Category: CentOS

Updated multimedia and Nvidia driver packages

slaanesh 27 Comments

As many of you have noticed, there are big updates pushed in the repositories. Merging all of them into one big repository is still ongoing; but as part of it all builds now come from these git repositories:

https://github.com/negativo17

Feel free to create merge requests or ask access to them.

VLC

Both Fedora 23 and RHEL / CentOS 7 packages now host VLC with all plugins enabled, so this means you can listen/watch any kind of multimedia file on both distributions. Obligatory screenshot (CentOS 7):

centos-vlc

Of course you can also play Blu-Ray discs with it.

Gstreamer “bad” plugins

Fedora contains also Gstreamer “bad” plugins with all possible options enabled. Some statistics:

$ gst-inspect-1.0 | grep Total
Total count: 227 plugins, 1483 features

Packages for both “ugly” and “bad” plugins are coming for CentOS/RHEL 7 as well.

Updated multimedia packages

Also the update brings in quite a few updates on multimedia libraries (live555, FFMpeg, x265, dcadec, etc.).

Fedora 24 support

Fedora 24 support is coming, most of the packages have been rebuilt and all repositories will be available before the release. Starting from Fedora 24, you can enable all repositories with or without RPMFusion being enabled. This means I will try to maintain compatibility but you will not require to enable it.

Nvidia driver

The Nvidia driver has been updated to 364.19 on all supported Fedora releases. This brings in mode setting for the nvidia-drm module and Vulkan support. In the current state, mode setting works only in conjunction with a custom Wayland and the module does not provide an fb driver for the console. The Wayland patches have not been merged (and is not going very well on this side) and a KMS console is not there; so basically even enabling it just brings absolutely no difference to your experience. As such, modesetting is disabled.

It also brings instability to both my systems, so I guess it needs to mature some more before being usable. To enable mode setting, perform the following changes:

# echo "options nvidia-drm modeset=1" > /etc/depmod.d/nvidia.conf
# depmod -a
# reboot

To be more precise, some kernel command should be removed when the kernel module gets also a fb driver:

# grubby --update-kernel=ALL --remove-args='nomodeset gfxpayload=vga=normal'
# sed -i -e 's/nomodeset gfxpayload=vga=normal //g' /etc/default/grub

At the moment, those parameters are still added by the package as there is absolutely no benefit in enabling mode setting. As I said, you will reboot and get absolutely no difference.

As usual, let me know of any problems. I will be away for holiday for 3 weeks, so do not expect a prompt reply!

Support for 8/10/12 bit color depths in HandBrake!

slaanesh 14 Comments

HandBrake is now using a freshly built x265 library that enables full color depth support at 8, 10 and 12 bits. You can now convert videos in these format! This has been enabled in the 64 bit builds of the x265 library; for both Fedora 23 and CentOS/RHEL 7.

Also, NUMA support has been added to the libraries. Just by chance I have an SGI UV 200 (the predecessor of the current SGI UV 300) lying around.

ghb-x265

This goes along with the 10 bit support for x264 that was enabled some time ago; so I’ve made some adjustments to the libraries and now there is more consistency between x264/x265. Both are loaded at runtime by HandBrake:

$ ls -alghs /usr/lib64/libx26*
668K -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root 667K Feb  5 09:55 /usr/lib64/libx264_main10.so
764K -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root 763K Feb  5 09:55 /usr/lib64/libx264.so.148
3.4M -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root 3.4M Feb  5 09:05 /usr/lib64/libx265_main10.so
3.4M -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root 3.4M Feb  5 09:05 /usr/lib64/libx265_main12.so
3.2M -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root 3.2M Feb  5 09:05 /usr/lib64/libx265.so.68

HandBrake, MakeMKV, FFMpeg and Skype available for CentOS/RHEL 7

slaanesh 19 Comments

The multimedia and Skype repositories now contain all components and libraries to have the same “experience” as in Fedora 23. This includes HandBrake, MakeMKV, Skype and the same FFMPeg build with the same options that are enabled in the Fedora 23 build; including Intel Quick Sync Video and the Nvidia Encoder.

handbrake-1.0-centos7

To enable this, new build roots with CentOS/RHEL i686 images have been used. This way all dependencies have been correctly built from the same CentOS/RHEL 7 packages and not with cross-compilation or using the Fedora 19 buildroots.

Converged multimedia repository with restricted codecs and binaries

slaanesh 2 Comments

As most of you have noticed, the HandBrake repository has been integrating more and more multimedia packages that are not related to HandBrake itself or to its supporting programs. The latest additions to it are the CUDA/FFMpeg enabled Blender package and some additional encoding options for FFMPeg.

This definitely puts a nail in the coffin of the “CUDA programs” repository that was previously treated as a separate repository. I’m not able to provide separate repositories for them as either you have a full blown multimedia collection with each component strictly tied to each other (Blender requires FFMPeg and Nvidia drivers, FFMpeg requires restricted multimedia libraries and Nvidia drivers, HandBrake requires the same restricted multimedia libraries of FFMPeg, etc.) or you just have the plain Fedora repositories with no license/patent encumbered options.

None of these packages can be distributed inside the main Fedora/RPMFusion repositories as they are presented here with current build options; mainly due to patent and licensing issues or simply because they are coupled with non open source software resulting in dubious licensed binaries.

Some of the packages might have hard dependencies on Nvidia components or libraries, while some other have a weak dependency on them. Whether you can enable support for those it’s usually just a matter of adding or not the Nvidia repository and the multimedia (HandBrake) repository at the same time.

Not all distributions are on par regarding features and packages, let’s say most of the development goes on to the latest Fedora release due to it being my daily desktop.

To install the CUDA enabled Blender, HandBrake, MakeMKV or the fully fledge FFMpeg binary just go to the appropriate page and follow the instructions.

I will probably also rename the repository into something more generic compared to what is currently called now; so suggestions are welcome!

Screenshot from 2015-12-11 19-20-27

Updated packages and new Samsung repository

slaanesh 5 Comments

As some of you may have noticed, a lot of updates and new stuff has been pushed.

Highlights from the updates

  • The Nvidia driver version 358.16 has been promoted as “Short Lived” for Fedora, and it has support for X.org Video ABI 20. So it is now the default for Fedora 21, 22 and 23.
  • Driver version 352.63 is the new “Long Lived” driver for RedHat/CentOS.
  • Both drivers have a fallback mechanism for the SELinux regression introduced in 358.09, so you don’t need anymore to disable SELinux for GDM refresh problems.
  • The legacy driver has been updated to 340.96, and this as well has been enabled for Fedora 23 as it also supports X.org 1.18
  • CDRtools after years of an alpha 3.01 has finally updated to… an alpha 3.02 😀
  • HandBrake has been updated to the very latest snapshot and is relying only on separate source tarballs that are not statically linked. Unfortunately some are of dubious licenses as usual. Please note that there are some issues with subtitle tracks embedded in Matroska files not being correctly interpreted.
  • The Nvidia NVML library and CUDA packages have seen some small update.
  • Steam has been updated to version 1.0.0.51 and has updated UDev rules for the Steam Controller. If you are one of the owners of such controller, you will find support out of the box. The same changes have also been pushed to the RPMFusion package.

New repository

There’s a new repository for Samsung printers, multifunction printers and scanners that carries the “Samsung Unified Linux Driver” for both the scanning and printing functions. Just by installing it and enabling the ports in the firewall should be enough to get every device running in no time. Refer to the appropriate page for details.

Fully fledged FFMpeg binaries

Also, due to popular request, there is now a custom built FFMpeg package that drops in as a replacement for RPMFusion ones and that enables linking and support for all the codecs/encoders/decoders that would result in an unredistributable binary. This is now available the HandBrake repository. The following codecs/encoders/decoders/transports have been enabled:

  • VP8 and VP9 de/encoding
  • WebP encoding
  • AAC (Fraunhofer, LibVO and other variants) de/encoding
  • OpenAL 1.1 capture support
  • BluRay reading
  • AMR-WB de/encoding
  • AMR-NB de/encoding
  • RTMP[E] support
  • H.264 encoding (OpenH264, Cisco variant)
  • OpenGL rendering
  • SSH transport
  • Fontconfig/fribidi text support

This sobstitutes the ffmpeg binary that was provided as part of the CUDA enabled programs, as it is now tied to all the other multimedia libraries available in this repository. The support for Nvidia H.264/H.265 hardware encoding/decoding is enabled here as well and the required packages are now installed through the use of RPM weak dependencies.

The package has a different Epoch so it is not overwritten by normal updates. The idea is to have all the possible codecs supported out of the box, so also expect HEVC kvazaar (H.265), Intel Quick Sync Video (H.265) hardware support through libmfx/mfx_dispatch, CIFS transport, and other stuff, as soon as I have more time.

The same repository will be used to host the CUDA and FFMpeg enabled Blender, as it makes no sense to have a separate repository for it. Either you have a full blown multimedia collection with each component strictly tied to each other, or you just have the plain Fedora repositories with no license/patent encumbered options.

Enjoy!

NVIDIA repository improvements

slaanesh 14 Comments

I’ve just pushed a big update to the Nvidia repository. The list of changes is quite big, so if you are a user of the repository please take your time to read through it.

CUDA

CUDA has been replaced with version 7 for all supported RHEL/CentOS/Fedora releases, with the main difference being no more support for 32 bit systems. From now on, there will be no compatibility packages for the i686 architecture. So, after upgrading, make sure to remove all the i686 pacakges (that is, yum/dnf remove cuda\*.i686).

Apart from this, CUDA 7 packages introduce new stuff, improves on the packaging and can now run correctly on all Fedora systems, including Fedora 22, which was not supported by CUDA 6.5. As announced previously, the only “regression” is when enabling C+11 on GCC 5.1 (i.e. Fedora 22).

The new packages take into consideration the Nvidia provided ones, and replace them accordingly; so if you have their packages installed it should upgrade them where appropriate leaving no traces of the former. Local changes include the pkg-config files for development packages (not included in their self installer and in my 6.5 packages) and the segregation of static libraries in their own subpackage, thus reducing installed size greatly. The next step is to proceed like for the open components of the Nvidia driver: replacing all the pre-built binaries with source compiled stuff. At the moment, this includes cuda-gdb, for which sources do exist.

NVIDIA driver

The Nvidia driver has seen a repackaging of the main components, where the biggest change is the library layout.

All the unique libraries are now in standard locations, leaving only the duplicate ones under /usr/lib{,64}/nvidia. Also, X configuration files that the user should avoid touching, have been moved under /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d. Library dependencies have been reduced, so you can now compile a program against the NVML library (libnvidia-ml.so.1) or CUDA without needing to install the full driver or using the Nvidia provided stubs.

This makes for a simpler package with a simpler filter for conflicting libraries and is also propedeutic work to enable hardware accelerated encoding with Steam In-Home streaming and Nvidia drivers. Hardware decoding in Steam has been put in place, so now it’s time for the (only) supported hardware encoding.

NVIDIA beta driver (355.xx)

The biggest change comes with the 355.06 driver in Fedora 23, which introduces partial support for the GL Vendor-Neutral Dispatch library (libglvnd), a new kernel module building system (in preparation for their modeset driver after the 355.x series) and dropped support for Nvidia instanciated modules.

The new beta driver requires the GL Vendor Neutral Dispatch library in place for proper operation, and being this a separate open source project (only a prototype in Mesa, at the moment) it has been built from source. So there is now a required libglvnd package that only contains the libraries required by the driver for running. The more they are integrated with the driver, the more I will enable in the package. This is a transitional package only, as sooner or later Mesa and the X server will introduce the same mechanism, making the transitional package obsolete and just using distribution provided packages.

This with could eventually lead to system running different OpenGL implementations at the same time, solving the Optimus and multiple cards from multiple vendors combination issues.

The Nvidia control panel can be optionally linked to NVML, so I’ve tried to enable it in the beta drivers. I don’t see any changes so far, but probably this is due to the fact that I don’t have new enough cards to be compatible with NVML.

The beta driver has been pushed to the Fedora 23 branch only, as explained in the Nvidia repository page.

As always, feedback is welcome.

Steam made easy

slaanesh Leave a comment

The Steam repository has received some love; changes to the Steam package will also be pushed in RPMFusion after a bit of feedback.

Updated X-Box gamepad driver

The SteamOS X-Box Gamepad driver has been updated with the new Valve rebase on the 3.18 kernel, with new hardware support and bugfixes. Remember to disable Secure Boot if you plan to use it on an UEFI system.

In-Home Streaming

There are now instructions for setting up In-Home streaming, including the firewall rules required for enabling your desktop to accept connections from other Steam clients that are available on your network.

Also, hardware decoding is available if you are streaming from another Steam client and you are not running the Ubuntu Runtime.

Disabling Ubuntu Runtime

It is now possible again to have the steam-noruntime package that pulls in all (known) 32 bit dependencies and allows you to run Steam without the Ubuntu Runtime. Remember this is not supported, so while getting the benefits of it, you might as well encounter additional problems.

Also, some games pull in additional dependencies (the Witcher 2 or Anodyne, for example), so without the Runtime you are on your own to figure out what is missing.

But running Steam without the Ubuntu Runtime has also its benefits, for example you use DTS 7.1 sound through PulseAudio.

The steam-noruntime package also pulls in as the dependencies the required libraries for the hardware accelerated decoding with In-Home Streaming. This makes streaming much less flickery client side.

Those features normally work only with the Ubuntu/Debian libraries on the system, so avoiding the runtime is the only choice.

170 games and counting!

Nvidia driver modeset kernel module

slaanesh 4 Comments

As part of the latest Nvidia driver update at version 352.09, there is now code supporting a new nvidia-modeset kernel module that should be running on a system and that interfaces with the usual nvidia kernel module.

Evidence of this is in the kernel module sources and in the nvidia-modprobe command code that is hosted in Github.

From the nv-modeset-interface.h header in the kernel module “sources”:

/*
 * This file defines the interface between the nvidia.ko and
 * nvidia-modeset.ko Linux kernel modules.
 *
 * A minor device file from nvidia.ko's pool is dedicated to
 * nvidia-modeset.ko.  nvidia-modeset.ko registers with nvidia.ko by
 * calling nvidia_register_module() and providing its file operation
 * callback functions.
 *
 * Later, nvidia-modeset.ko calls nvidia.ko's nvidia_get_rm_ops()
 * function to get the RMAPI function pointers which it will need.
 */

Let’s hope that modesetting support in the driver is near and we will not have to wait additional years for it. Also, let’s hope that the firmware images required for the latest hardware on Nouveau will be released soon, without further delays.

As soon as it will be delivered, I will implement it in the packages according to the driver table in the repository page.

Steam for CentOS / RHEL 7

slaanesh 13 Comments

The Steam repository now contains the Steam client package plus the S3 texture compression library for Open Source drivers for CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

The CentOS/RHEL repository contains also all the SteamOS session files and binaries for running a Steam-only system, like the Fedora ones. As the Fedora packages, the main client is 32 bit only, so when running on 64 bit systems, make sure to load also your 32 bit libraries if you are running on proprietary drivers or the S3 texture compression library if you are running on a 64 bit system. Work on Valve’s X-Box kernel module for CentOS/RHEL is ongoing; as in its current form there are unresolved symbols.

As part of the update, also the Fedora X-Box kernel module has additional fixes on top of Valve’s code.

I will also add the packages to RPMFusion when a CentOS/RHEL 7 branch will eventually be available.

For full details see the repository page.

centos-steam2

centos-steam3