Xfce Forum

donny

Member

From: Deutschland

Registered: 2023-08-16

Posts: 19

Parole (player) freezes

Hey, Parole freezes from time to time when jumping in the timeline. Feels like when not jump to often it works well, otherwise it freeze, i can still hear the sound and when try to jump again then the whole video freezes.

My software: Latest Debian Xfce

My hardware: Geobook 140, 14" HD, Celeron 4020, 4GB Ram

The videos i watch are in mp4 format.

I tryed the VLC player, but it totally lagged all the time. Any ideas?

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mint4all

Member

From: off the map

Registered: 2018-08-21

Posts: 268

Re: Parole (player) freezes

Hey, Parole freezes from time to time when jumping in the timeline. Feels like when not jump to often it works well, otherwise it freeze, i can still hear the sound and when try to jump again then the whole video freezes.
My software: Latest Debian Xfce
My hardware: Geobook 140, 14" HD, Celeron 4020, 4GB Ram
The videos i watch are in mp4 format.

I tryed the VLC player, but it totally lagged all the time. Any ideas?

Greetings to you!

In my experience, the "parole" player is relatively light on GPU-load compared to VLC; that would mean that your video viewing puts too much of a load on your integrated Intel UHD 600 graphics chip. Since the vendor's website shows no indication of supporting Linux, and since you run on Debian, have you looked into installing Intel's proprietary video driver for your chipset? As a temporary workaround, have you tried to disable compositing, or lowered the display's resolution to something like 1440x810?

Cheers, m4a

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Linux Mint 21.2 -- xfce 4.18 ... Apple iMAC -- Dell & HP Desktops and Laptops -- Family & Community Support

donny

Member

From: Deutschland

Registered: 2023-08-16

Posts: 19

Re: Parole (player) freezes

have you looked into installing Intel's proprietary video driver for your chipset?

I did not yet, i could use some help with that. Where should i start?

As a temporary workaround, have you tried to disable compositing, or lowered the display's resolution to something like 1440x810?

I tried to disable compositing but still happens.

When i change my resolution i get a crash, i opened a topic for that in the past.

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=16887

Last edited by donny (2023-08-27 18:27:07)

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mint4all

Member

From: off the map

Registered: 2018-08-21

Posts: 268

Re: Parole (player) freezes

Sorry to hear that ... Read your other thread, too, and didn't get any new ideas either. The manufacturer also states @ https://geo-computers.zendesk.com/hc/en … Geo-device- that

While your Geo device may work with other operating systems such as Linux, it has been specifically designed and built to work best with Windows. Therefore we do not recommend changing from the preinstalled Windows operating system. Furthermore, our Geo Support Team will not be able to offer support to software issues related to Linux.

As doctors often say "... not what we'd like to see", which would suggest that the firmware of your GeoBook 140 was specifically designed to work with the MS-Windows kernel only, and the pre-install suggests that the drive's partitioning was done accordingly. So that leaves very little "wiggle room" to figure this out ...

Afaict, your noted system "crash" and all other problems you have revolve around the integrated GPU. I see that you've removed and then re-installed Intel's device driver, so that workaround is not working. Turning off all visual effects & compositing doesn't seem to help, either. Which reminds me of Jesse Smith's recent review of Debian's latest spin (using the Gnome DE) @ https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issu … 619#debian where he ran into all sorts of problems on a run-of-the-mill Lenovo desktop, not a custom-designed laptop like your's. Having said that, before making any more changes, would you mind trying out another distro (using a live-system on a USB stick such as Mint or Suse) that has been thoroughly integrated "from boot to scoot", and see if you still have the same problem(s)?

Lastly: did you completely scrub your laptop and reset its BIOS/firmware before installing Debian, or is this a dual-boot system, perhaps with vestigial windows partitioning (ie Recovery-) remaining? Cheers, m4a

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Linux Mint 21.2 -- xfce 4.18 ... Apple iMAC -- Dell & HP Desktops and Laptops -- Family & Community Support

gogogadget

Member

Registered: 2023-03-19

Posts: 17

Re: Parole (player) freezes

Hello,

Hey, Parole freezes from time to time when jumping in the timeline. Feels like when not jump to often it works well, otherwise it freeze, i can still hear the sound and when try to jump again then the whole video freezes.

I tryed the VLC player, but it totally lagged all the time. Any ideas?

I think the processor is not powerful, it is made for energy saving. Hardware acceleration could help.

https://wiki.debian.org/HardwareVideoAcceleration

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Xfce+gtk3-classic (no CSD)+Picom

mint4all

Member

From: off the map

Registered: 2018-08-21

Posts: 268

Re: Parole (player) freezes

I find it very difficult to locate tech info on this Geobook. What I could find out is not promising: Intel's UHD 600 "integrated" graphics chip has no internal/dedicated video ram -- it "shares" system memory with the kernel. That would suggest that the BIOS setup must be adjusted to reserve ram for the GPU, ie 1 to 2GB. Was this done, or are you operating with the original win11-bios setup?

If it was not adjusted, then there's your answer to the system crash when changing screen resolution. If it was done and reserves too much video ram, your system may end up being ram-starved after some uptime and starts using swap-space -- thus choking the data-bus to its eMMc-chip/-volume(s) which would explain the video "jitters" or "stutters" when reading your .mp4 vids from the same physical device (its eMMc-chip, not an SSD like the higher-end Geobooks).

Lastly, when you speak of crash: is it a "soft" crash (you are able to restart the desktop via terminal), or a "hard" crash requiring a reboot? Cheers, m4a

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Linux Mint 21.2 -- xfce 4.18 ... Apple iMAC -- Dell & HP Desktops and Laptops -- Family & Community Support

donny

Member

From: Deutschland

Registered: 2023-08-16

Posts: 19

Re: Parole (player) freezes

Those are interesting approaches i got from you! Thanks for taking your time.

[..] it has been specifically designed and built to work best with Windows.

Funny thing they specifically design this hardware for win 11 .. for me this sounds more like a disclaimer to avoid being prosecuted. Personally i see it as a good chance to learn more about systems.

would you mind trying out another distro (using a live-system on a USB stick such as Mint or Suse) that has been thoroughly integrated "from boot to scoot", and see if you still have the same problem(s)?

Good idea i will try this parallel.

Lastly: did you completely scrub your laptop and reset its BIOS/firmware before installing Debian, or is this a dual-boot system, perhaps with vestigial windows partitioning (ie Recovery-) remaining?

[..]are you operating with the original win11-bios setup?

I did nothing with bios/firmware, since i dont have a lot know how about it yet. I just seperated about 50 GB of the main windows partition and installed linux on it.

I think the processor is not powerful, it is made for energy saving. Hardware acceleration could help.

Interesting approach, thats a topic i already wanted to dive in.

Lastly, when you speak of crash: is it a "soft" crash (you are able to restart the desktop via terminal), or a "hard" crash requiring a reboot?

That must be a hard crash, im not able to do anything and got to shutdown the system physically (Shutdown button).

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