Can I use a graphics card where I don't need kernel mods?

Well, the most recent error, as described in my thread in "Updating & Installing" came after rebooting into 13.5-RELEASE-p6, from -p5. I then updated pkgs, and did 'kldload amdgpu' which, per the logs, apparently loaded successfully, but then immediately dropped me into a reboot countdown, in tiny font that I wasn't prepared to read. Rebooted itself... apparently without properly dismounting the file system, and then I was able to load amdgpu, but promptly crashed the system when I tried to start X -- which had apparently been corrupted from the previous reboot. Fixed that with 'pkg upgrade -f' and here we are. Still a few issues per that thread, so looking at a reinstall anyway....

So like I said, maybe I'm too old for FreeBSD desktop at this point. I don't have these issues other than with the graphics -- so not on my server (vcolo, or whatever the right term is now). This is not my first problem. All can probably be traced to user error, but nonetheless.
 
Todd M said:
Well, the most recent error, as described in my thread in "Updating & Installing" came after rebooting into 13.5-RELEASE-p6, from -p5. I then updated pkgs, and did 'kldload amdgpu' which, per the logs, apparently loaded successfully, but then immediately dropped me into a reboot countdown, in tiny font that I wasn't prepared to read. Rebooted itself... apparently without properly dismounting the file system, and then I was able to load amdgpu, but promptly crashed the system when I tried to start X -- which had apparently been corrupted from the previous reboot. Fixed that with 'pkg upgrade -f' and here we are. Still a few issues per that thread, so looking at a reinstall anyway....

So like I said, maybe I'm too old for FreeBSD desktop at this point. I don't have these issues other than with the graphics -- so not on my server (vcolo, or whatever the right term is now). This is not my first problem. All can probably be traced to user error, but nonetheless.
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Well, hardware drivers don't play well with freebsd-update(8). These days, you gotta find the appropriate repo for the GPU firmwares. I think others did point out the correct URLs in this thread.

I personally prefer to compile stuff from ports rather than use pre-compiled packages. That helps me avoid the headaches associated with lookng for appropriate repos. The kmods pkg repo is particularly hairy, because you do need to match the kernel version you have to the repo where someone else prepares and publishes the hardware drivers. This is why I see this as a much simpler way to get your Ryzen with integrated GPU going:

Code: 
# cd /usr/ports/graphics/drm-kmod
# make && make install

This will compile and install everything you need. Once the compilation is done, you can just follow instructions in the Handbook for enabling AMD GPU graphics. And yeah, this kind of needs to be done separately from any pkg-upgrade(8)...

I personally think that freebsd-update(8) is oversold - too many gotchas to take care of, and too many ducks to get in a row. My approach is to do a fresh install every time, and compile my way into Xorg using ports...
 
astyle: I used to take more your approach, and did make buildworld every time, etc. I guess I'm just wanting something less labor intensive at this point. I kind of boggle at all the things I used to do.... So it goes.
 
Todd M said:
astyle: I used to take more your approach, and did make buildworld every time, etc. I guess I'm just wanting something less labor intensive at this point. I kind of boggle at all the things I used to do.... So it goes.
Click to expand...
I don't do buildworld, I just install a fresh version, and grab a snapshot of ports, and go from there. With a good processor, it takes me about a couple days to compile my way into a graphical desktop. Yeah, it does take babysitting the compilation up front, but then it's less work doing research on repos afterwards.
 
serjsk8 said:
I didn't know that.
I've been using old hardware for too long. :)
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This is because UEFI doesn't have legacy (including VGA and VESA) framebuffers by default and having their own ones instead (accessed via GOP service) and it grabs actual video hardwares, thus, VESA cannot grab it.
x11-drivers/xf86-video-scfb driver uses this type of framebuffers instead of VESA ones.

Not all, but many (maybe most for now) UEFI firmwares has optional functionality to mimic legacy BIOS, called CSM.
CSM has functionality NOT to grab video hardwares and expose them as legacy BIOS did, but it's basically for emulated legacy BIOS boots.

Possibly some UEFI firmware enables CSM even on UEFI boot if both modes are enabled (UEFI first, if none, legacy BIOS mode. Or in reverse order), but at least it's not a mandatory feature (maybe abnormal implementation). So my post was.
 
Todd M said:
astyle: I used to take more your approach, and did make buildworld every time, etc. I guess I'm just wanting something less labor intensive at this point. I kind of boggle at all the things I used to do.... So it goes.
Click to expand...
You don't need to build kernel locally, either.
What's needed is kernel source that matches the running (or updated via freebsd-update or something and to be run on next restart) kernel.

Why kernel source is needed is to precisely grab kernel programming interface (KPI) for device drivers and reuse the codes partially.
 
T-Aoki said:
What's needed is kernel source that matches the running (or updated via freebsd-update or something and to be run on next restart) kernel.
Click to expand...
I quite agree, however, for 13.5-RELEASE there are no 'kmods' repositories: https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:13:amd64/. The 'kmods' were introduced in 14.2-RELEASE (stable/14). Why should it be needed to build a graphics/drm-kmod when using 13.5-RELEASE*, except perhaps when a remote build is lagging behind a newly issued version upgrade in the source of the ports tree?

* Edit: and 13.4-RELEASE was EoL-ed some time ago.
 
I would try a fresh install of 14.3-RELEASE and start from scratch on your asus mobo. It sounds like it's got screwed up doing upgrades and ended up in a bad state. You might find it all works, unless you've got a particularly problematic integrated gpu. If the integrated gpu doesn't work... you could try a basic nvidia or ati card from ebay, but I don't know which one to recommend, I've stuck to integrated graphics for many years now, it's a long time since I put a graphics card in a pc.

I didn't know that about vesa cards and UEFI either! Useful to know. I always used to keep an old matrox G200 PCI card lying around to use in servers that had a pci slot, they always worked. But I'm not sure they ever made a pci-e version of that, and modern desktop motherboards don't have pci slots (bah).
 
Thanks for the encouragement, but I think I will go ahead and exit the FreeBSD desktop experience at this point. I'll still be a loyal server/shell user, but the desktop has become over 90% of my computer headaches.
(And yes, at some point, I'll freshly install 14.3 on the home server/former desktop....)
 
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