Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:23:17 -0700 From: Kevin Oberman <kob6558@gmail.com> To: Nikos zlulz <elvenpath666@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-x11@freebsd.org Subject: Re: AMD A8-3870K with FreeBSD 9.0 Message-ID: <CAN6yY1s5=x4hY-OLCAKtu2HBXoX%2Bcbon113cpNuO9ZHQ8KFN1w@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <CA%2BVt=QycF==m=owYawgcpOkVMG7UBGg%2BXbJzbRXWK-HFZjFHPA@mail.gmail.com> References: <CA%2BVt=QycF==m=owYawgcpOkVMG7UBGg%2BXbJzbRXWK-HFZjFHPA@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Nikos zlulz <elvenpath666@gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks for your answer. > > You suggest me to use the vesa driver or to change the composition of my > new PC ? It is very hard to find a current laptop that is really well supported by BSD. The requirement for Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) by most new graphics systems is the main problem. KMS requires a custom kernel that knows a great deal about a specific graphics chip-set. Almost all new laptops use Intel CPUs with integrated graphics, possibly in combination with an nVidia GPU, or an AMD (ATi) chip (usually with AMD processors). There is beta kernel support for Intel KMS available for FreeBSD 9 and CURRENT. It requires the installation of the latest xorg code, especially Mesa, often referred to as xorg-devel. It comes from a separate site and is not in ports at this time, though it sounds like they are getting close to merging it into ports.into ports. In fact, several parts have been merged. The alternative is VESA mode. This lacks acceleration, but generally works. Unfortunately, some laptops have a BIOS that does not support VESA well. Lenovo, for example, supports on 1280x1024 resolution (4x3) on new laptops with 16x9 displays. This is simply brain dead, but it is the case. I know some other vendors now do support the displays in native resolution, but it is very hard to know unless you can try it out. AMD has ope-sourced their drivers and produced Linux code for their new cards, so that makes it more likely that FreeBSD will support them, but there are no guarantees as most FreeBSD support comes from companies that use FreeBSD in their products or services and most of them don't use X or graphics at all, so work comes mostly from true volunteers who contribute time on their own. While lots of folks would love to help. the knowledge required to do this is not too common, so it is a real issue for FreeBSD. The FreeBSD Foundation funded development of the KMS code for Intel chips. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer E-mail: kob6558@gmail.com
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