Display selection dialog allowing propagation of settings to OS is currently unclear

[Rob-Bishop]

See http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=60218&p=452412&hilit=Noobs#p452412

[maxnet]

Should it replace the settings of existing installations as well?
(in the most simple form, look for "# NOOBS Auto-generated Settings" header and replace that section)

[lurch]

IMHO NOOBS shouldn't touch config.txt post-install (ignoring the built-in config-editor of course!) - users may well have made manual tweaks (the NOOBS display settings are obviously very 'coarse') which they wouldn't want NOOBS to trash.

[FTrevorGowen]

As promised my last comment in the forum thread I've now re-visited NOOB 1.3.2 full using composite video and posted updated screen photo's etc. in my webpages at http://www.cpmspectrepi.webspace.virginmedia.com/raspberry_pi/MoinMoinExport/NOOBSinstallV132Yellow.html and can now clarify the issues further.

1. The "Display Mode Changed" dialog currently asks "Would you like to make this setting permanent?"
   Exactly what this means is perhaps not obvious and the consequences of answering "No" is not stated.
   As suggested in the thread, changing the wording to something like "Would you like to use this setting for all installed Operating Systems?" may be clearer
2. If "No" is selected perhaps a second pop-up could be added stating something like "Currently using composite PAL mode. NB. On re-boot HDMI mode will be used by any Installed O.S."
3. As a "longer term" feature perhaps an icon showing the NOOBS setup display mode type could be added to the header of the main window?
   During the re-testing a related issue was observed concerning missed detection of a "display mode type key press". NOOBS failed to detect a press/toggle of key "3" before performing the initial resize etc. of the (eventual) recovery partition (or something like that). Since I didn't have a network connected the only clue to what was (possibly) happening was the RED PoWeR LED on with a flashing GREEN ACT LED. Fortunately, once ACTivity indication ceased re-trying key "3" resulted in the composite mode request being detected and a display finally being obtained. For the 4Gb card being used this took ~10 min (or maybe longer). Whilst I suspect this is primarily due to "slow" wireless keyboard detection I also wonder whether something similar might occur with such keyboards and monitors/TVs requiring a change from NOOBS default HDMI mode to "HDMI Safe Mode".

[lurch]

I guess in effect there's actually 4 different "display mode settings" at play here?

1. The display mode set in recovery.cmdline (on the 'RECOVERY' partition of the card - /dev/mmcblk0p1) as explained here
2. The display mode currently being used by NOOBS
3. The display mode saved by NOOBS as the 'permanent default' (set in noobs.conf on the 'SETTINGS' partition - /dev/mmcblk0p3)
4. The display mode used by the installed OS (set in config.txt on the 'boot' partition of each particular OS - /dev/mmcblk0p5 if only one OS is installed)

When NOOBS boots up......

..... Hmm, I started trying to explain this, but it's a bit complicated so I decided it probably didn't really help, so I deleted it again. But in summary:

• during boot, NOOBS uses display-settings '1. ' and '3. ' above (if they're set) to decide on display-setting '2. '
• when you say "yes" to the "make this setting permanent" dialog, it saves display-setting '2. ' to display-setting '3. '
• when installing an OS, NOOBS 'copies' display-setting '3. ' to display-setting '4. '
• after an OS is installed, the only way to modify display-setting '4. ' is by editing that particular OS's config.txt

While looking into this, I did discover a subtle bug #149 with the way NOOBS chooses display-modes at startup though.

With regards to your "failing to detect keypress", I believe that's another consequence of #130 .

[lurch]

Looking again at the forum thread in Rob's first post, I wonder if changing the process outlined in my previous post from:

• when installing an OS, NOOBS 'copies' display-setting '3. ' to display-setting '4. '

to:

• when installing an OS, NOOBS 'copies' display-setting '2. ' to display-setting '4. '

would be a more noob-friendly solution and cause less surprises? (i.e. the newly-installed OS would get configured with the current display-mode, rather than the saved display-mode)

Comments?

[FTrevorGowen]

That would certainly go with the assumption that at first-boot/pre-OS-install NOOBS is being run with the final/target system display type. To some extent it also removes the need for the "Do you ... permanent?" pop-up dialog (pre-OS install).
The downside, however, is that it makes it more difficult for those users that may be installing (esp. with NOOBS lite) on a different (type of) display to that required "post-OS-install". For example (extreme case) only a composite video display may be available where there is (easy) network access (at home) but HDMI is available at the workplace/clubhouse etc. (At least one forum poster actually wanted the opposite ie. initial install on an HDMI device, target display a small {portable?} composite video device)
I guess this "begs the question" - Does there need to be different (default) selection/copying behaviour for the RECOVERY mode cf. first-boot/pre-install? If so, the "pop-up dialogue" is still needed in the RECOVERY mode perhaps?
Trev.

[lurch]

Seems like this is one of those problems where it's going to be impossible to please all the people all the time... ;-)

The downside, however, is that it makes it more difficult for those users that may be installing (esp. with NOOBS lite) on a different (type of) display to that required "post-OS-install".

I guess in that scenario, when NOOBS displays the "finished installing OSes" dialog, rather than clicking OK (to boot the newly-installed OS) you could immediately power-off your Pi, power it on again while toggling the SHIFT key, and then use NOOBS's built-in config.txt editor to set the appropriate display-mode for the OS?

Not sure what you mean by "for the RECOVERY mode cf. first-boot/pre-install" - as far as NOOBS is concerned those are exactly the same thing.

[FTrevorGowen]

W.r.t. "Not sure what you mean by "for the RECOVERY mode cf. first-boot/pre-install" - as far as NOOBS is concerned those are exactly the same thing."
Almost the same thing, but not quite (esp. from the user's perspective):

1. At first-boot there are no O.S.'s installed (yet) and NOOBS "knows about that".
2. At first-boot you do not need to press/toggle "SHIFT" so can (easily) select a "non-default" video mode
3. You need to press/toggle "SHIFT" to get RECOVERY mode when one or more O.S, has been installed (I guess that also applies to the data partition)
4. I don't think I've managed to press/toggle "SHIFT" and subsequently select a non-default video mode ie. "recover" into a different display type than the default HDMI mode. However, that process may be being made more difficult by the "slow detection" of the wireless mini-keyboard I was using (~ 4 to 8 secs IIRC).
   Currently setting up on a composite display prior to moving to a HDMI display is O.K. so long as you don't answer "make it permanent". On booting into RECOVERY any fine tuning of the HDMI mode can be done using NOOBS' own editor. The opposite scenario (HDMI, then composite) requires external manual editing of the config.txt file(s) etc. (IIRC, that's what @DeeJay, another "beta tester" had to do - I think his post is earlier in the referenced thread)
   Trev.

[lurch]

This seems to be catching out quite a few people, so is definitely something we should address before the next major release of NOOBS.

[FTrevorGowen]

I agree - I've pointed quite a few people to my webpage referred to earlier. Since I have relatively easy access to a number of "monitor types" (HDMI/DVI, HDMI TV, HDMI-->VGA converter -->VGA Monitor/TV and composite TV) I'm happy to help with any "pre-release" testing etc.

[vitorio]

I was about to file a new issue about this (I expected telling NOOBS to make composite output "permanent" to also apply it to any installed OS), but perhaps there's a simpler change that could be made that would help clarify things.

The display mode prompt dialog says, "Would you like to make this setting permanent?"

Perhaps it should instead say, "Would you like to make this setting permanent for NOOBS?"

Or, "Would you like to make this setting permanent? (Only for NOOBS, other OSes require editing their config.txt)" although that may be intimidating.

[lurch]

We're planning to overhaul the display-mode selection for the next major version of NOOBS (i.e. 1.4), to make it much simpler and more reliable :-)

[Ruffio]

@lurch has this been fixed?

[lurch]

Not yet... there's a plan in the pipeline, I just haven't got round to implementing it yet.