Tutorials/TV
From LinutopWiki
Imagine your livingroom like this: In front of you there is a huge wide-screen LCD-TV, which is connected to a Linutop with VGA and sound cable. The Linutop is also connected to your ADSL modem. You sit on your couch with a cordless keyboard and mouse surfing the net, watching Google video, listeing to music, writing your blog, coding and reading news about Linux.. Nice?
It is possible, but needs a little work on graphic settings. Most European HD-ready LCD-TV:s use resolutions 1024x768 to 1366x768 at 60 Hz refresh rate. However, Linutop tries to work on 1024x768 at 75 Hz, which results in a blank screen.
Do this:
- run Linutop to configure it using its own program, then shutdown
- plug the Linutop-USB-key in another computer and open the sysconfig.cfg found in the root of the first partition
- in syslinux.cfg, replace all occurrences of "video=lxfb:1024x768-32@75" with "video=lxfb:1024x768-32@60" to lower the screen refresh rate
- also remove all instances of " screensize=????x???" on the same line, since they will mess up your X settings otherwise
- download the file http://www.linutop.com/index.en.html and put it on the USB-key in the directory "etc"
- close and unmount the Linutop-USB-key, then reboot with in the Linutop.
The splashscreen will work in 1024x768@60 and X will work at 1360x768@60. You might want to edit the xorg.conf to reflect your keyboard and other devices..
The syslinux boot menu will never be visible, since it does not support the TV's resolution/refresh rate. I guess a custom vesamenu.c32 should be made for 1024x768@60Hz..
Note that you can't use the Linutop settings manager anymore: it will overwrite the syslinux.cfg file with a broken one.
Tip 1: If you do your own experiments that fail and you need to do a poweroff reboot, sometimes you may experience a very slow bootup that ends with some error messages. That is usually because of the /linutop/.ICEauthority file, and simply removing the file will fix the issue.
Tip 2: If your audio level is too low, open the console and run "sudo alsamixer" to change audio levels. Use the arrow keys to change channel and volume. Press Esc to exit. Settings are lost when you reboot (just like all installed or upgraded applications are lost). Only files and settings saved in the Linutop home directory will be saved.
