run 'psinfo' command -> ipload generated report to pastebin.com -> link here.

We can't seem to find appropriate openchrome drivers (is openchrome development completely dead?).

James Simmons had an initiative to create drm driver which would allow to use modesetting DDX but seems that this development stopped:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTY5Njc

more info:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=s ... OpenChrome

thank you

[ldc-sb]

psinfo:
http://pastebin.com/HQYkY4yX

We are currently using a customized Porteus Desktop distro. Kiosk would be a better, lighter weight solution for our setup.

Thanks for taking a look.

[fanthom]

@ldc-sb
i see this is older version of porteus and i was hoping you would use at least 3.0.1 where psinfo gives more info.

could you generate latest image through the web wizard:
http://build.porteus.org/rc/
and do the same thing again (generate psinfo)? i would also request full /var/log/Xorg.0.log from kiosk.
please check if 3.1-rc1 works better for your hardware (it has 3.17 kernel).

We are currently using a customized Porteus Desktop distro. Kiosk would be a better, lighter weight solution for our setup.

do you require a browser for your setup or just a lightweight desktop? if desktop then brokenman is brewing a 'thin client' project which may suit you as well
(always better to have a choice)

[ldc-sb]

I'll try to get more up to date info today.

We do require a browser. The app is primarily browser-based. We just tack on python, a couple of shell commands (curl, for one) and a couple of daemons and Kiosk is perfect (and way smaller than desktop).

[ldc-sb]

Doesn't look like we can get X running on either HP model with Porteus Desktop 3.1rc1. It turns out that it took quite a bit of work to get the previous desktop version working on these HP thin clients.

FWIW - here is the X log from the old desktop version running on the T5545 client:
http://pastebin.com/VevVJfvS

[fanthom]

Doesn't look like we can get X running on either HP model with Porteus Desktop 3.1rc1. It turns out that it took quite a bit of work to get the previous desktop version working on these HP thin clients.

so this is a bad news...

anyway - would it be possible to give me a ssh access to older desktop editon running on HP T5545? if yes then i could prepare a custom kiosk ISO image with debugging enabled and burn it remotely -> reboot to kiosk and check what is going on.

if this is an option then please contact me on support@porteus-kiosk.org and we could set a date for the session. i will also request IP/password, etc...

thanks

[gmc]

Is there any progress in this topic? I'm interested as I have similar problem.

[fanthom]

@gmc

1) T5445 model (VX800 GPU) should work out of the box with openchrome driver in latest kiosk release.
2) T510 (VX900 GPU) can only take VESA driver unless some kernel/Xorg swapping is done as per:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/o ... 07154.html

which model do you have?

any chance to give me ssh access to the kiosk running on this hardware?
if yes then please enable ssh + 'debug mode' in the wizard and send me IP/ssh password on support@porteus-kiosk.org.

thank you

[gmc]

Thank you for your interest. My hardware is HP-510. I will try to give you remote access. But ... The problem is that I can not even set up a Kiosk via wizard because the screen goes blank after displaying a few lines of system startup (ie loading modules, etc). I'll try to set up a kiosk on the computer of another type, and copy it to the HP-510. Maybe this will get to it via ssh. Unless you have another, better idea? All this can be done only on Monday when I'm at work. I hope you do not mind ... Regards gmc

[fanthom]

yes - please setup kiosk on usb stick using different PC.
dont forget to enable ssh and 'kiosk debug' mode.

thanks

[davemc]

Just tried Porteus Cloud 4.2.0-x86_64 on an hp thin client t510

Still hangs in X startup after the Porteus splash on first boot from USB. Can't ctrl-alt-f1 to console.

Porteus works well on hp thin client t610, so not going to waste any time on borked t510.

--
David

[fanthom]

Hello Dave,

If VESA driver is good enough for you then please remaster installation ISO and copy 003-settings.xzm/etc/X11/11-vesa.conf to custom_module/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d directory as per our doc:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/kiosk-customization.html

You also need to add 'debug' parameter to /boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg and /boot/isolinux/grub.cfg.

In case of troubles i would recommend our customized build service:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/builds.html

Thank you.

[davemc]

Thanks for the pointers.

VESA mode does work on the t510 with VX900, and display quality appears fine. Not fuzzy or low res.

Code: Select all

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/porteus
sudo mount -o loop Porteus-Kiosk-4.3.0-x86_64.iso /mnt/porteus

mkdir Porteus-Kiosk-4.3.0-x86_64
cp -av /mnt/porteus/ Porteus-Kiosk-4.3.0-x86_64

unsquashfs porteus/xzm/003-settings.xzm
mkdir -p custom/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

cp -av squashfs-root/etc/X11/11-vesa.conf custom/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

sed -i "/append/ s/$/ debug/" porteus/boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg
sed -i "/linux/ s/$/ debug/" porteus/boot/isolinux/grub.cfg

mksquashfs ./custom ./porteus/xzm/005-forcevesa.xzm -comp xz -b 256K -Xbcj x86 -noappend

cd porteus
# force path of mkisofs to /usr/bin/local
bash make_iso.sh

# needs syslinux-utils on ubuntu
isohybrid -u Porteus-Kiosk.iso

# sudo dd if=Porteus-Kiosk.iso of=/dev/sdzz bs=1M