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Project 3 - Video Wall!


Team members:
Jamie Brant
Kenny Denson

Objective:
create a video wall using two pc and four monitors run in the following format:

| vidwall Screen 1 | vidwall2 Screen 1 |
| vidwall Screen 2 | Vidwall2 Screen 2 |
Steps to set up a video wall
Requirements

Operating System: ubuntu

====== Installing the operating system ======
To install the operating system we followed the procedure Ken used to build his standalone linux box[[notes:hpc0:kdenson_projects:backup|Project 1 - Linux Install / Linux VM Server Install]]  

====== After that we did the following line to both systems: ======


   1. Update. * ' aptitude update '
  
   2. ' aptitude upgrade '
  
   3. Install video driver. We used; wget http://10.80.2.6/files/student/nvidia173.run (because we already had this on the lab server)
          * chmod 777 nvidia173.run ; to compile the driver
          
          * ./nvidia173.run ; to install the driver. We ran into some problems here. To get around them we used 'aptitude install build-essential' and aptitude install linux-sorce-2.6.31 to bring the system up to date.
    
          * Using the dpkg -l | grep nvidia we found all the nvidia files we needed too, and installed all files that showed up with aptitude install

====== The following line was done to vidwall and scp to vidwall2 : ======


    * In the xorg.config file we needed to edit Nvidia to nvidia, and uncomment NoLogo and TwinView lines.

      ' scp /etc/X11/xorg.conf 10.80.2.194 '

           
- ===== Next we needed to install Fluxbox to have a window manager =====
 
' **aptitude install fluxbox** ' on both systems
           * To set the screens to either act verticly or horizantly under the /etc/X11 directory we needed to  edit the xorg.conf file on both systems. Under the "device" section we need to add   **Option "MetaModes"      "1280x1024 +0+0, 1802x1024 +0+0"** 
           * 
- Use **xhost +** to enable network communitcations on both machines.

- Use export** DISPLAY=10.80.2.194;0** to set the monitors of the second machine to display what is on the first machine.

- Installing Xdmx by using **aptitude install xdmx**, on both machenes. (Make sure both machenes are set to the same resolution)

- At this point we where able to launch the fluxbox desktop on both systems.

- Then we created a confiuration file that looked like this. 
              startx -- /usr/bin/X11/Xdmx:1 -display 10.80.2.199:0 -display 10.80.2.194:0 -ignorebadfontpaths + xinerana
        
- Patch Xdmx. We retrived the new patches from [[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/xorg-server/2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.2]] (xorg-server_164.org.tar.gz and xorg-server_1.6.4-2ubuntu.4.2.diff)

- To patch files and output any errors to an error file, patch -p1 <xorg-server_1.6.4 2>err 

- All of those patched files should be in the /home/vidwall/xorg-server-1.6.4 directory
           * config, glx, debian, hw, doc, xkb (all of these should be in the zorg-server-1.6.4 directory)

- To compile these dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc
           * Remove old files by aptitude remove xdmx (should remove both xdmx and xdmx-tools
           * To install new, dpkg -i packagename

At this point we should have had a working system, but we did not. This is what else we tried.

    *
      We tried to download and install “dmxpict.patch” from the notes page of this wiki, under systems and networking.
          o
            in xorg-server-1.6.4/hw/dmx/dmxpict.c edit the file
          o
            between the line “FIX ME: Handle savng clip region ~” and “DMX_WRAP(Change Picture ~)”
          o
            XRectanle aRect;
          o
            aRect.x = 0; aRect.y = 0;
          o
            Arect.width = 9999 ;
          o
            ARect.height = 9999;
          o
            XRenderSetPictureClipRectangles(dmxScreen→beDisplay, pPictPriv→pict,0,0, &aRect,1);

    *
      When trying to fix the bad fonts issue we…
          o
            cd /usr/share/fonts/X11
          o
            cp fontname fixed.pcf.gz (we chose something that seemed like a 'normal' font name)

NOTE: Because this did not satisfy me I rebuilt the systems using debian Lenny and this process. Once I got this done and tried to bring up the wall I keep having a problem with the mouse. I then googled the problem. The resolution to the problem ended up being to load Xdmx from debian etch. This worked and I was able to bring up the vidoe wall.
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