Jaunty broke my blender

[Uncle Entity]

Woo hoo, on a fully updated official release blender is still broken.



I guess its either downgrade or switch distros...or just not use blender for the next six months.

[The Verb]

Are there any workarounds to fix these artifacts? otherwise I might look seriously in switching to something else.
Same problem:

[J09]

Can you guys please post some more info about your problems? Mostly graphics card (I have a crappy integrated intel) and if you have effects enabled...

I was going to update in an hour or two, but I at least want to have a better idea of what I'm getting into if I do. I'm actually stuck way back in 8.04, because my laptop didn't work well with 8.10. I'm looking forward to new features. Thanks!

[The Verb]

Originally Posted by J09 Can you guys please post some more info about your problems? Mostly graphics card (I have a crappy integrated intel) and if you have effects enabled... I was going to update in an hour or two, but I at least want to have a better idea of what I'm getting into if I do. I'm actually stuck way back in 8.04, because my laptop didn't work well with 8.10. I'm looking forward to new features. Thanks!

Afaik, these issues occur only with Intel graphics cards. You can still download the new release and test drive it as a LiveCD before you decide to install.

[The Last Rookie]

I tried it also on my aspire one and ran into the the same graphic issue. (Intel GMA 950 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 3.0) A workaround is to add into the etc/X11/xorg.conf at the device section this row:

Option "dri" "off"

If you do so there will be no 3d hardware acceleration, but the artefacts are gone.
To worse the 2D performance is then also bad.

Today i installed ubuntu 8.10 which works because of an older intel driver without this bug, but my wifi does not work anymore.

[test-dr]

if an older graphics driver did work (in older ubuntu-versions)
there was/is an entry in the ubuntu forum about it and how
to reinstall an older version -
and if you really want to be software independant you should check in advance before the buy of not/never/poorly/ supported hardware. This advice is true too for die-hard-windows-users, they only ignore it until they fall in this pit too (and this can happen if a new update does not support some ?exotic features too). It happened to me years ago with windows and still happens to day if i have to fix "broken windows-setups"
but no more for me, using linux longer than a decade.... :-)

[Carrozza]

Originally Posted by The Verb Afaik, these issues occur only with Intel graphics cards. You can still download the new release and test drive it as a LiveCD before you decide to install.

One question: how can I test software without installing Linux on hard-drive?
Is it possible to download it into RAM and try it out?

[The Last Rookie]

Yes you can download an Ubuntu usb-image and write it with a tool to the usb stick.
It is also possible to boot from cd and try it out.

[Carrozza]

Sorry I was not clear, my question was: is it possible to start Ubuntu Live CD and try Blender with it?

[The Last Rookie]

yes of course! You can connect to a server and install it virtual in your memory.
If you run it from a usb (created with the ubuntu cd) it is even possible to install blender or any other software on the boot-usb stick permanently.

[zanos]

Here is a screen shot with ATI Radeon 700.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4...eenshotcwl.png

[alienkid10]

My blender is broke too! Here's a screenshot:

[test-dr]

Originally Posted by Carrozza Sorry I was not clear, my question was: is it possible to start Ubuntu Live CD and try Blender with it?

did not check the ubuntu-live-dvds,
but like said here:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...0&postcount=11
(this was a dvd with blender ready to start)
i did it sometime ago with a live-system based on knoppix (thats too a debian child like ubuntu) and i do not remember if the larger ubuntu-dvd-versions had blender on board,
i only have an older ubuntu 7.04 live-dvd .... think this was with blender 2.43 as default version. Anyway, if you ever think about using newer versions, you will need some local storage as install-area for your settings and such stuff. You can go for a cheaper big usb-stick, when i tried the "adriane" (thats newest knoppix on usb) it was amazing how quick it booted from usb-stick ... booting from CD or DVD is a pain compared with this.

one hint for those with x11-graphic-problems,
you should install some of the 3d-games (like openquake, etc.) to check for any 3d-drivers-probs. (for kids, there is the tux snowracer ... :-))

[Carrozza]

I just managed to install Ubuntu on a USB stick, but didn't got my ATI Mobility Radeon 2600 HD to work.
I already had various issues with my card under Linux, it looks like it is very bad supported in this OS, although it is a quite good graphics card.

[indiworks]

For those interested: I just installed Ubuntu 9.04 (Desktop i386) on my Intel Core 2 Duo system with the proprietary NVIDIA (180) driver enabled. All the basics seem to work so far.

In blender: I am rendering part of a project while I'm working on another part with a copy of the same .blend. It all seems to work well except for the sound issue:

after downloading the usual extra codex sets for multimedia playback (MP3, H.264 etc.) I now can hear my (.mp3) *correction:* .wav audio file in blender but it seems I can only hear parts of it - like when you are moving magnetic tape too fast over a play head. (This .blend/(MP3)WAV file worked as it should under 8.04).

Still at the same time it seems that with 9.04 I am finally able to have sound in more than one or two apps at the same time without having to try and fix the audio settings or remove Pulse Audio (which fixed many problems for me under 8.04).

Anyone knows how-to get sound fully working in blender with 9.04...?

[test-dr]

Originally Posted by indiworks For those interested: I just installed Ubuntu 9.04 (Desktop i386) on my Intel Core 2 Duo system with the proprietary NVIDIA (180) driver enabled. All the basics seem to work so far. In blender: I am rendering part of a project while I'm working on another part with a copy of the same .blend. It all seems to work well except for the sound issue: after downloading the usual extra codex sets for multimedia playback (MP3, H.264 etc.) I now can hear my (.mp3) *correction:* .wav audio file in blender but it seems I can only hear parts of it - like when you are moving magnetic tape too fast over a play head. (This .blend/(MP3)WAV file worked as it should under 8.04). Still at the same time it seems that with 9.04 I am finally able to have sound in more than one or two apps at the same time without having to try and fix the audio settings or remove Pulse Audio (which fixed many problems for me under 8.04). Anyone knows how-to get sound fully working in blender with 9.04...?

there were commandline options for the start of blender,
special if one is using a self-compiled version,
(i dont remember where was the sheet with the explanation)
one shell-shortcut i use:

#!/bin/sh
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa
~/src/blender/svn/install/linux2/blender -w -p 10 10 1200 9500 $* &

this saved as a shell-script "myblend.sh" and made executable
starts a blender (exe) with
-w = window-mode
-p 10 10 1200 9500 = windowsize and position
$* = hand over all other commandline arguments, like: myblend.sh funface.blend
& = start it and let it run, this is make only sense if used out of a terminal,
to have a look at the ?python-messages blender spits out.
and the first export environment setting was one thing some
blender versions needed for better sound-support,
with the backdraw if it is alsa, it blocks out all other sound-apps and
graps the soundcard only for blender ....

[zanos]

Meh, mine wont even start up now. I cant never understand why I choose to waste my time with these systems.

[J09]

Another problem confirmation with an intel gfx... I've tried using the Blender which is in the Ubuntu 9.04 repository, and a very recent build of the trunk which I compiled on the same machine.

Interestingly, glxgears works fine but when I run glxgears and blender (either repo or compiled) from the terminal, it gives me some of the same output:

$ ./blender 
Compiled with Python version 2.5.4.
Checking for installed Python... got it!
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0

After which blender seems to work normally (except for huge graphics problem). Also

$ glxgears
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
4355 frames in 5.0 seconds = 870.871 FPS

Perhaps these common error messages have something to do with the problem, since it makes sense that glxgears would only show errors for graphics stuff...? Is this occurring on other systems as well? Is it worth noting in a bug report?

[Uncle Entity]

Nah, that whole get fences thing is just an unrelated warning apparently.

Like I was saying earlier I'm pretty sure it is a memory management issue that stems from the video and memory controllers being on the same chip and sharing memory.

Hopefully the quick fix will be to backport the 2.6.30 kernel since they (once again hopefully) fixed it in 2.6.30-rc2.

When I stop being lazy I'll see about building a kernel to check if they really fixed it.

--edit--

Nope, 2.6.30-rc3 still has the problem...

[Phil112]

It might be a problem with GEM.

It was added in Linux 2 6 28
http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_2...f643b1746985d6