Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2016 16:35:22 -0700 From: Matthew Macy <mmacy@nextbsd.org> To: "Manish Jain" <bourne.identity@hotmail.com> Cc: "freebsd-x11@freebsd.org" <freebsd-x11@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Any chance for ATI Radeon 8470 HD graphics ? Message-ID: <15686428786.10af5398f142319.7100122471836056990@nextbsd.org> In-Reply-To: <VI1PR02MB097446935B86D0E0A2DEE429F6100@VI1PR02MB0974.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com> References: <mailman.57.1471089601.58418.freebsd-x11@freebsd.org> <VI1PR02MB097446935B86D0E0A2DEE429F6100@VI1PR02MB0974.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
---- On Sat, 13 Aug 2016 12:04:43 -0700 Manish Jain <bourne.identity@hotmail.com> wrote ---- > On 13-Aug-16 17:30, freebsd-x11-request@freebsd.org wrote: > > On 08/12/16 08:18, Manish Jain wrote: > > Hi, > I have a system with onboard ATI Radeon 8470 HD graphics adapter. > I am currently having to use the vesa driver because radeon does not > work correctly with the chipset. (On Linux, it does, but not on FreeBSD). > Is there any chance we could see support for my chipset in an upcoming > release ? <snip> > This is most unfortunate. I had purchased the motherboard and processor > hoping to move to FreeBSD as the only OS. It turns out that FreeBSD is > the only OS which does not work with Radeon HD 8470D graphics. Windows > does, Linux does, but FreeBSD does not. Between running FreeBSD with the > vesa driver (which does not let me play videos smoothly) and the > alternatives, I find it much better to run my hardware on Windows XP for > the time being, despite the fact that 1) MS does not support XP; 2) this > beats the purpose of my hardware upgrade. > > One thing that baffles about FreeBSD is not that FreeBSD is picky about > the hardware supported, but there is no way to determine in advance > whether certain hardware will work on not. It should not be difficult to > put up a web page which lists hardware compatibility ratings for the > most popular hardware available online. Since things like CPU, disk There is a bit of this online, but it either requires users to do a _much_ better job of keeping it up to date or having the installer automatically send systems configuration info to freebsd.org. The former is not likely succeed and the latter is likely to be branded as intrusive and wouldn't even tell us how well the device works - just that it's there and there's a device driver for it. Unlike some Linux distros, FreeBSD doesn't have vendors testing it when they ship. If you can propose a robust solution, at the very least for the more full-blown PCBSD installer, I'm sure someone would be inclined to help. For the more technically minded, it isn't difficult to go in to the drivers themselves and look at the PCIID list and check out the corresponding model names. That will give you a rough idea if the driver is at least intended to supported said device. In terms of actual support, as opposed to advertised support, you run in to the issue that the most recent update to drm drivers from upstream (namely Linux) was from Linux 3.8 which was released on Monday, 18 Feb 2013 - roughly 42 months ago. If support for your hardware came out any more recently than that you're out of luck. Longer term FreeBSD will re-converge with upstream. My drm-next branch is in sync with the drm and drivers in Linux 4.7 and I'll be syncing it with 4.8-rc1. I can't yet provide this as an alternative to you because I have not had time to iron out the ttm bugs keeping radeon and amdgpu from working. Once I'm done with my Kaby Lake tester I'll start looking in to that. Cheers. -M
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?15686428786.10af5398f142319.7100122471836056990>