Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

Re: Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc?

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mtdean at thirdcontact

Jul 2, 2009, 2:23 PM

Post #1 of 3 (274 views)
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Re: Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc?

On 07/02/2009 04:52 PM, Matt Beadon wrote:
> I often check on my myth system over vnc since I don't have a keyboard
> attached but ever since I installed it I've been hampered by the fact
> that the frontend doesn't always update the screen over vnc.
> So what I'd see is that on the tv all the menus would appear but over
> vnc I would just see the background image. This didn't seem to change
> with different themes so I grumbled and figured it was something odd
> about vnc/frontend.
>
> Then I had a crash (likely HVR-2250 related) and after restarting the
> menus had disappeared from the tv as well as over vnc. After poking
> around the logs&web I found an old suggestion from this mailing list
> archive that pointed me to using "-O ThemePainter=qt" when launching
> the frontend. I tried it and [insert sounds of marching bands] poof
> now the menu works on the tv and over vnc. :-)
> I guessed that "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"

The value (not the human-readable name) for the setting is opengl, not
OpenGL. With caps, it is equivalent to "-O ThemePainter=qt" or "-O
ThemePainter=xbmc" or "-O ThemePainter=Smith&SonsSpeedyHousePainting".
(I.e. anything that's not "opengl" uses the default, which is the Qt
painter. And, really, even "opengl" uses the Qt painter if the frontend
was not compiled with OpenGL support.)

> would also work and since I have a geforce 9300 I decided to use it
> instead of qt. This choice was based on the setup comments that said
> something to the effect of "if you have decent hw use opengl".
>
> My questions are:
> 1) have I got something misconfigured that requires this ThemePainter
> argument or is this a default that should be added for everyone?

The -O argument to myth applications is the, "Settings Override,"
argument--meaning, "For /just/ this one execution, ignore the value of
the setting that I configured and stored in my database and use the one
I'm supplying on the command line." So, you just need to fix the
setting in mythfrontend settings under TV Settings|Appearance. If you
can't use OpenGL (and, when you're using VNC, you probably can't use
OpenGL as VNC has no OpenGL--though it might kind of work with
sufficient processor power if using a :0 VNC session), set the Theme
Painter to Qt in settings.

Mike
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matt.beadon at gmail

Jul 2, 2009, 6:33 PM

Post #2 of 3 (242 views)
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Re: Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc? [In reply to]

>
> > So what I'd see is that on the tv all the menus would appear but over
> > vnc I would just see the background image. This didn't seem to change
> > with different themes so I grumbled and figured it was something odd
> > about vnc/frontend.
>
<snip>

I had originally (and still have) set my painter to be opengl in TV
Settings|Appearance

(I.e. anything that's not "opengl" uses the default, which is the Qt
> painter. And, really, even "opengl" uses the Qt painter if the frontend
> was not compiled with OpenGL support.)
>
<snip>

So basically my typo exposed the fact that I should have been using qt all
along. 8-)
Thanks for the info!

> The -O argument to myth applications is the, "Settings Override,"
> argument--meaning, "For /just/ this one execution, ignore the value of
> the setting that I configured and stored in my database and use the one
> I'm supplying on the command line." So, you just need to fix the
> setting in mythfrontend settings under TV Settings|Appearance. If you
> can't use OpenGL (and, when you're using VNC, you probably can't use
> OpenGL as VNC has no OpenGL--though it might kind of work with
> sufficient processor power if using a :0 VNC session), set the Theme
> Painter to Qt in settings.
>

Would it be worth submitting a bug to suggest that myth FE (and perhaps all
myth programs) loudly complain about unrecognized arguments on the command
line rather than quietly ignoring them?

thanks
Matt

mtdean at thirdcontact

Jul 2, 2009, 7:02 PM

Post #3 of 3 (243 views)
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Re: Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc? [In reply to]

On 07/02/2009 09:33 PM, Matt Beadon wrote:

> >> So what I'd see is that on the tv all the menus would appear but
> >> over vnc I would just see the background image. This didn't seem
> >> to change with different themes so I grumbled and figured it was
> >> something odd about vnc/frontend.
>
> <snip>
>
> I had originally (and still have) set my painter to be opengl in TV
> Settings|Appearance
>
> > (I.e. anything that's not "opengl" uses the default, which is the
> > Qt painter. And, really, even "opengl" uses the Qt painter if the
> > frontend was not compiled with OpenGL support.)
> <snip>
>
> So basically my typo exposed the fact that I should have been using
> qt all along. 8-) Thanks for the info!
>
> > The -O argument to myth applications is the, "Settings Override,"
> > argument--meaning, "For /just/ this one execution, ignore the value
> > of the setting that I configured and stored in my database and use
> > the one I'm supplying on the command line." So, you just need to
> > fix the setting in mythfrontend settings under TV
> > Settings|Appearance. If you can't use OpenGL (and, when you're
> > using VNC, you probably can't use OpenGL as VNC has no
> > OpenGL--though it might kind of work with sufficient processor
> > power if using a :0 VNC session), set the Theme Painter to Qt in
> > settings.
>
> Would it be worth submitting a bug to suggest that myth FE (and
> perhaps all myth programs) loudly complain about unrecognized
> arguments on the command line rather than quietly ignoring them?

That would be kind of impossible*** for the settings override as the
command-line-argument-parsing code knows nothing about the settings.
And, even if it did, there are over 400 settings in Myth (yeah, now you
see why some of us complain when users suggest adding new settings), so
it would have to know about those 400 settings and all the allowed
values for each setting or every part of Myth that uses a setting would
have to be changed to complain about invalid values in the database.

And, since the -O settings override is /not/ meant to be used except as
a one-time override for fixing a broken configuration, passing a bad
value for a setting shouldn't happen all that often.

Mike

***Code for "way more work than it's worth."
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