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 emula= tion layer which translates i386 BIOS code to Alpha. It isn't perfect, so that s= ome 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 FreeB= SD 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 th= eir 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 r= un 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. Have= n'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 a= nd >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 212= 64 >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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