Scheduled Maintenance: We are aware of an issue with Google, AOL, and Yahoo services as email providers which are blocking new registrations. We are trying to fix the issue and we have several internal and external support tickets in process to resolve the issue. Please see: viewtopic.php?t=158230

 

 

 

Various Questions (ePSXe, CPU Governor, etc)

New to Debian (Or Linux in general)? Ask your questions here!
Post Reply
Message
Author
Dreakon
Posts: 4
Joined: 2010-04-03 05:43

Various Questions (ePSXe, CPU Governor, etc)

#1 Post by Dreakon »

I'm new to Debian (having recently been distro hopping and occasionally switching my system from Windows to Linux being unable to decide which I prefer), and I have a few random questions. Just for the record, I'm using Debian Testing. Also excuse me if I ever ramble throughout this, it's 2 in the morning and I'm kind of exhausted lol.

1. With Ubuntu, there was a way to install the Playstation emulator ePSXe in the repo's I believe. Or at least the option of a Playstation emulator was available in the "Software Center". I don't recall seeing it in Debians software center or through the package manager, though I could be wrong. Anyone know what I should do to install this? There is a Linux release available > http://www.epsxe.com/download.php < here. I have to say, I have absolutely no idea how to install it though when downloading the Linux release from the site though. And better yet, where I would place the BIOs and plugins necessary to use it. I don't understand the Linux folder structure entirely yet lol.

2. Whenever my laptop starts, I manually set both of my cores to 800 Mhz... using the CPU Scaling thing that I added to the panel in GNOME... to keep them from running at full speed at any point and thusly getting too hot (its not too difficult to do with this laptop it seems). Things run a little slower overall but it's more comfortable. Is there any way to automate this and have both cores automatically run at 800 Mhz as soon as possible after turning on the laptop? Rather then running at whatever is normally the default and/or turning to Ondemand.

3. Is there any way to pretty up all that command-line-esque text displayed on the screen when turning on and shutting down my laptop? Maybe with a nice "Debian" loading screen? If it's really complicated then it's alright, but I think that could be a fun project. ;)

Thanks guys, I'm going to play around with Debian a bit more tomorrow I think, so I bet I'll have some more questions for you all lol. I appreciate any replies to these in the meantime though, it'd help me a lot. :)

Dreakon
Posts: 4
Joined: 2010-04-03 05:43

Re: Various Questions (ePSXe, CPU Governor, etc)

#2 Post by Dreakon »

Alright, I got ePSXe installed and workin. :)

Any ideas on how to make the CPU automatically run at 800Mhz on startup? And stay at 800Mhz forever and ever?

thewanderer
Posts: 416
Joined: 2007-03-19 18:11
Location: my desk, Warsaw, Poland

Re: Various Questions (ePSXe, CPU Governor, etc)

#3 Post by thewanderer »

Ad.2
The CPU governor can be set via the file /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor.
The below commands which I post are to be executed in a shell (try gnome-terminal).
To find out which governor you are using at the moment:

Code: Select all

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
The current governor in your case is 'userspace', I think.

To see the available governors:

Code: Select all

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
You now have two options. First, you can try the 'powersave' governor. To do that, you need root access. That's how it looks in the console:

Code: Select all

# Switch user to root
su root
(type your root password)
# As root, change the governor
echo powersave >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
The second option is somewhat more flexible - it allows you to keep power usage low while unleashing the CPU's potential under huge workloads. This is the 'conservative' governor - it will switch performance up slowly and gradually, trying to keep to the lowest frequency possible. That way, you keep your machine cool for most of the time, while not having to care about switching the governor when in need of extra processing power. To turn it on, do as above, but use conservative instead of powersave. Note that you might need to load the module first (as root):

Code: Select all

modprobe cpufreq_conservative

If you find that the settings suit you, you can set them permanently by adding the proper command to /etc/rc.local - it will then be executed upon the system boot. So you might put there:

Code: Select all

echo powersave >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
and expect it to work - just do it before the 'exit 0' line.
If you are using conservative governor instead of powersave, remember to put the below on a line of its own in /etc/modules:

Code: Select all

cpufreq_conservative

Anyway, I think GNOME's power manager allows you to associate certain CPU frequencies with power states, doesn't it? I'm using testing, that might be why I have such an option available.

More info on the CPU frequency scaling can be found in a (somewhat) user-friendly form here: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews ... leId=19586

Ad.3
In Debian, there's a package called 'splashy' that, upon installation, should give you instant Windoze-Like experience in that it hides the console from you when booting the system. It gets replaced by a loading screen with a progress bar. In my opinion, it is totally useless, and you can never know for example if your laptop is not checking your filesystems at the moment (can be spotted from slow system boot), but if you prefer it that way (it does look nice, I admit), then just install splashy and perhaps read some documentation on it (available in /usr/share/doc/splashy after you install splashy - viewable with any text editor or web browser). In fact, visiting /usr/share/doc is what you should do after installing any package you don't already know.
[url=irc://irc.freenode.net/debian]Find me on #debian at irc.freenode.net[/url] | Linux permission HOWTO | Shorewall firewall | Virtual web hosting

Post Reply