startx fails after upgrade to 15.1 from 15.0

bxbzq · Aug 11, 2026

As titled, my workstation worked just fine on 15.0. After the upgrade to 15.1, startx fails. I tried deleting nvidia-driver and nvidia-kmod and reinstalled them. Didn't help.
I can, however, log into XFCE desktop via XRDP.

Code:

% pkg info | grep nvidia
libva-nvidia-driver-0.0.17     NVDEC-based backend for VAAPI
linux-nvidia-libs-595.84       NVIDIA graphics libraries and programs (Linux)
nvidia-driver-595.84           NVIDIA graphics driver userland
nvidia-drm-66-kmod-595.84.1500068_1 NVIDIA DRM Kernel Module
nvidia-kmod-595.84.1500068     NVIDIA graphics driver kernel module
nvidia-settings-595.84         Display Control Panel for NVIDIA graphics
nvidia-xconfig-595.84          NVIDIA graphics X configuration utility

/var/log/Xorg.0.log

Code:

X.Org X Server 1.21.1.24
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[   757.834] Current Operating System: FreeBSD amd_wkst 15.1-RELEASE-p2 FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE-p2 releng/15.1-n283596-aadd58dddcbc GENERIC amd64
[   757.834]  
[   757.834] Current version of pixman: 0.46.4
[   757.834]     Before reporting problems, check [URL]http://wiki.x.org[/URL]
    to make sure that you have the latest version.
[   757.834] Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
    (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[   757.834] (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Tue Aug 11 17:42:28 2026
[   757.834] (==) Using config directory: "/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
[   757.834] (==) Using system config directory "/usr/local/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
[   757.834] (==) No Layout section.  Using the first Screen section.
[   757.834] (==) No screen section available. Using defaults.
[   757.834] (**) |-->Screen "Default Screen Section" (0)
[   757.834] (**) |   |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[   757.834] (==) No device specified for screen "Default Screen Section".
    Using the first device section listed.
[   757.834] (**) |   |-->Device "NVIDIA Card"
[   757.834] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Default Screen Section".
    Using a default monitor configuration.
[   757.834] (**) Allowing byte-swapped clients
[   757.834] (==) Automatically adding devices
[   757.834] (==) Automatically enabling devices
[   757.834] (==) Automatically adding GPU devices
[   757.834] (==) Automatically binding GPU devices
[   757.834] (==) Max clients allowed: 256, resource mask: 0x1fffff
[   757.835] (WW) The directory "/usr/local/share/fonts/util/" does not exist.
[   757.835]     Entry deleted from font path.
[   757.835] (**) FontPath set to:
    /usr/local/share/fonts/100dpi/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/75dpi/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/TTF/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/Type1/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/encodings/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/dejavu/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/urwfonts/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/urwfonts-ttf/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/webfonts/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/terminus-font/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/TerminusTTF/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/wqy/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/Liberation/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/OTF/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/LinLibertineG/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/linuxlibertine/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/MS_TrueType/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/bitstream-vera/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/Carlito/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/Caladea/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/GentiumBasic/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/cyrillic/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/twemoji-color-font-ttf/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/TTF/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/OTF/,
    /usr/local/share/fonts/Type1/,
    /usr/local/sha
[   757.835] (==) ModulePath set to "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
[   757.835] (II) The server relies on udev to provide the list of input devices.
    If no devices become available, reconfigure udev or disable AutoAddDevices.
[   757.835] (II) Module ABI versions:
[   757.835]     X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4
[   757.835]     X.Org Video Driver: 25.2
[   757.835]     X.Org XInput driver : 24.4
[   757.835]     X.Org Server Extension : 10.0
[   757.841] (II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card0)
[   757.841] (II) Platform probe for /dev/dri/card0
[   757.841] (EE) /dev/dri/card0: failed to query DRM version
[   757.841] (--) PCI:*(43@0:0:0) 10de:2786:1458:40e6 rev 161, Mem @ 0xfb000000/16777216, 0x7800000000/17179869184, 0x7c00000000/33554432, I/O @ 0x0000e000/128, BIOS @ 0x????????/65536
[   757.841] (II) "glx" will be loaded by default.
[   757.841] (II) LoadModule: "glx"
[   757.841] (II) Loading /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
[   757.842] (II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[   757.842]     compiled for 1.21.1.24, module version = 1.0.0
[   757.842]     ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 10.0
[   757.842] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
[   757.842] (II) Loading /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
[   757.843] (II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
[   757.843]     compiled for 1.16.99.901, module version = 1.0.0
[   757.843]     Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[   757.843] (II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver  595.84  Wed Jun 10 20:28:24 UTC 2026
[   757.843] (II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
[   757.843] (--) Using syscons driver with X support (version 2.0)
[   757.843] (--) using VT number 9

[   757.865] (EE) Segmentation fault at address 0x0
[   757.865] (EE) 
Fatal server error:
[   757.865] (EE) Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting
[   757.865] (EE) 
[   757.865] (EE) 
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 
     at [URL]http://wiki.x.org[/URL]
 for help. 
[   757.865] (EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.
[   757.865] (EE) 
[   757.888] (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

Code:

% kldstat
Id Refs Address                Size Name
 1  164 0xffffffff80200000  2351f30 kernel
 2    1 0xffffffff82553000     8180 ums.ko
 3    1 0xffffffff8255c000     4b48 if_ipheth.ko
 4    4 0xffffffff82561000     5e78 uether.ko
 5    1 0xffffffff82567000     8808 cryptodev.ko
 6    1 0xffffffff82571000     7058 if_urndis.ko
 7    1 0xffffffff82579000     76d8 amdtemp.ko
 8    2 0xffffffff82581000     3728 amdsmn.ko
 9    1 0xffffffff82585000    21428 geom_mirror.ko
10    1 0xffffffff825a7000   628ca0 zfs.ko
11    1 0xffffffff82bd0000     9cf0 if_cdce.ko
12    1 0xffffffff82bda000    2d048 fusefs.ko
13    1 0xffffffff82c08000     e090 tpm.ko
14    1 0xffffffff83e80000     3578 fdescfs.ko
15    1 0xffffffff83e84000    14a98 nvidia-drm.ko
16    1 0xffffffff83e99000    8a190 drm.ko
17    1 0xffffffff83f24000     22b8 iic.ko
18    1 0xffffffff83f27000     4120 linuxkpi_video.ko
19    2 0xffffffff83f2c000     7358 dmabuf.ko
20    1 0xffffffff83f34000     3378 lindebugfs.ko
21    2 0xffffffff84000000  5b7e838 nvidia.ko
22    2 0xffffffff83f38000    32240 linux.ko
23    2 0xffffffff83f6b000     6da8 mqueuefs.ko
24    6 0xffffffff83f72000     cdc8 linux_common.ko
25    1 0xffffffff89b7f000   14d2f8 nvidia-modeset.ko
26    1 0xffffffff83f7f000     3390 acpi_wmi.ko
27    1 0xffffffff83f83000     21e8 hcons.ko
28    4 0xffffffff83f86000     30a8 hidmap.ko
29    1 0xffffffff83f8a000     21e8 hsctrl.ko
30    1 0xffffffff83f8d000     3220 intpm.ko
31    1 0xffffffff83f91000     2178 smbus.ko
32    1 0xffffffff83f94000    2f300 linux64.ko
33    1 0xffffffff83fc4000     2278 pty.ko
34    1 0xffffffff83fc7000     73c0 linprocfs.ko
35    1 0xffffffff83fcf000     440c linsysfs.ko
36    1 0xffffffff83fd4000     8810 if_bridge.ko
37    1 0xffffffff83fdd000     6120 bridgestp.ko
38    1 0xffffffff83fe4000     21e8 hms.ko
39    1 0xffffffff83fe7000     21e8 hgame.ko
40    1 0xffffffff83fea000     21e8 pflog.ko
41    1 0xffffffff89ccd000    64c08 pf.ko
42    1 0xffffffff89e00000   340438 vmm.ko
43    1 0xffffffff83fed000     21dc nmdm.ko
44    1 0xffffffff83ff0000     5bf8 autofs.ko
45    1 0xffffffff83ff6000     2a80 mac_ntpd.ko
46    1 0xffffffff83ff9000     4b40 nullfs.ko

SirDice · Aug 11, 2026

bxbzq said:
I tried deleting nvidia-driver and nvidia-kmod and reinstalled them.

Make sure to install the ones from the FreeBSD-ports-kmods repository. The ones in the FreeBSD-ports repository are newer but built for 15.0 and do not work on 15.1.

Emrion · Aug 11, 2026

I don't have nvidia-drm... Maybe because my card is as old as me.

What do you get with dmesg | grep nvidia?

bxbzq · Aug 11, 2026

Emrion said:
I don't have nvidia-drm... Maybe because my card is as old as me.
What do you get with dmesg | grep nvidia?

Graphics card is rtx4070.

% dmesg | grep nvidia
nvidia0: <NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070> on vgapci0
vgapci0: child nvidia0 requested pci_enable_io
vgapci0: child nvidia0 requested pci_enable_io
nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms 595.84 Wed Jun 10 20:27:42 UTC 2026
[drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00002b00] Loading driver
[drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20160202 for nvidia0 on minor 0
nvidia0: <NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070> on vgapci0
vgapci0: child nvidia0 requested pci_enable_io
vgapci0: child nvidia0 requested pci_enable_io
nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms 595.84 Wed Jun 10 20:27:42 UTC 2026
[drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00002b00] Loading driver
[drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20160202 for nvidia0 on minor 0
nvidia0: <NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070> on vgapci0
vgapci0: child nvidia0 requested pci_enable_io
vgapci0: child nvidia0 requested pci_enable_io
nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms 595.84 Wed Jun 10 20:27:42 UTC 2026
[drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00002b00] Loading driver
[drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20160202 for nvidia0 on minor 0

bxbzq · Aug 11, 2026

SirDice said:
Make sure to install the ones from the FreeBSD-ports-kmods repository. The ones in the FreeBSD-ports repository are newer but built for 15.0 and do not work on 15.1.

To do this, do I modify /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf or /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf to enable only FreeBSD-ports-kmods section?

T-Aoki · Aug 11, 2026

Sigh.

How many time should I answer the same thing?
Please search first. You'll quite easily find at least 5 essentially same reply by me here in forums.

Most recent one (yesterday!) here.

Emrion · Aug 11, 2026

Not really an old card this one.

I have all the drivers compiled for 15.0 (I'm on 15.1), but maybe it's different for you, concerning drm drivers.
T-Aoki is the one that knows this field.

bxbzq · Aug 11, 2026

T-Aoki said:
Sigh. How many time should I answer the same thing?
Please search first. You'll quite easily find at least 5 essentially same reply by me here in forums.

Most recent one (yesterday!) here.

Sorry for the trouble. I've only used pkg install. Maybe I should try building from ports.

scottro · Aug 11, 2026

Like T-Aoki, I've answered this a lot. So, I put up a little page about it. Though the page deals with the 580 legacy drivers, I think it's true for all Nvidia cards, though I've not tested. https://srobb.net/fbsdnvidia.html

T-Aoki · Aug 11, 2026

bxbzq said:
Sorry for the trouble. I've only used pkg install. Maybe I should try building from ports.

Yes. Currently it's really needed for users of 15.1 and upcoming 14.4 (now BETA1). Also, main (aka CURRENT) and any of stable branches.

But anyone who don't use DRM/KMS (graphics/nvidia-drm-*-kmod*) and using GPUs supported by Production Branch of drivers (currently at 595.91.07) may be safe to use pkg (kmods repo builder builds x11/nvidia-kmod only for NVIDIA GPU kmods).

You'll be safe to use pkg from first full rebuild of pkg repo after Sep.30, 2026 (EoL of 15.0, so pkg for 15.* are started to be built using 15.1).

cabriofahrer · Aug 13, 2026

In order not to open a new thread, just in case the problem I found is related, I am going to ask here. I don't have an Nvidia card, but two systems with radeon and amdgpu, respectively. When doing a fresh install of 15.1 in BIOS mode, there is no problem with Xorg. Meaning that if I do a
pkg install xorg drm-kmod
and
kldload radeonkms
or
kldload amdgpu
and
startx
, everything is fine on both machines, X works properly, with hardware acceleration and all, as expected. But when I do a fresh install in UEFI Mode, X will not work, I only get a black screen and can not even switch to another console. Also, if I only install
xorg
but not
drm-kmod
, on an UEFI Installation
startx
crashes in the console, but doing the same on the BIOS mode installation,
startx
gives a proper VESA
twm
.

SirDice · Aug 13, 2026

X uses two different fallback drivers if a compatible driver cannot be found, vesa(4) if BIOS/CSM booted, or scfb(4) when UEFI booted. If the DRM driver (Intel/AMD/NVidia) is installed (and working) X will use the modesetting(4) driver.

rcbsdpge · 2026-09-30T03:01:19+0100

Running into quirks as well. I’m running a bare metal install of 15.1 and I can’t even load NVIDIA kernel modules

Not sure how source tree development is going for porting over Linux GPU drivers for LinuxKPI and the Linux compatibility layer lately but attempting to load kernel modules via sudo kldload nvidia or any of the relative NVIDIA kernel modules throws a traceback error.

Basic kernel module loading command:

Code:

sudo kldload nvidia

A few of the return code errors to stdout:

Code:

link_elf_obj: symbol execve_block_wait undefined
linker_load_file: /boot/kernel/linux.ko - unsupported file type
KLD nvidia.ko: depends on linux - not available or verson mismatch

Installation is standard and FreeBSD 15.1 is running fine. Just no desktop environment at the moment.

drsnx60 · 2026-09-30T08:26:23+0100

I tried to write it all down yesterday. its attached. Im open to improvements.

Erichans · 2026-09-30T09:13:57+0100

drsnx60 said:
tried to write it all down yesterday. its attached. Im open to improvements.

From your pdf:

Due to a bug in SDDM its requiered to run the latest version of SDDM to be able to startup Wayland. The latest version is 0.21.0.36_6 . This version is not available in the online repos.

I'm not sure when it appeared in latest but given x11/sddm: Make it possible to start the greeter under KWin Wayland session from 2026-08-04, I would assume that it was available not long after that; also because it is not in FreeBSD-ports-kmods.
Anyway, it's now availble in latest for 15.1-RELEASE:

Code:

 # pkg rquery '%R %o %n %v' 'x11/sddm'
FreeBSD-ports x11/sddm sddm 0.21.0.36_6

drsnx60 · 2026-09-30T09:23:52+0100

thanks, however a default installation uses Quarterly Repos , so when a newbie tries to install sddm he receives version 0.21.0.36_3 which has the bug.

Erichans · 2026-09-30T09:47:28+0100

drsnx60 said:
however a default installation uses Quarterly Repos

Right, from your pdf:

The procedure to get hold of an Updated PORTS distribution is described in the FreeBSD Handbook chapter 4.5.1 https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/ports/#ports-using-installation-methods .Follow steps 1-2 do not implement step 3,4,5. You want the latest HEAD branch.
[...]
# cd /usr/ports/graphics/drm-kmod
# make clean ( if drm.kmod was previously built )
# make reinstall
[...]
# cd /usr/ports/graphics/nvidia-drm-kmod
# make clean (if nvidia-drm.kmod was previously built)
# make reinstall
[...]
# cd /usr/ports/x11/sddm
# make clean ( if sddm was buildt previously)
# make reinstall

Is it intentional that you advise (15.1-RELEASE) users that are on quarterly to insert (=built) a substantial amount of packages (inc. dependencies) from HEAD (=latest) of the ports tree?

I have never seen it advocated to mix quarterly packages with packages built from HEAD (that amounts to latest from the remote FreeBSD package servers); I don't see the logic in that. To me the obvious suggestion would be to switch from quarterly to latest; or, given that we are very near to 2026Q4 as the new quarterly branch: wait a bit while staying on quarterly.

T-Aoki · 2026-09-30T10:41:43+0100

rcbsdpge said:
linker_load_file: /boot/kernel/linux.ko - unsupported file type
KLD nvidia.ko: depends on linux - not available or verson mismatch

These basically happenes when the kmods are built against different version of kernel, or another kmod that attempts to pull it in as a dependency is built against different version of kernel.

And unfortunately, current kmod repo builder doesn't build graphics/nvidia-drm-*-kmod*, x11/nvidia-kmod-{304|340|390|470|580|devel} and main pkg repo for 15.* is built against 15.0-RELEASE until it EoL's.
So using pre-built official pkg for the above surely cause your issue.

Try building the above you're actually using from ports.

drsnx60 · 2026-09-30T14:44:37+0100

Erichans said:
Right, from your pdf:

Is it intentional that you advise (15.1-RELEASE) users that are on quarterly to insert (=built) a substantial amount of packages (inc. dependencies) from HEAD (=latest) of the ports tree?

I have never seen it advocated to mix quarterly packages with packages built from HEAD (that amounts to latest from the remote FreeBSD package servers); I don't see the logic in that. To me the obvious suggestion would be to switch from quarterly to latest; or, given that we are very near to 2026Q4 as the new quarterly branch: wait a bit while staying on quarterly.

Well, currently no Repos anywhere includes the Nvidia-drm-612.kmod binary for 15.1 release.
The drm.kmod and the drm-612.kmod drivers are missing from 15.1 quarterly repos.

This makes it very difficult if not impossible to install graphics drivers from the repos using pkg install , specifically if you are a new user of FreeBSD
that tries to install a desktop / Laptop with FreeBSD 15.1 for the first time.

What me an T-Aoki is doing ever day is to advise these New users to overcome the present deficiencies in the online repos.

The dockument is written from the starting point of a , from scratch, installation of 15.1 Release. And assuming a Novice user , who presently cant
install a Graphical desktop becasue the Repos does not include the required binaries.

startx fails after upgrade to 15.1 from 15.0

bxbzq

SirDice

Administrator

Emrion

bxbzq

bxbzq

T-Aoki

Emrion

bxbzq

scottro

T-Aoki

cabriofahrer

SirDice

Administrator

rcbsdpge

drsnx60

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