FreeBSD with KDE on UTM (Apple Silicone) has only one resolution

[NFC]

Hello everyone! I am new to FreeBSD but extremely curious, so I decided to discover it on my M1 mac as a VM using UTM.

So I decided to start my discovery installing KDE Plasma 5. After installation I see that the only one display resolution option is available. Could anyone please suggest the cure for this issue? I'd appreciate your help in making my FreeBSD vm look good on my M1. Thank you!

 

[Alain De Vos]

In ./.xinitrc i have

xrandr --output HDMI-0 --mode 1680x1050 --primary --output DP-3 --mode 1600x900  --right-of HDMI-0

Or you can go to a terminal and type "xrandr".

 

[NFC]

unfortunately, that returned me the following errors (see screenshot)

 

[yuripv79]

That looks like something that should be set up in UTM (that's some frontend to QEMU, right?).

Quickly looking over its documentation, it mentions the video ram settings that could affect "available resolutions", try that?

 

[NFC]

I tried `-vga std` and `-vga virtio` as suggested here with no luck: `-vga std` does not change anything, `-vga virtio` - causes vm fail to start with the error (see screenshot). Any other ideas what can be done are highly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[NFC]

Also, setting anything in VGA Device RAM (see screenshot1) make the vm fail with another error (see screenshot2)

 

[astyle]

In "Emulated Display Card" , is "virtio-ramfb" the only option available?

Also, I strongly recommend VirtualBox, they should have a version for Macs... and FreeBSD works pretty well as a vbox guest.

 

[NFC]

Also, I strongly recommend VirtualBox, they should have a version for Macs... and FreeBSD works pretty well as a vbox guest.

Not on apple silicon, unfortunately((

 

[NFC]

In "Emulated Display Card" , is "virtio-ramfb" the only option available?

No, but most of them no not work returning the following errors (see screenshots)

 

[astyle]

Not on apple silicon, unfortunately((

oh???

 

[T-Daemon]

NFC, try the following:

At the boot menu choose "3. Escape to loader prompt", enter at the "OK" prompt gop list. That should list all available screen resolutions in "mode <number>: <resolution>" listing.

Try the resolutions with gop set <mode number>.

To make the best suited resolution permanent, set in /boot/loader.conf:

efi_max_resolution="1920x1080"

"1920x1080" is set as example, replace it with the value of your choosing from the "gop list".

Reference:

FreeBSD arm64.aarch64 on QEMU/UTM with better (but not perfect) graphics | Antranig Vartanian

weblog.antranigv.am

 

[NFC]

T-Daemon Thanks, it works. Unfortunately though, for FreeBSD on QEMU/UTM the max resolution possible is "1024x768" for some reason((. But at least something... Still a question, how come e.g. Kali has all that variety of resolutions to choose including "2048x1152" which imo looks the best at least on my 14" M1 mac? Is there any chance to make it possible for FreeBSD VM (e.g.: to recompile kernel etc.. - Sorry if sound silly, not a pro here lol)?

 

[astyle]

Hey, I gave you a screenie, NFC ... was that a no go? (Pay money, doesn't work on your specific M1, or no download links?)

 

[NFC]

astyle Are you successfully running it on M1?

 

[astyle]

Ah, you're using brew... Something wrong with just navigating to the web page and clicking on the link like in the screenshot? you should get a .dmg file downloading. Install the downloaded .dmg file instead of using brew... ?‍?

FWIW, I don't own any Apple hardware - but I do end up successfully helping Apple owners to get things going.

oh, and if you give the VM enough RAM and processing power, kernel recompilation is not out of question (as long as you follow the Handbook instructions on that, and don't do stuff out of order).

Update: Your brew downloads a generic .dmg file... and my screenie points to a different file that's actually aimed at M1/M2 ARM architecture. This is why my screenie should work. The error messages are pretty clear. Oh, and brew is not a standard part of MacOS. I certainly heard of brew, though.

 

[T-Daemon]

Sorry for the late response. I tried to collect more information about the issue.

Kali has all that variety of resolutions to choose including "2048x1152" which imo looks the best at least on my 14" M1 mac?

Linux might have a higher EFI framebuffer resolution support:

Unanswered question on the projects Github repository:

Allow higher framebuffer resolutions? · utmapp UTM · Discussion #4508

Trying to run FreeBSD on M1 mac and I can only get up to 1024x768 from the framebuffer. vmware fusion allows higher resolutions, is there a way to enable higher resolutions in UTM? I saw there are ...

github.com

It could be there is no appropriate Xorg driver for FreeBSD. Look at the Kali guest systems /var/log/Xorg.0.log which driver is used. If you are unsure paste the log here.

Also Linux has so-called "Spice agent" extensions which features "Automatic adjustment of the X-session resolution to the client resolution". See if the Kali guest system has those extensions installed.

Support documentation on projects home page:

Linux

Documentation for UTM virtual machines

docs.getutm.app

No "Spice agent" for FreeBSD. Reported issue on Github:

FreeBSD with Spice Tools · Issue #3850 · utmapp/UTM

It was a piece of cake to run FreeBSD AARCH64 in UTM on M1. XFCE installed without issues and running very smoothly. I can’t seem to find the SPICE tools for FreeBSD though. With the extensions, WM...

github.com

Is there any chance to make it possible for FreeBSD VM (e.g.: to recompile kernel etc..

I'm afraid not.

Sorry if sound silly, not a pro here lol)?

Don't worry, no problem.