From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 10 10:46:18 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E21D1065670 for ; Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:46:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ohartman@zedat.fu-berlin.de) Received: from outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de (outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de [130.133.4.66]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE7AB8FC16 for ; Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:46:17 +0000 (UTC) Received: from inpost2.zedat.fu-berlin.de ([130.133.4.69]) by outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Exim 4.69) with esmtp (envelope-from ) id <1NfA5I-0003qr-Mm>; Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:46:16 +0100 Received: from telesto.geoinf.fu-berlin.de ([130.133.86.198]) by inpost2.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Exim 4.69) with esmtpsa (envelope-from ) id <1NfA5I-0004b3-L1>; Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:46:16 +0100 Message-ID: <4B728ED3.7040309@zedat.fu-berlin.de> Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:47:47 +0000 From: "O. Hartmann" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20100206 Thunderbird/3.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Warren Block References: <6101e8c41002091524q25a7e026u585e575eb4f1589c@mail.gmail.com> <4B71FFA8.3070306@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> <201002100202.59954.christof.schulze@gmx.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Originating-IP: 130.133.86.198 Cc: Christof Schulze , freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: freebsd7, radeon, xorg-server -> deadlock or so X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:46:18 -0000 On 02/10/10 03:41, Warren Block wrote: > On Wed, 10 Feb 2010, Christof Schulze wrote: > >>> The situation is heavily unsatisfying, since one need an expensive >>> AMD/ATi Radeon card to gain non-3D poor functionality, where a cheaper >>> one should be do the same - but the cheaper ones don't work. Even if >>> one >>> uses AMD64, the situattion is worse and I have no reason using >>> Linux-driver on a FreeBSD box. Hope the situation gets cleared in the >>> nearest future. It's a kind of deadlock. As I said, either spenig a lot >>> of money for a working RV770 based AMD graphics card with poor >>> functionality or nothing so far, since most smaller RV730 chips aren't >>> supported properly by the most recent drivers. >> To be fair - my ATI X300 has always worked. It is a cheap card with >> low-end >> performance but it is perfectly fine for regular desktop-use. > > The older chipsets are better supported because the newer ones are, > well, newer. If you haven't bought a video card yet, look at the > radeon(4x) man page first. > > Unfortunately, that doesn't help if you already have a newer card, or > a notebook. > > The other choices are Intel, where they don't have standalone video > cards, or nVidia, which has a full-featured blob and a really > bare-bones open driver. > > -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA You said it. Alternatives? Barely. Having Intel-X58 based mainboards for our workstations, there is no onboard-Intel solution. Speaking of nVidia - 64Bit FreeBSD-support isn't mature and, as far as I know, not yet arrived, but underway, but this is in the future and isn't subject of any consideration if I need to make my choices now. Our department orders, in most cases, a bunch of systems completely equipted also with graphics boards. In many cases, there is no reason, economically, buying outdated graphics boards which are 5 years old and older, despite the fact that many shops do not offer them. On Linux, most of those modern ATi/AMD video cards not working with X11 on FreeBSD/amd64 work on Linux due to the fact most Linux derivates have a more modern OpenSource Xorg environment, including 'cutting' edge DRI and drivers. The alternative is to play with the well supported 32- and 64-Bit blob even AMD/ATi offers for Linux. Regards, Oliver