From owner-freebsd-x11@freebsd.org Tue Oct 10 20:51:31 2017 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-x11@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2C80E3C9BA for ; Tue, 10 Oct 2017 20:51:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pete@nomadlogic.org) Received: from vps-mail.nomadlogic.org (mail.nomadlogic.org [IPv6:2607:f2f8:a098::2]) (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 ACF376C277 for ; Tue, 10 Oct 2017 20:51:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pete@nomadlogic.org) Received: from [10.44.139.75] (nat-192-187-90-114.nat.tribpub.com [192.187.90.114]) by vps-mail.nomadlogic.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTPSA id 9b6338ca TLS version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128 verify=NO; Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:51:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: intro To: tbr@acm.org, freebsd-x11@freebsd.org References: From: Pete Wright Message-ID: <696fb5ea-e1bf-d7c2-004a-eb4eb2af43d7@nomadlogic.org> Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:51:29 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Language: en-US X-BeenThere: freebsd-x11@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: X11 on FreeBSD -- maintaining and support List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2017 20:51:31 -0000 On 10/10/2017 13:29, Tom Rushworth wrote: > Hi All, > > A few quick words to say where I'm coming from: > > I'm a long time C programmer, mostly userland, but I have done some > kernel work.  I was doing Linux USB drivers in the early 2000's, and I > tinkered with the NetBSD serial driver way back when serial ports were > actually useful.  I wrote my first serious C program in the late 1970s. > > I'm a FreeBSD desktop user, driven out of MacOS by the marketroids, > and driven out of Linux by systemd :). > > I recently purchased a new desktop machine that turns out to have an > Intel Iris Pro P6300 (Broadwell GT3e) graphics system.  It came with > Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon, which manages the screen very nicely, so the > Linux driver is good enough.  I ran into issues with ssh within hours > of starting up, and I'm just not interested in digging through yet > another (foolish) system administration issue involving systemd to > sort it out. > > I tried FreeBSD 11.1, but the i915 driver there isn't quite up to the > job.  I've looked at the various FreeBSD i915 websites and > discussions, but can't easily sort out where the current focus is. > > What I'd like from the list is advice on where to start :).  I'm > willing to test pre-built stuff, or build it myself, or even work on > the code, but everything I looked at seemed to have ground to a halt > about a year ago. > > So, where to begin? I'd suggest taking a look at TrueOS to see if the updated i915 support in there offers you a better X experience. https://www.trueos.org/ TrueOS is FreeBSD with some nice prebuilt additions for desktops and laptops.  They even have a live image that should allow you to verify X is working as expected before you install it. If you are wanting to run vanilla FreeBSD and don't mind periodic instability you can also run 12-CURRENT and install the "drm-next-kmod" pkg.  Although depending on how much time you want to put into hacking on things TrueOS may be an easier entry point for you. HTH! -pete -- Pete Wright pete@nomadlogic.org @nomadlogicLA