Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hm. Curious.

Two completely different sets of hardware, running two totally different cameras - one integrated, one USB - neither of which can be 'seen' by this version of Zoom, running under the same OS.

So; it begs the question, doesn't it? Is it Zoom.....or is it Bionic? I have to confess, here, that this particular Puppy has given me no end of issues ever since I started using it a couple of years ago, not only on this new hardware, but also on the old Compaq tower, too. I don't hold Phil responsible in any way; he can only work with the material he had to begin with, and the sources as supplied by Canonical.....and did his usual remarkable job.

(This version of Zoom runs flawlessly under Fossapup, and also in a Xenialpup64 chroot 'jail' from where I have it running in Quirky 'April' 7.0.1 'lite' from jrb.....and that's Tahrpup-era. However, under Xenialpup64 running on bare metal, although it logs in OK, and the camera feed comes up, it's all 'jerky' & 'flickery'.....so it's doubly odd the same version of Puppy runs it flawlessly from within a 'jail'.)

If anything, I think the problems lie with the source material and repositories, because I've read no end of blog and forum posts where Ubuntu users, too, have had issue after issue with Bionic Beaver......and those same users have also experienced what I have, viz, the fact that stuff that's been giving them grief has started behaving itself again under Focal Fossa. I can only surmise it comes down to a particular combination of dependencies & system runtime routines.

We're getting closer, though..!

Mike.

With Zoom 5.4.6 (56259.1207)
I found that I had to switch from nouveau to modesetting graphics driver with my Nvidia graphics board.....
May apply to others....

thanks for the interest peebee ...but this is beyond my experience. How does one do this? I'm interested to try it out.

peebee wrote: ↑Sat Dec 12, 2020 3:37 pm

With Zoom 5.4.6 (56259.1207)
I found that I had to switch from nouveau to modesetting graphics driver with my Nvidia graphics board.....

I am greatly ignorant about nvidia graphics card though understood there is nvidia proprietry drivers (though apparently deprecated for newer X???) and also open-source nouveau. However, I also find your above comment confusing because from wikipedia nouveau seems to require KMS (Kernel Mode Setting):

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/nouveau

Kernel mode setting (KMS) is required by the Nouveau driver.

So what do you mean "switch from nouveau to modesetting graphics driver"?

The only info I have come across seems to be concerned with not using nouveau driver (instead using propriety nvidia driver) and turning modesetting off at grub kernel line (or in /etc/modprobe.d) using the likes of:

nomodeset nouveau.modeset=0

(the laptop with nvidia I'm talking about does work fine if I put the above nomodeset instructions on grub kernel line, but then I just get plain VESA with lowish resolution of 1024x768 max, but at least no graphics artifacts on desktop... maybe I can later set up nouveau better, I don't know... since checked card is Nvidia G73M (GeForce Go 7600) - I don't know if I can compile proprietry nvidia driver for that which would work with recent Xorg and not a high enough priority for me to try for now.

I have one very old laptop that has some old nvidia graphics (sorry don't have it here to check card type exactly) and with some distros it has problems such as memory seeming to leak such that parts of screen get messed up. I have never taken time to investigate the issue further since I just resort to using any distro on it that turns out to work out-of-the-box on it okay.

I've now checked /var/log/Xorg.0.log on my WDL_Arch64 system and see it is in fact loading modesetting_drv.ko (which I guess is the one you were referring to regarding Zoom in Bionic64) because I had forgotten to install xf86-video-nouveau (duh). I have now installed the latter and my system is working fine via nouveau driver.

Solved at Last!

Previously norgo suggested this:
export QT_QUICK_BACKEND=software

This fixed the error of the greyed out login screen but the integrated webcam stopped working.

I have now resolved both problems by replacing "export QT_QUICK_BACKEND=software" with "export QT_XCB_FORCE_SOFTWARE_OPENGL=1"

After more investigation myself regarding the potential use of the LD_PRELOAD command and the QT_QUICK_BACKEND command I came across an unrelated problem discussion in 2018 about software rendering (https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/ ... 0481.html), so I decided to try this with zoom since I thought maybe it would solve the inital greyed out screen problem whilst not interfering with the builtin web camera. It works!

PS.
The day after I posted this I also found that the following parameters will also work:

• export QT_XCB_FORCE_SOFTWARE_OPENGL=0

• export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1

Other than knowing that these have something to do with using/not using the native video driver and/or using/not using OpenGL ..I have no idea what these parameters actually do. I have started reading on these topics but I confess that most of it is way above my understanding. Perhaps someone with more knowledge in this area can explain?

@mow9902 :-

Yup; I can confirm this works nicely in Bionic64.

I wonder if I can set-up Bionic so it doesn't give issues? Let's see; since Ozsouth compiled the wireless driver for me to try, auto-connection is OK now (still can't get my head round using wireless in a desktop, but.....ah, hell; if it works, who cares? )

So; Zoom - OK. Skype - OK. Chrome - no probs. (And that gives me Google's "Duo".....o-kay.)

DeaDBeeF; non-functzione. DogRadio - installed but needs Conky.....still got to install pWidgets, so that'll take care of that. Mmm......

We're getting there. Slowly... Trouble is, I got so many other marvelous Puppies that ALL clamour to be played with, too.... Oh, well; "softly, softly, catchee monkey", y'know?

Mike.

Thanks for the confirmation mike.
Yes - actually - my bionic64 is almost totally functional. I'm surprised that deadbeef won't work for you. What output do you get with that? maybe I can play with it.
For me, the only 1 small thing which does not work is slimjet ...which is supposed to work with spot but never did for me. Another forum topic I think.

mow9902 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 6:18 am

Thanks for the confirmation mike.
Yes - actually - my bionic64 is almost totally functional. I'm surprised that deadbeef won't work for you. What output do you get with that? maybe I can play with it.
For me, the only 1 small thing which does not work is slimjet ...which is supposed to work with spot but never did for me. Another forum topic I think.

@mow9902 :-

Perhaps I should clarify here. It's not playing tracks that's the issue; where it's falling flat is in playing a .pls 'stream' from my RadioTunes a/c. As a 'free' listener to the site, you get ads every 15 minutes & are restricted to the site's built-in player.....which is so-so. When you subscribe monthly, you do get a number of, frankly, quite practical 'perks'. One of these is the ability to download a file containing what's called your 'Listen key' (I guess this identifies you to the site's servers), which permits you to access your 'Favorite' channels in the form of a .pls stream, and to play this on any audio player of your choice, ad-free, for as long as you want.

I prefer DeaDBeeF for this because its equalizer gives it a better 'sound' - in my opinion - than most others. The older DeadBeeF packages usually support this ability, but I guess it's possible Phil didn't add this option to the mix at build-time; not everybody wants this ability. My second choice for this would be SMPlayer running as an audio player, except it has to 'buffer' every time you switch channels.....and the equalizer, though OK, is not quite as good as DeaDBeeF's is.

(I'm not an audiophile, but I'm 'fussy' when it comes to how my music sounds.....especially in the lower registers. I prefer my bass to have a warm, 'rich' tone, reminiscent of the old valve radios/amplifiers....)

Mike.

Maybe this will help. It is a static version of the latest stable 1.8.5. You will also find a test.pls which I randomly downloaded from the web. Some entries work, some don't.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/r1du2k ... uppy_Linux

@mow9902 :-

Thanks for the link to the static DeaDBeeF, Geoff.

I'll have a look at that tomorrow, and see if it solves my issue in Bionicpup64. If it does, you'll be the first to know!

Cheers.

Mike.