From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Nov 28 00:04:35 2019 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0C0711BC533 for ; Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:04:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kh@panix.com) Received: from mailbackend.panix.com (mailbackend.panix.com [166.84.1.89]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 47NdDK3zz3z3H8X for ; Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:04:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kh@panix.com) Received: from rain.home (pool-72-74-69-77.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [72.74.69.77]) by mailbackend.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 47NdDJ2V0Cz1rFp for ; Wed, 27 Nov 2019 19:04:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: FreeBSD-12.1 on laptop To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <18414268-96b1-6112-2c91-345aea9e7f24@gmail.com> <20191127160215.GA69810@neutralgood.org> <20191127160441.GB69810@neutralgood.org> <30022fe5-800e-0a9a-fff6-8edb0171e153@denninger.net> From: Kurt Hackenberg Message-ID: <5c2c0fe0-93fa-246e-a3ae-05e813e246df@panix.com> Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 19:04:29 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 47NdDK3zz3z3H8X X-Spamd-Bar: ----- Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=pass (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of kh@panix.com designates 166.84.1.89 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=kh@panix.com X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-5.68 / 15.00]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+ip4:166.84.0.0/16]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; PREVIOUSLY_DELIVERED(0.00)[freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]; TO_DN_NONE(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[panix.com]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED(-0.20)[89.1.84.166.list.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.2]; IP_SCORE(-3.18)[ip: (-9.20), ipnet: 166.84.0.0/16(-3.70), asn: 2033(-2.96), country: US(-0.05)]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ASN(0.00)[asn:2033, ipnet:166.84.0.0/16, country:US]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; RCVD_TLS_ALL(0.00)[]; RCVD_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:04:35 -0000 On 2019-11-27 13:33, vm finance wrote: > I had to comment out this exact line to get my system to boot successfully. > I actually have "Pro-level NVIDIA® Quadro® P500 graphics" on my P52S > Thinkpad. > Not sure if 12.1 has native support for this, or do I need to > download/build this. > > Per the discussions on this topic, I think I should stay away from pkg > ..drm-kmod ... >> kld_list="/boot/modules/i915kms.ko" ... >>> However startx is still failing - same framebuffer error. All right, a few things are going on. It's true that to use any drm-kmod on 12.1, you have to compile it, so it matches the kernel. (Those packages are compiled for 12.0, and something changed in the kernel.) The framebuffer thing might be this: both versions of the AMD drm-kmod (modules amdgpu and radeon) interfere with the EFI framebuffer. This bug has not yet been tracked down. You can work around it by shutting off the system console during boot, by adding this to /boot/loader.conf: hw.syscons.disable=1 There will be a system console after the drm-kmod driver is loaded and takes over. However, this is only a problem with UEFI boot; old-fashioned boot doesn't use that EFI framebuffer (I think it uses a VGA framebuffer instead). And it's never a problem with the Intel drm-kmod (i915kms), no matter how you boot. But neither of those drivers, Intel or AMD, applies to your Nvidia graphics processor. Nvidia writes drivers for their GPUs, but apparently does not give out source code, only binaries. I don't know whether FreeBSD distributes those binaries. But it's possible that your laptop computer has two graphics processors. Some do, apparently. That happens when the computer uses a main processor that has a graphics processor included in the package, and also has a separate graphics processor. I don't know why manufacturers do that. But maybe you can get by without any GPU driver, which means not using the graphics processor. Instead, graphics is done by software on the main processor, which is slower. That may or may not be fast enough. If your computer works, runs X and everything, without loading any graphics driver, maybe that's OK. Some documentation: https://freebsddesktop.github.io/ https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics https://github.com/FreeBSDDesktop/kms-drm