bhyve Gentoo with X on bhyve

S

scottro

I've gotten Gentoo on a vm -bhyve install. I chose profile 3, the default desktop for OpenRC. However, I can't get start X to work. I've tried, after various web searches, install dbus and make sure it's running at boot, installing xf86-video driver for dummy, amdgpu, (which is the host machine), vesa and frame buffer, probably a few other things that I've forgotten. Friends familiar with Gentoo say it shouldn't be necessary, with the desktop profile, to do extra configuration with the kernel, as mentioned in the Gentoo handbook pages on X.
The errors I get are
Code: 
(EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[   339.776] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[   339.776] (EE) Unable to find a valid framebuffer device
[   339.776] (EE) open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory
[   339.776] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[   339.776] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[   339.776] (EE) VESA(0): Cannot read int vect
[   339.777] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
[   339.777] (EE)
[   339.777] (EE) no screens found(EE)

I tried putting in an xorg.conf.d with
Code: 
Section "Device"
    Identifier "card0"
    Driver "vesa"
but no luck.
I emerged xorg-server and openbox. I'm wondering if anyone else is running Gentoo on bhyve, and if so, what video driver are they using. (I'm using uefi boot, basically the same template that allows me to run X without problems on Alpine, Arch, and Fedora, among others).
I install gentoo as I describe at https://srobb.net/gentooquick.html (kind of a long read, I don't think it would have anything useful in troubleshooting).

The host system is a Beelink SER5, with an AMD gpu that works fine. In Alpine, Arch, and Fedora, I don't specify a video driver, in 2 FreeBSD vms, I use the scfb driver, (and did try the fbdevice video driver in Gentoo)
I'm not sure what other information might be helpful, but I've probably left things out, so please let me know.
If you have Gentoo running with X, on bhyve, what driver did you use?

Thanks for any input
 
I think your guest in bhyve would not detect any real GPU unless you do GPU Passthrough. In UEFI boot, i think you should be able to use scfb but i am not sure, never tried it in any bhyve VM.

Maybe VNC related?
 
It's certainly possible, but none of the Gentoo drivers seem to work. As for scfb, I use that successfully in FreeBSD VM's, most Linux ones, I haven't manually added a video driver, it just worked, I would think with either Vesa or framebuffer.
 
Nice one, keep it up, I'm really interested in gentoo, did you succeed on running it on your VM? If you do succeed, perhaps considering doing a wiki ?
 
Perhaps the VirtualBox, Gentoo guest, Kernel configuration, Graphics support wiki is of some help:
Code: 
    Graphics support  --->
        <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)  --->
            [*] Enable legacy fbdev support for your modesetting driver
        <*> DRM driver for VMware Virtual GPU
            <*> Enable framebuffer console under vmwgfx by default
        Frame buffer Devices  --->
            <*> Support for frame buffer devices  --->
                [*] Enable Firmware EDID
                [*] Simple framebuffer support
        <*> Console display driver support  --->
            [*] Framebuffer Console support
            [*]   Map the console to the primary display device
 
Charlie Brown, it's running fine save for X not working. Not sure if "nice one" means my page or not, but if not, here it is, https://srobb.net/gentooquick.html (A friend is doing something similar for a systemd version).

I'll add that the install using that page only takes 20-40 minutes on a bhyve VM with 8G of memory and 8 cpus, but very little of the time is in compiling, as I'm using binary packages for most of it.

T-Daemon, it seems that the wiki is referring to options in the kernel. I used the gentoo-bin kernel, and did try installing the xf86-video-vesa and fbdev drivers. I'll have to look into editing, or at least checking what's enabled, in the kernel with my Gentoo master friend.
 
You can try to set VIDEO_CARDS="fbdev" in /etc/portage/make.conf and */* VIDEO_CARDS: -* fbdev in /etc/portage/package.use/00video
and then
emerge --getbinpkg --ask --changed-use --deep @world

Also, if not already pulled by emerge, try x11-drivers/xf86-video-fbdev

But no guaranties, I’m also Gentoo noob and running it only in QEMU on Alt Linux 🤷‍♂️
 
I'll give that a try later today. (US, EDT, about 6:00 AM right now, I'll probably get to it in the afternoon). I did already emerge the fbdev driver, that didn't do the trick, but going to try the --deep @world and see what happens.
 
No, sadly, no luck on it. I might just let it go. I'm not super interested in Gentoo--no dislike for it, just no special urge for it. As it was, I'd written a quick Arch howto (https://srobb.net/archquick.html) and my Gentoo friend said, you oughta do one for Gentoo, so I did. Then, once I had it installed, I figured I'd get X on it--I've not had trouble getting X going on Alpine, Void, Open and Net BSD, and several others--and didn't realize it'd turn into such a project. Charlie Brown, if you like, I can send you a message when my Gentoo using friend gets his own systemd guide (which, I think will include X) up.
 
scottro said:
No, sadly, no luck on it. I might just let it go. I'm not super interested in Gentoo--no dislike for it, just no special urge for it. As it was, I'd written a quick Arch howto (https://srobb.net/archquick.html) and my Gentoo friend said, you oughta do one for Gentoo, so I did. Then, once I had it installed, I figured I'd get X on it--I've not had trouble getting X going on Alpine, Void, Open and Net BSD, and several others--and didn't realize it'd turn into such a project. Charlie Brown, if you like, I can send you a message when my Gentoo using friend gets his own systemd guide (which, I think will include X) up.
Click to expand...
Yeah ! Definitely share it just here, on that thread. Do you know that there is a Gentoo Discussion chat on conversation app ? Have you asked help on Gentoo's forum ?
 
Charlie Brown I did know about various Gentoo groups, and I haven't asked on the forum. My logic is that I figure this is probably a bhyve issue, rather than a Gentoo one, and I already get in somewhat embarrassing email exchanges with my friend like, Did you read this whole page and me answering, Ahhh, I see, let me try that. But the thing is, is that I'm not all that interested to put in the time. For example, looking at the Gentoo Xorg page, I have to go through and check a bunch of USE flags, etc. I was into Gentoo a lot in the old days--but back then, I feel as if it was a lot more important to make err, use of the USE flags, and so on, but now that even cheap computers are so relatively powerful, it's (to me, at least) of less importance. (Also, I'm not a developer, I'm a sysadmin by trade, so getting every bit out of my computer so it'll compile faster isn't that important for me).
Lastly, I'm very lazy when something doesn't interest me that much. For example, when I couldn't get Wayland working on FreeBSD, I was willing to try all sorts of things and combinations, (spoiler--it was fixed with an update to Nvidia drivers or kmods, I forget which), but even if I got X running in Gentoo, I'd probably just run it once or twice.
(The thanks is for the suggestions, by the way). :)
 
I want all the time I wasted keeping my Gentoo server updated back! Seriously, though, if there's one thing that's true about installing and maintaining a Gentoo host is that it's neither quick nor easy. Just about the only thing I miss is the ability to skip using an initrd. I don't miss it enough to roll my own kernels in Void, though.
 
Jose said:
I want all the time I wasted keeping my Gentoo server updated back! Seriously, though, if there's one thing that's true about installing and maintaining a Gentoo host is that it's neither quick nor easy. Just about the only thing I miss is the ability to skip using an initrd. I don't miss it enough to roll my own kernels in Void, though.
Click to expand...
If you don’t want to compile latest pkgs and want to save time with installing bin ones, check Gentoo Binary Host Quickstart and Binary package guide.
Don't use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~amd64" in /etc/portage/make.conf
 
And seeing what both vmisev and Jose are saying, I think more and more that I'm giving up on getting X working on bhyve. I'm a bit impressed with myself that I managed to get my quick guide done. :)
 
As a kind of follow up to this---I tried with the Gentoo livegui CD and still couldn't get a GUI. I'm assuming that they have the GUI CD with all possible drivers and USE flags that one would want. So, maybe at some point, I'll try on a Linux laptop I have with qemu, but at this point, as a Southern US friend says his grandmother used to say TMSFAD, meaning (I couldn't find it on the web and had to ask him) Too Much Sugar For A Dime, meaning too much effort for something not worth the trouble (to me). With the console only version I have, it seems nice enough, but doesn't really move me. If I do put it on a qemu VM and get X working, I'll update. (And, Charlie Brown, if my friend gets his systemd version how to up, I'll put that here as well. )
 
I don't know if I should mark this solved. I tried installing on qemu on Fedora, using virt-manager, and that worked with X without too much trouble. Pinging Charlie Brown just so he knows I did get X to work on qemu, so I guess it's a bhyve thing. I used my Gentoo install guide (that I wrote) and then just did emerge xorg-server openbox and a few other things, alacritty as terminal tint as status bar and feh to have a background image. Ahh, I also installed elogind and sys-apps/dbus (there's a couple of dbus's, you have to specify sys-app/dbus and set them both to run at boot. I'm not sure if that was needed, or if all I needed was a reboot, but I'd seen while trying to troubleshoot my bhyve install, recommendations for both. So it works on qemu. If you use virt-manager, at the end of the install you have to choose customize and choose UEFI for firmware, and out of the several options for it, choose one without secure boot (maybe sec something) in its name.
And now that I got it to work, I'm already done with it, nothing special I want to do with it--that's a comment on me being some sort of ADD rather than a criticism of Gentoo.
 
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