Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:26:24 -0400 From: Paul V. Bolotoff <walter@alasir.com> To: alpha@freebsd.org, alpha@netbsd.org Subject: Re: X on NetBSD Message-ID: <1465.1185233184@alasir.com>
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Well, there are several problems actually. First of all, the SRM BIOS emulation layer which translates i386 BIOS code to Alpha. It isn't perfect, so that some hardware doesn't even start up. Secondly, many drivers fail during software bootstrapping through int10. It isn't a problem on i386, but some kind of emulation is required on Alpha once again. Finally, broken PCI DMA makes a real trouble. Doesn't seem to be fixable without getting rid of those obscure *_bus_space macros though. For some reason, there are even more problems on NetBSD than on FreeBSD. Maybe syscons is a better deal for X if compared to wscons\pccons or the reason is somewhere else (for instance, working module loader on FreeBSD). The fact is that some video hardware runs well on FreeBSD but doesn't on NetBSD no matter how hard you try. In general, if you're serious of running X on *BSD\alpha, get a bunch of PCI video cards (old probably) and give'em a try. Some should work. In particular, when it comes to FreeBSD 4.11 and XFree86 4.5.0 on my AlphaPC 164LX, I have succeeded with 3Dfx Voodoo 3 and Banshee, NVIDIA\STM Riva 128 as well as with several Trident cards. Neither Matrox card worked though. I cannot tell of X.Org because I don't use it. I'm not into licencing battles, but if some people decide they want a credit for their hard volunteered work, I guess they can have it for sure, and that shouldn't be promoted as the primary reason for this fork in development. I also don't run FreeBSD 5.x or 6.x on Alpha because I see very few to no real advantages\improvements compared to 4.x. Maybe it's a matter of taste. Haven't tried XFree86 on NetBSD for a long time. PVB On Tue Jul 17 20:48 , 'Rafael Ruiz' <gandano@gmail.com> sent: >Hi All! >I would like to know why *BSD has problems with X (Xorg or XFree) on Alpha >Platform. I like NetBSD, FreeBSD, but i have a lot of problem for use X on >these. X runs very well on Linux/Alpha but i would like to work with BSD and >to make a workstation with X. Why *BSD don't let X work on Alpha? This in >not problem of X. In old versions of FreeBSD like 4.5 and so, XFree ran >good. > >I think that BSD/alpha is better that Linux/Alpha .... but do we must to >limit at console/text mode only? Due to i can not to use X on FreeBSD, nor >NetBSD, I check OpenBSD, but it has the same problem. In NetBSD we can to >build xsrc (XDecNet, XFree86,...), but only for 21164 processors, with 21264 >it seem not work. We can to use caseydoodley Xfree86 modifications >too(thanks mel), but with some limitations. > >We only have two options: > > 1.- For Workstations with graphical environment -> Linux > 2.- For Servers (Text mode) -> BSD > >Is this our only choice? > >It's a pity that BSD has this problem with X, it is the best free Operating >System for Alpha. Does think NetBSD or OpenBSD developers to open the door >for X in the future? > >Opinions? Solutions? > >Thanks for your comments. >Rafa >_______________________________________________ >freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org mailing list >http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-alpha >To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-alpha-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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