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Hi,
I have been a xbian user from the initial stages and I was very happy with the Xbian 1.0 Alpha 5. After upgrading to Beta, I started seeing lot of problems with USB audio play back through mpd (lots of clicks and pops as well as the music started playing in varying speeds), I tried so many workarounds but nothing helped. I got forced to move to raspbmc, and there it works great, but somehow the last raspbmc version has some CEC problems with my LG TV and occasionally the CEC remote stops working which was frustrating. So I was thinking since I was happy with the Alpha release, thought f moving back to that and give it a try. If some body has the download link, could you please share it.

How about moving forward and not backwards?

Unfortunately Alpha has been discontinued.

There was a URL to discontinued IMG files but alas that now only contains a CUBOX image.

I can dropbox an old Alpha5 image (no idea how good it is) if you PM your DB link.

(18th Mar, 2014 05:55 AM)IriDium Wrote: [ -> ]How about moving forward and not backwards?

Thanks Iridium,
I was also hoping the usb dac issues will be fixed in the later releases but somehow for me its not getting improved with later releases. Not exactly sure whats happening. I tried lot of tweakings and workarounds suggested by lot of people in raspifyi forums and none helped
Unfortunately Alpha has been discontinued.
have PMed you my email id so that the dropbox folder can be shared.

@killerbrain

if your Alpha does not suffer from the usb "problems" then you should be documenting this and reporting to RPI development team (firmware & kernel) as they are looking for solution since I remember (Jan/2013).

(24th Mar, 2014 07:51 AM)mk01 Wrote: [ -> ]@killerbrain

if your Alpha does not suffer from the usb "problems" then you should be documenting this and reporting to RPI development team (firmware & kernel) as they are looking for solution since I remember (Jan/2013).

Hi mk01,
But the thing which I dont understand is , I see this issue with latest xbian alone. I have tried the latest raspbmc and there I dont face any problems with USB audio, infact there my usb dac even works great with XBMC. (although its not stable, if I do a forward or reverse video seek, then xbmc crashes)

Can this be solved by changing the dynamic priority/niceness level given to teh xbmc gui.

@killerbrain

sure, you can alter priority according to various "states" of xbmc in /etc/init/xbmc-priority.conf. states alone have docs in bridge-xbmc service code /usr/local/sbin/upstart-xbmc-bridge.py

and feel free to use raspbmc kernel to boot xbian and vice versa (for testing) - including firmware files. if you are saying it is XBian only, it should not be that hard to track down.

---

what version of xbian-package-kernel and -firmware you are running ?

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can you also provide cmdline.txt and config.txt from raspbmc to compare ?

(24th Mar, 2014 06:51 PM)mk01 Wrote: [ -> ]@killerbrain

sure, you can alter priority according to various "states" of xbmc in /etc/init/xbmc-priority.conf. states alone have docs in bridge-xbmc service code /usr/local/sbin/upstart-xbmc-bridge.py

and feel free to use raspbmc kernel to boot xbian and vice versa (for testing) - including firmware files. if you are saying it is XBian only, it should not be that hard to track down.

---

what version of xbian-package-kernel and -firmware you are running ?

---

can you also provide cmdline.txt and config.txt from raspbmc to compare ?

Thanks mk01. last week I tried overclocking the xbian and that helped a lot, but unfortunately my SD card got corrupted yesterday (I think its due to the over clocking).
Following was the config.txt info which I had for overclocking
I am not a linux expert, so not sure how to use the raspbmc kernel to boot xbian. It would be great if you can share some link on how to do that.

Xbian-package-kernel and firmware version: Since my sd card got corrupted yesterday I couldnt get that. For now I have installed Raspbmc on that sd card. I have one more spare sd card on which I will install Xbian and get the info by tommorrow.

most probably by tommorrow after installing Xbian on the new SD Card, I would be able to provide the config.txt and cmdline.txt of both xbian and raspbmc.

(24th Mar, 2014 06:51 PM)mk01 Wrote: [ -> ]@killerbrain

sure, you can alter priority according to various "states" of xbmc in /etc/init/xbmc-priority.conf. states alone have docs in bridge-xbmc service code /usr/local/sbin/upstart-xbmc-bridge.py

and feel free to use raspbmc kernel to boot xbian and vice versa (for testing) - including firmware files. if you are saying it is XBian only, it should not be that hard to track down.

---

what version of xbian-package-kernel and -firmware you are running ?

---

can you also provide cmdline.txt and config.txt from raspbmc to compare ?

Hi Xbian,
Since I was early from work today, I maanged to install xbian on the other unused SD card. Please find the details which you asked for. Appreciate your time and help.
Installation details:
I dont update the Xbian unless there is an official build which is available.(The reason for this was CEC keeps breaking now and then when I used to keep xbian upto date, so thought of not updating until I get a good build) So this is a fresh Beta 2 install and I didnt use the Xbian installer as I had the Xbian Beta image already downloaded. I used the win32 diskimager to write it to SD.
Xbian Kernel Version
---------------------------
Raspbmc Kernel version
----------------------------
Xbian Firmware version
-----------------------------

Raspbmc Firmware Version
--------------------------------

Xbian XBMC Version
------------------------

Xbian cmdline.txt
---------------------

Raspbmc cmdline.txt
---------------------------

Xbian Config.txt
---------------------

Raspbmc config.txt
---------------------------

are you sure with the config.txt?

as RaspBMC is officially stating that XBian feels better/faster because it's higher default clocking. but from this it looks like RaspBMC is running important clock at 25% faster.

but unimportant for that case - if you don't want to match clocks at the beginning. for start change your XBian cmdline.txt to this:


for avoiding CEC updates there is much better approach in putting specific package on hold. then others will be updated automatically, CEC never.
you definitely have to update kernel & specially firmware. otherwise the test is useless.

BTW: core clock of 375 to Xbian's 270 is like comparing two different machines. coreclock specifically affects response times.

---

but if you are not afraid of a bit manual action, you can just match RaspBMC firmware & kernel by copying

then still without reboot run on XBian

(26th Mar, 2014 01:52 PM)mk01 Wrote: [ -> ]are you sure with the config.txt?

as RaspBMC is officially stating that XBian feels better/faster because it's higher default clocking. but from this it looks like RaspBMC is running important clock at 25% faster.

but unimportant for that case - if you don't want to match clocks at the beginning. for start change your XBian cmdline.txt to this:

Code:

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 quiet sdhci-bcm2708.enable_llm=1 dwc_otg.microframe_schedule=1 dwc_otg.fiq_fix_enable=0 dwc_otg.fiq_split_enable=0 dwc_otg.trans_backoff=3000 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootflags=subvol=root/@,autodefrag,compress=lzo rootfstype=btrfs rootwait logo.nologo quiet noswap  mod_scsi.scan=sync partswap startevent=mountall splash nohdparm --startup-event mountall

for avoiding CEC updates there is much better approach in putting specific package on hold. then others will be updated automatically, CEC never.
you definitely have to update kernel & specially firmware. otherwise the test is useless.

BTW: core clock of 375 to Xbian's 270 is like comparing two different machines. coreclock specifically affects response times.

---

but if you are not afraid of a bit manual action, you can just match RaspBMC firmware & kernel by copying

Code:

/boot/start_x.elf -> /boot/start.elf
/boot/fixup_x.dat -> /boot/fixup.dat
/boot/bootcode.bin ->
/boot/kernel.img ->
/lib/modules/3.10.24 ->
/opt/ ->

then still without reboot run on XBian

Code:

sudo xbian-update-initramfs

Thanks mk01 for your reply. Please find my replies below.
Regarding the raspbmc config.txt, its the default one. I havent tinkered with over clocking settings on raspbmc as I never faced any issues.

Yes I also agree that considering the xbian is running at a lower speed, the performance and bootup of xbian is faster when compared to raspbmc interms of xbmc usage. However if I install gcc(as part of installing PlayDVD addon) on xbian, then xbian slogs where as raspbmc i dont feel any difference at all. may be its due to the higher core freq setting in raspbmc as you mentioned.

I will try updating the Xbian cmdline.txt to the one which you suggested after updating the firmware and kernel. Pardon my ignorance on linux, could you please let me know how to keep the CEC package to the same version while doing a apt-get dist-upgrade?

If the above doesnt work, I will surely try the manual approach of using the raspbmc kernel and firmware to boot xbian.

any package on hold:


when I wrote "response times" this on a wider scale includes for instance as you perceive "lags" in the system, or response on console while running more programs, ... all others variants. I run my RPIs at 400/420(375 is raspbmc) and consider them FAST. if I for tests revert to defaults I'm checking all the time if RPI didn't freeze.

just in general most of sound glitches / clicks / and other such artefacts are related to timing issues. corefreq has significant impact to context switching, latencies etc.

---

and yes, try standard packages first. as you don't want broken system.

btw almost all the parameters which differs (are newly added even on RaspBMC - those dwc_otg.*) are all about the busses and timings as the DWCOTG is raspberry's core driver. So if you will find them as beneficial we will include them for XBian too.

Hi mk01,
As per your suggestions following is the update on my trials.

I have updated the kernel, firmware and xbmc to the latest version and then modified the cmdline.txt as suggested by you. Still I see the issue occassionally.
I couldn't try replacing the xbian kernel and firmware with the raspbmc as its too late for me. I will be able to try that mostly next week and update the thread as I am going on a trip and will be back only by next week.

Logs

Hi Mk01,
yesterday I tried booting up with raspbnmc firmware and kernel by referring to the steps which you have mentioned. However after rebooting, I get the below error message..

Mounting /dev/<rootpartitionid> to /newroot failed

Is there any way I can correct this?
Is there any plan to incorporate the dwc optimizations in the xbian firmware/kernel? I would be happy to test the same.