From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 12 20:19:29 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E95F737B401 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:19:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net (heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 761E743F93 for ; Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:19:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from user-38ldt5g.dialup.mindspring.com ([209.86.244.176] helo=mindspring.com) by heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19Qf68-00010D-00; Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:19:28 -0700 Message-ID: <3EE9427D.1E2D05D6@mindspring.com> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 20:18:21 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Evan Dower References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a457be5b7fea7b489c719397e73291f988350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Interest in nvidia-driver debugging on 5-* X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 03:19:30 -0000 Evan Dower wrote: > I am highly interested in getting nvidia-driver to work well for FBSD, and > in particular my own computer. I do not have the expertise to hack on either > it or the kernel (yet), but I am eager to provide debugging information. > nvidia-driver frequently crashes my machine, so I expect that my input could > be valuable. Is anybody interested in my assistance? Is anybody actively > working on/with/around the nvidia-driver, or does the license make that > infeasible? As was pointed out the other day, nVidia use the %gs register without saving and restoring it, in order to maintain their internal thread state. Now that FreeBSD also uses this register, that causes crashes. I believe the fix is as simple as saving and restoring %gs in the nVidia driver, and/or not letting the nVidia use %gs at all (segment registers generally belong to the OS, in any case, and stealing a CPU register of any kind for exclusive use of a driver is a pig trick). -- Terry