Hi and.. Nvidia 310M & Old ati radeon

V

Vladimir1922

Hello.

I have been a linux user for the last 10 years, switching from distro to distro, until I heard about FreeBSD, and got interested (I always looked forward to use real UNIX). After trying it on a virtual machine, I fell in love, specially with the ports system (I even like it much more than on Gentoo), and I am going to install it on my backup computer (a 10 year old Thinkpad), and after that I plan to install it on my main computer. Lucky I hope I can cope with the subtle differences quickly. However, I have some hardware questions (sorry for being so impatient, can't wait a day for my other laptop to arrive, lol)

The IBM T41 will come with either a ATI Radeon 7500 or Radeon 9000. I heard that ATI support is not very good, but I have high expectations on how old the hardware it will be so it had years to have a driver. I can't find however an updated howto install (newest one I found in google was from 2008). I understand I have to install xf86-ati? (tough FreeBSD used x.org). Someone knows It will have 3D acceleration?

My main computer used a Nvidia 310M. The problem with this driver on Linux, is that despite newer drivers say that my card is supported, I find a lot of problems, like being unable to switch to a console after starting X, or being absolutely unable to use fullscreen (I get a small box surrounded by black), so I had to stick to the old 127.x driver series, or use NOUVEAU. I found that 127.X is not the one I'll find on the port system, and I didn't saw any reference to any free driver, which is understandable, as it is something you compile on the Linux kernel. Will I find any problem? May I be able to install the normal 127.X driver for Linux, or the x11/nvidia-driver (version 305) will give me nice fullscreen and console to my weird 1366x768 resolution?

Thank you in advance, and hoping I won't bug the community with random questions. I always try to find it on manuals first :P
 
I never had any issues with that driver. I have several machines with NVidia cards.
 
hmmm... back up your data and give it a try.

It seems old ATI cards are well supported with the drm/drm2 in kernel. but I have no ATI cards to test that.

For NVIDIA, I think it's better than ATI on FreeBSD, though many hate it for being close sourced...
I've been running FreeBSD for years. And each time I consider getting a new desktop computer to run FreeBSD, I am thinking of Nvidia rather than ATI or anything else.

Anyway, I am not 100% sure if your machines would be OK. But just give it a try.
 
In the end, the Laptop I got is a T22, which has a S3 card with 8 mb. Because the installation was hell (not for any other reason than 866 mhz is not optimal if you have to compile a lot), and his low power, I decided to not use any kind of X, so as far as framebuffer works (I am working on it), I won't mind much about 3d.

It is true that I don't like the idea of propietary drivers for Nvidia, I promised myself never use nvidia or Intel again (and i failed,lol), but so far I am liking freeBSD so much that I'll delete my Arch partition and install only FreeBSD. I am just waiting for my T22 to finish his compilations and have a functional computer where i can do on a console my own stuff (inclding chat, mail, music,and youtube) in case I fail with my main computer. Thank you very much for the help
 
If you have another, heavier, machine, you can do all the compilations on that. Build your own packages and transfer those to the laptop. Having your own package repository makes life so much easier.
 
SirDice said:
If you have another, heavier, machine, you can do all the compilations on that. Build your own packages and transfer those to the laptop. Having your own package repository makes life so much easier.
Click to expand...

That sounds like black magic to me right now, but at the same time is an amazing idea. Some sort of local ftp? I do have a modern computer, but with different architectures (x64 against i386). The hardest part must be to resolve all the dependencies... (Is not to compile a package with 32 bit only comp, but also all their dependencies). Anyway I almost finished with the old one. I have some issues to solve, like being unable to use framebuffer and svga, but I may try to install freeBSD on the newer laptop before fixing those
 
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