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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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