FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
What is GATOS?
Where can I get GATOS?: GATOS is available at The GATOS Homepage.
How do I install/setup GATOS?: GATOS installation and setup instructions are in the INSTALL file in the GATOS distribution.
How do I use GATOS?: GATOS usage instructions are in the README file in the GATOS distribution.
When I use GATOS, my mouse cursor gets messed up, why?: This is because the required video memory has not been reserved. You need the "gatos.conf" file (in /etc usually) to have the correct "buffermem" setting (600 for NTSC/PAL-M or 864 for PAL). The XF86Config should have the SAME amount reserved from the base amount of memory on the card. See the INSTALL, gatos.conf.sample and XF86Config.sample files for more details. Alternatively, this can all be setup with a GUI using the "gatos-conf" program. Make sure you restart your X server after you make any changes to the XF86Config file for them to take effect.
The volume control doesn't work, why?: Try setting the volume of the slider very high, then going into the setup dialog and selecting each mixer in turn on the list at the right. If that doesn't work, or if there is no mixer list on the right, make sure your soundcard is properly setup in Linux. Also see The Next Question.
The mixer menu disappeared, where'd it go?: This is usually caused by sound driver bugs. Try removing the "AudioType=" line from the ~/.gatosrc file before running xatitv.
My TV picture is green-tinted or has green static, why?: Go into setup and lower the value of the "overclock" setting until it looks ok again. Then let us know what card you have and what you had to set it to.
When I change capture size, the TV picture gets blurry, why?: This is how it is supposed to work. Changing capture size changes the size of the buffer used by the card to display the video. If you reduce its resolution, it has to do more smoothing, thus the blurriness.
How can I hide the interface so I can see the whole picture? : Hit TAB, or right-click on the video area. You can also set the autohide timeout in setup.
The GUI keeps randomly disappearing, why?: Look in the setup dialog for the "autohide" setting. It is probably on and the GUI is simply autohiding after a certain period of inactivity. If you don't want this, disable it in setup.
Why does gatos-conf still ask for the Video Ram even when I select autodetect?: Gatos can autodetect the amount of video RAM, but in order to reserve the memory in X, the total RAM still needs to be known.
Why does xatitv ask for the root password?: This is because it is trying to run gatos-conf. Gatos-conf must be run as root. If the configuration is found, it will not do this. You can manually run gatos-conf as root and set thing up first, then it won't ask for this. Or you can run xatitv as root the first time, then it won't need the password to run gatos-conf. It's generally not a good idea for a program to ask for the root password if it can be avoided. GATOS will use another solution in the next release.
Why does gatos-conf fail to run with a "connection refused" message?: If your machine is not configured to accept connections from localhost, programs run by another user (eg: root) will not work. Run "xhost +localhost" as the normal user before running an X program as root, and it should work.
Is me ATI TV-Wonder card supported? Will it be?: No. The TV-Wonder PCI cards are based on completely different hardware than the rest of the ATI cards. It is based on the bt878 chip and while GATOS won't support it, it looks like bttv does. If anyone gets it working with the bttv driver, please let me know.
GATOS exits with "xatitv: gatos_init(): No such device" Why?: Right now GATOS only runs on cards that have full TV-Tuner capability. The overlay and tv-in capabilities are not yet modularized enough to allow them to be used without a full-featured card. We are working on fixing this.
I have read this FAQ and still can't get it to work, what should I do?: E-mail me. Make sure your reply address is correct. Include a dump of "xatitv -v" (if you managed to compile it) or the compiler output (if you didn't) and what version of gatos/ibtk and gcc you are using. Describe the problem and your system's hardware (especially the ATI card(s)) as thoroughly as possible.