what version of drm-kmod should I use?

There seem to be so many versions of drm-kmod around and I have no idea which one if for what.

Which pkg should I install under 15.1-PRERELEASE for use with a system using an Intel GM965/GL960 - (very old) chip?
 
The current default for 15.0 is drm-66-kmod (for 6.6 LTS), for 15.1, assuming the rest of may looks good the default may be updated to 612 (for 6.12 LTS, no package yet).
I would say, go with 66. For that vintage of hardware you don't need any of the gpu-firmware packages.

Do note that if you get issues with a drm package you can try an older version (61 or 510) which may work better.

Word of caution: until june you may have issues with packages not working (dmesg saying something of the lines kernel version mismatch for the drm driver), if that happens checkout freebsd-src on the matching branch (i.e. releng/15.1) and checkout the main branch of freebsd-ports, then compile the relevant port (i.e. cd graphics/drm-drm-66-kmod; make package; pkg install work/pkg/*.pkg).
 
The current default for 15.0 is drm-66-kmod (for 6.6 LTS), for 15.1, assuming the rest of may looks good the default may be updated to 612 (for 6.12 LTS, no package yet).
I would say, go with 66. For that vintage of hardware you don't need any of the gpu-firmware packages.

Do note that if you get issues with a drm package you can try an older version (61 or 510) which may work better.

Word of caution: until june you may have issues with packages not working (dmesg saying something of the lines kernel version mismatch for the drm driver), if that happens checkout freebsd-src on the matching branch (i.e. releng/15.1) and checkout the main branch of freebsd-ports, then compile the relevant port (i.e. cd graphics/drm-drm-66-kmod; make package; pkg install work/pkg/*.pkg).
With a view to making some sense of all this, I have just installed 15.1 prerelease on a new partition and installed drm-66-kmod,

This resulted in the screen going blank followed by a reboot.

drm-515-kmod did the same.

No pkg called drm-kmod was available for 15.1, so it's probably best to leave things for a while.

Just out of curiosity is there any way to uninstall a pkg during boot up, or do I need to boot up an alternate system to attempt that?
 
With a view to making some sense of all this, I have just installed 15.1 prerelease on a new partition and installed drm-66-kmod,

This resulted in the screen going blank followed by a reboot.

drm-515-kmod did the same.

No pkg called drm-kmod was available for 15.1, so it's probably best to leave things for a while.

Just out of curiosity is there any way to uninstall a pkg during boot up, or do I need to boot up an alternate system to attempt that?
Sure, boot single user mode, fsck if needed, mount / as rw (mount -u / for ufs), remove any packages as needed. Start network (service netif start && service routing start) if you want to install packages.

And yes, drm packages are a mess right now. It should settle after 15.1 is released (and you have the right repo set up configured on /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf)
 
If you're familiar with Makefile and understanding OSVERSION (matches __FreeBSD_version), reading graphics/drm-kmod/Makefile would be helpful.
graphics/drm-kmod is a metaport (actually builds nothing) to choose newest supported LTS version of graphics/drm-{510|515|61|66}-kmod for the running FreeBSD version.

Note that graphics/drm-latest-kmod (currently at 6.9) is NOT a LTS (Long Term Supported) version, thus, never becomes a candidate to be automatically chosen.

And unfortunately, graphics/drm-61-kmod and graphics/drm-66-kmod don't build on any branches other than main (aka -CURRENT) of base FreeBSD now. See PR 294870 and PR 294875 (different issues) for details. There are some others, but all seem to be duplicates of whichever.

Fortunately, the offending commits are NOT merged into quarterly (currently 2026Q2), so only latest (aka main) branch of ports/pkgs are affected.

Upstream is working on fixing the issues, but seems to need more time.

If you don't hesitate to build from ports and want to use graphics/drm-61-kmod or graphics/drm-66-kmod of latest branch, I've attached a temporary patch to fix builds for both issues at PR 294870 for convenience.
 
Sure, boot single user mode, fsck if needed, mount / as rw (mount -u / for ufs), remove any packages as needed. Start network (service netif start && service routing start) if you want to install packages.
I must make a note of this. It will save a lot of messing around.
 
If you're familiar with Makefile and understanding OSVERSION (matches __FreeBSD_version), reading graphics/drm-kmod/Makefile would be helpful.
graphics/drm-kmod is a metaport (actually builds nothing) to choose newest supported LTS version of graphics/drm-{510|515|61|66}-kmod for the running FreeBSD version.

Note that graphics/drm-latest-kmod (currently at 6.9) is NOT a LTS (Long Term Supported) version, thus, never becomes a candidate to be automatically chosen.

And unfortunately, graphics/drm-61-kmod and graphics/drm-66-kmod don't build on any branches other than main (aka -CURRENT) of base FreeBSD now. See PR 294870 and PR 294875 (different issues) for details. There are some others, but all seem to be duplicates of whichever.

Fortunately, the offending commits are NOT merged into quarterly (currently 2026Q2), so only latest (aka main) branch of ports/pkgs are affected.

Upstream is working on fixing the issues, but seems to need more time.

If you don't hesitate to build from ports and want to use graphics/drm-61-kmod or graphics/drm-66-kmod of latest branch, I've attached a temporary patch to fix builds for both issues at PR 294870 for convenience.
Drm-latest builds, just point to the drm_v6.11 tag, will get you a working drm package (it was tagged before the mess up with the clang and builds okay in stable)
 
Drm-latest builds, just point to the drm_v6.11 tag, will get you a working drm package (it was tagged before the mess up with the clang and builds okay in stable)
Can you give me precise instructions to get it built?

I'm pretty much a novice at all this stuff and make plenty of mistakes when if there is scope for misinterpreting anything.

Do I need to install 15.1 stable? and where do I get it from?
 
Which pkg should I install under 15.1-PRERELEASE for use with a system using an Intel GM965/GL960 - (very old) chip?
I'd start with 515 (afaik lowest available); I think it did the boot modeset/resolution switch faster than 61.

I have UHD 630; iirc 515 didn't support GuC loading with Intel (pre-Skylake doesn't have GuC/HuC) but 61+ does. 66 and latest (before 15.1) had a weird Vsync repeat flip thing happen (noticeable in Guild Wars 2/Wine and sometimes Xfce desktop) which had me use 61 for a while until I switched to 515.

I trial-and-errored the drm versions; you can install them and not have i915kms on auto-load so you can manually kldload it to make sure it can initially work (if a drm-kmod version didn't work it'd freeze before log-in/as soon as the GPU driver/i915kms loads mid-boot)
 
I'd start with 515 (afaik lowest available); I think it did the boot modeset/resolution switch faster than 61.

I have UHD 630; iirc 515 didn't support GuC loading with Intel (pre-Skylake doesn't have GuC/HuC) but 61+ does. 66 and latest (before 15.1) had a weird Vsync repeat flip thing happen (noticeable in Guild Wars 2/Wine and sometimes Xfce desktop) which had me use 61 for a while until I switched to 515.

I trial-and-errored the drm versions; you can install them and not have i915kms on auto-load so you can manually kldload it to make sure it can initially work (if a drm-kmod version didn't work it'd freeze before log-in/as soon as the GPU driver/i915kms loads mid-boot)
I didn't realise you could kldload these modules. I guess it's obvious if I think about it but...
Can you 'kld unload' unload them as well?

Which FreeBSD version are you talking about?
 
I didn't realise you could kldload these modules. I guess it's obvious if I think about it but...
Can you 'kld unload' unload them as well?

Which FreeBSD version are you talking about?
Yes, you can try to unload modules (kldunload i915), but from experience with amdgpu it will just trigger a panic. Maybe there's an order to it tto avoid the panic..
 
Can you give me precise instructions to get it built?

I'm pretty much a novice at all this stuff and make plenty of mistakes when if there is scope for misinterpreting anything.

Do I need to install 15.1 stable? and where do I get it from?
See the end of my first reply, but choose drm-latest-kmod, you will need to edit Makefile.versions to change the github tag, them edit the distinfo file with the correct filename, size and sha256. The just call make package.

Though, in your case and with your hardware other than a working package you will probably see no changes.
 
Yes, you can try to unload modules (kldunload i915), but from experience with amdgpu it will just trigger a panic. Maybe there's an order to it tto avoid the panic..
Unloading kernel modules related with DRM/KMS are strongly discouraged.
If I understand correctly, once any DRM/KMS driver based on LinuxKPI is loaded, it wraps around underlying vt or sc driver, stealing the entry point, but not restoring it on unloads, thus, any screen outputs are done, it goes to nonexting codes, thus, panic.

Not read the related codes, so maybe I'm mis-understanding.
 
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