GCompris?

[jacoman]

Could GCompris work on the raspberry pi?

[RobinJ]

If someone compiled it for the ARM11, yes.

[hsalonen]

http://packages.debian.org/squ.....e/gcompris

yes

[abishur]

You should take a look at the FAQs page

[jamesh]

This is as far as I got with trying out gCompris - this page, then it sort of stopped doing anything. No idea why. Probably some odd X stuff somewhere.

[jamesh]

OK, got it working a lot better. All features appears to work, it's a bit slow but usable - not accelerated I don't think. If it uses OpenGL ES or OpenVG then that can certainly speed up, otherwise a bit of effort involved in making it run faster.

[liz]

Brilliant - if you can get it to a speed that doesn't chug too much, would you mind bunging it on an SD card for Eben with Stellarium? We can show them off next week in Oxford.

[ece3000]

Not for nothing...but getting programs like Gcompris, TuxMath, TuxPaint to work on this device will do more for education than you can imagine. By far, the biggest opportunity to impact lives lies in focusing on intellectual development of kids between ages 2 and 5. Believe it or not, most kids from socio-economically depressed areas have already "lost" by the time they start school at age 6. If we can change that - turn it on its head - we can truly change the world.

[jamesh]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try out TuxMath and TuxPaint when I get the chance.

[jacoman]

Thanks.

[jacoman]

Thanks.

[MarkA]

I know there are a few messages about GCompris, so picked one almost at random to post this...

My 5 year old is playing very well on this software running with the new Raspbian distribution. It is a little slower than I'd like and falls over occasionally, but she likes it a lot.

So far she has practiced:
reading
addition / subtraction
pattern recognition (sort of)
mouse and keyboard skills
(accepting computers sometimes fall over... -Important skill for modern /windows/ life)
and probably a few others.

She keeps asking to use it, so it must be quite good. Only wish the graphics were a bit slicker, though iti doesn't help when I vnc in to play in python!

[psutton]

I know there are a few messages about GCompris, so picked one almost at random to post this...

My 5 year old is playing very well on this software running with the new Raspbian distribution. It is a little slower than I'd like and falls over occasionally, but she likes it a lot.

So far she has practiced:
reading
addition / subtraction
pattern recognition (sort of)
mouse and keyboard skills
(accepting computers sometimes fall over... -Important skill for modern /windows/ life)
and probably a few others.

She keeps asking to use it, so it must be quite good. Only wish the graphics were a bit slicker, though iti doesn't help when I vnc in to play in python!

Maybe it will work better with 512 mb ram, in which case the update would be worth it,

Paul

[pcravero]

Hi.
I've tried GCompris on both 256MB and 512MB RPi and unfortunately it runs slow on both.

A vmstat shows that CPU usage goes well above 60% every time the mouse is moved. See this commented "vmstat 1" output on http://pastebin.com/7rbvYCVX. Also context switching gets very high when GCompris is loaded (doesn't matter if idle or playing). The SD card is not the culprit because IO wait is 0%.

IMO GCompris is not useable on stock RPi. Same goes for Childsplay. I should try with the official overclocking procedure and report back.

Paolo

[psutton]

Maybe there is some sort of optimum settings to grab as much memory / resources as possible to run these applications, e.g removing ssh-server if its not needed, etc, (or rather stopping it starting up)

However I think to get this right we would have to disclose if we have the 512 or 256 mb model, that way it helps others.

Back in the days of EMM386.exe and himem.sys it sometimes took a great deal of time to optimize a DOS system to run things, but it was possible.



Paul

[musashi]

Hum, tried with a 512 MB Pi too, Turbo mode with various RAM/Video split and never got to a point where I found it "usable" -at least to the point I could present it to my son's school-.
I am not a specialist (so feel free to comment!), but going to gcompris dev site (http://gcompris.net/-Development-), it appears based on goocanvas, itself based on cairo lib for graphics (http://www.cairographics.org/)... so targetting X window system, which does not use graphic acceleration on the pi....
There is a pretty long discussion going on there http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... &start=300
Seems some people are working to resolve it so there is hope!

[blachanc]

I just learned about this set of app/games, via another thread,
Seems very interesting.
I am curious about recent user experience with this, in terms of perfs
I plan to try it anyway.
I have to admit I am not too interested in overclocking my PI.

Regards,

Ben

[jamesh]

I just learned about this set of app/games, via another thread,
Seems very interesting.
I am curious about recent user experience with this, in terms of perfs
I plan to try it anyway.
I have to admit I am not too interested in overclocking my PI.

Regards,

Ben

Nothing wrong with overclocking - run raspi-config, set the settings you want. You won't break anything, and you get free extra performance.

[blachanc]

Nothing wrong with overclocking - run raspi-config, set the settings you want. You won't break anything, and you get free extra performance.

Thank you,
I do see an improvement in perfs (I selected medium)
It is still a bit slow to respond, but teaches a 5 years old to be patient

Benoit

[blachanc]

I did two (very bad quality) clips to show the perfs I get with gcompris.


youtube_video1

youtube_video2



medium overclock:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ vcgencmd get_config int
arm_freq=900
core_freq=250
sdram_freq=450
over_voltage=2

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 3.6.11+ #538 PREEMPT Fri Aug 30 20:42:08 BST 2013 armv6l GNU/Linux
Ben

[blachanc]

Hi,
Although the perfs I get when I overclock make gcompris usable,
it would be better if it would run faster.
I was wondering if there was any plan to improve the startx perfs in the long run,
or if the perfs we are getting are optimized as much as they can.
My assumption being that any improvements on startx would reflect on any application perfs.

Ben

[msuchy]

I stumbled upon this thread when I have been trying to run GCompris on Raspberry Pi.

After experimenting I was nearly successful. My setup is Raspberian, 16 MB for GPU, no overclock. No display manager - just xstart with gcompris in .xinitrc. Gcompris setup - switched off effects (huge improvements), switched off music. In this config it is usable. But still not as smooth as should be. But when I switched Zooming, then it is very smooth.
My next plan is to tune xorg config and to set the same resolution as have Gcompris so it will be over full screen even without zooming.

[blachanc]

the new turbo seems to help a lot also

fbturbo_driver

if you ever have a chance to try it, let us know

ben

[msuchy]

I tried fbturbo_driver. It have noticable improvement on window manager but unfortunately no noticable efect on speed of GCompris.

But I noticed something else. When GCompris is running 'top' reports CPU usage by GCompris only 60%.
So I created this script:

Code: Select all

!#/bin/bash
gcompris &
pid=$!
sudo renice -n -20 -p $pid
wait $pid

And which run GCompris under highest possible priority and then I am able to even turn Zoom and GCompris run nearly smoothly. There is only noticable short lag when choosing different category in menu, but it is definitely acceptable. Effects are still disabled though.

But if your monitor allows to change resolution (mine is TV, which does not allow it) best solution is to change resolution using this script

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
#  Change Resolution
#  rez <width> <height>

fbset -depth 16 -xres $1 -vxres $1 -yres $2 -vyres $2
xrefresh

and then run GCompris with Zoom disabled.

[ipyerrbpsar]

I tried fbturbo_driver. It have noticable improvement on window manager but unfortunately no noticable efect on speed of GCompris.

But I noticed something else. When GCompris is running 'top' reports CPU usage by GCompris only 60%.
So I created this script:

Code: Select all

!#/bin/bash
gcompris &
pid=$!
sudo renice -n -20 -p $pid
wait $pid

And which run GCompris under highest possible priority and then I am able to even turn Zoom and GCompris run nearly smoothly. There is only noticable short lag when choosing different category in menu, but it is definitely acceptable. Effects are still disabled though.

But if your monitor allows to change resolution (mine is TV, which does not allow it) best solution is to change resolution using this script

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
#  Change Resolution
#  rez <width> <height>

fbset -depth 16 -xres $1 -vxres $1 -yres $2 -vyres $2
xrefresh

and then run GCompris with Zoom disabled.

Sorry, I'm a newb... Do I add this to a existing file, or is it a stand-alone file placed somewhere. This sounds like it will fix exactly what I dealing with here. I have the turbo driver and have it starting directly to gcompris. I just have no idea on what to do with your script Thanks for your help!