Solved Can't start Xorg any more

N

natharran

Hi guys,

I have a problem with starting Xorg on my laptop. I have been using FreeBSD on this laptop for several months and I have always booted it from USB in "legacy BIOS" mode (the only way my computer allowed me to boot it). That way all worked just fine. However, since FreeBSD doesn't support Haswell graphics, my Xorg could only use VESA driver.

My HDD collapsed a few weeks ago so I sent the laptop to a service and once it came back I found that they updated my "BIOS" to a newer version that doesn't support legacy booting any longer. I can boot FreeBSD in EFI mode of course, but I can't use VESA any more. And since that's the only graphics driver I could use before, I seem to be out of luck - no more desktop for me. vidcontrol doesn't offer any resolutions at all, just prints zeros all over the screen.

xorg.conf is exactly the same it used to be, it tries to load VESA, fails and says that there are no screens. In log it says that it did find screens but the settings is not usable. Running Xorg -configure was of no help - creates the same configuration file.

So my question is: is it still somehow possible for me to use FreeBSD as my desktop or do I have to wait until a Haswell support comes into it (which will take a long time as I understand it)? Or is there any UEFI VESA-like driver that is compatible with Intel graphics?

Thanks a lot.
 
It seems unlikely that a manufacturer would not allow some way to boot from legacy drives. They might have it well-hidden, though. What is the make and model number of the computer? Have you asked the vendor about enabling legacy booting with the new UEFI BIOS?
 
Hi,
it is Asus N750JV. Before the update I was able to boot legacy systems but, as you say, it was well hidden back then. There was no option to manually enable or disable it, but the laptop did boot in legacy way when a drive was present (DVD, USB stick, *NOT* the internal hdd though). But after the update none of this works any more. I don't suppose that downgrade is possible, there is no visible option to enable legacy booting, nor does it work the way it did. I hoped there would be some VESA-like driver but it doesn't seem so.
 
Asus likes to do things a little, well, differently sometimes. You should have an option in UEFI under the Boot section named "Launch CSM". It probably is greyed out. To enable use of the option you need to disable the Secure Boot option under the security section first. After disabling Secure Boot, save settings, restart computer, and again enter the UEFI. You now should be able to set up the CSM (Legacy compatibility). Keep in mind if you have Windows installed on the disk, it will not boot while the Secure Boot setting is turned off. Windows needs to be installed with the Secure Boot setting off in order to boot with the setting off.
 
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