gui, desktop environment, suited for SDTV

[dudeofwii]

Ok, without going into a lot of detail, lets just say i have my Nintendo Wii set up and running Debian 4 etch :). I even managed to install ALSA and get working sound (tested by installing supertux ;) ), and KDE 3.5, all of this stuffed into under 2 GB sd card!:D Only problem though, is everything is huge,:eek: but supertux displays properly. So, should i be looking at something like blackbox/fluxbox, or is there something i can do to make KDE look "less bloated" and proper for SDTV screen? As an example, when i open the desktop settings dialog box, i have to use the keyboard shortcuts to apply and close it... Other then this, i have successfully turned my wii into a (half way) usable linux box...
Recommendations? P.S. i have tried to change screen resolution, but had no effect. Wish now i had a HDTV...

[mrrangerman43]

Welcome to JL,

Any of the light WM should do fine, I like fluxbox my self, but Xfce would work also. Something you may try is to get rid of as much of debian as you can. IsaacKuo has a nice Ramdisk howto for linux, but if you take a look at it you will find he shows how to get rid of a lot of uneeded stuff. Here (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151870) take a look at step 4 not sure if it will help or not but it may be worth a try.

[dudeofwii]

Will try that guide, and i just found out about Enlightenment desktop. Will try that first, then maybe xfce, possibly even lxde...

[bwkaz]

Only problem though, is everything is huge,:eek: but supertux displays properly. So, should i be looking at something like blackbox/fluxbox, or is there something i can do to make KDE look "less bloated" and proper for SDTV screen? I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like you mean the size of everything on screen?

If that's true, then the only fix that I know of is to change the resolution. (Changing the DPI may end up having an effect, but it should not. The only thing that the DPI value should affect is font sizes.)

Specifically, the window manager or desktop environment that you use will have no effect on the pixel count. (The WM or DE may offer a different configuration interface that's usable at such a low resolution, so it still may be worth a try. But the available pixels will not increase just by changing the WM.)

Recommendations? P.S. i have tried to change screen resolution, but had no effect. Wish now i had a HDTV... Not having any idea how the hardware in the Wii hooks up to the TV, I'm not sure if the standard rules even apply. But normal analog televisions are only about 320x240 "pixels" or so: their resolution is horrifically tiny (in terms of total number of pixels). If the Wii can hook up to a normal VGA/DVI monitor, and you have one laying around, that would probably work out better. :)

OTOH, analog TVs are analog, so they don't quite have the same concept of a pixel as a monitor does. A TV's decoding circuitry might be able to work with a higher-apparent-pixel-count resolution coming from the Wii, if you can configure the Wii's hardware to send that higher apparent pixel count. I don't know how to do that...

Normally, the resolutions that have been configured and are therefore available to be chosen can be listed with xrandr (from a terminal). This may not list everything that the hardware is capable of, though; I don't know how to do that in general.

[dudeofwii]

Enlightenment seems to be working great for me. As for the resolution issue, i would try to set it to a different resolution, apply it, and close the window. Going back to the resolution setting, i find its still at 640 x 480. I was trying to set it to 800 x 600, but it never kept the setting, never applied it either. So i have given up on changing the resolution, and i am just trying to stay simplistic. No, i do not have any monitors to use, just 2 laptops, and the wii.
As for the wii hardware, all i know is that it is ATI powered. I am not well versed in hacking, but i am hoping that someone, somewhere, sometime, can get a driver for the wii's graphics card/chip. That and only that, is the only possible way i can see to get better graphics. As for my laptop, hooking it up to the same tv, i get a resolution of 1024 x 768. So, the only thing i can guess is that the connection makes a difference; s-video for laptop vs. rca for wii.
If my tv is receiving a video signal from my laptop, at 1024 x 768 resolution, why can i not get wii-linux to display the same resolution? Here's to hoping someone out there makes a driver for the wii's graphics of some sort.

[mrrangerman43]

dudeofwii

why can i not get wii-linux to display the same resolution? Here's to hoping someone out there makes a driver for the wii's graphics of some sort.

Have you taken a look at your xorg.conf file? Use nano, vi, or your favorite editor and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf this is mine.

Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 440 AGP 8x]"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-83
VertRefresh 56-75
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 440 AGP 8x]"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Note the default resolution is on the left, you need to be root to make changes, also be sure to make a backup of your xorg.conf file like so if you are in the X11 directory cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.bak if your not in the directory give the path. cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf xorg.conf.bak

[retsaw]

If my tv is receiving a video signal from my laptop, at 1024 x 768 resolution, why can i not get wii-linux to display the same resolution? Here's to hoping someone out there makes a driver for the wii's graphics of some sort.I doubt the laptop is actually sending the video to your TV at that resolution, can you see all the detail on your TV? What your laptop is probably doing is scaling down the 1024x768 screen to a resolution your TV can handle.

An NTSC TV has 486 visible scanlines and PAL has 576 visible scanlines (this will make up the vertical resolution), and the horizontal resolution for PAL is a bit over 700 (Wikipedia didn't have figures for horizontal so I can't be exact and I'm not sure if NTSC is the same as PAL for it's horizontal resolution, but I think it is). This means that you won't get much higher than 640x480 output on your TV, but if the Wii's hardware allows it you might be able to get a bit more resolution with custom modelines for X.

[nunyabeezwax]

I'm assuming you're talking about a CRT display. CRT TV resolution is not pixel based. The effective resolution (which is really just an indication of the scan capabilities of your particular television) varies anywhere from 600 to 720 pixels Horizontal; 450 to 480 pixels (lines) Vertical (extra lines are for data transmission).

640x480 was the original VGA specification, because it is closest in size to the average SDTV scan pattern (slightly smaller, in most cases).