HOWTO: set up nVidia Geforce 750ti and KDE5 [using proprietary nVidia drivers and FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE]

1

13elltovver

I didn't find a working HowTo or Guide for this, so I made one, may it serve you well dear reader.

Starting point:

You have a pc with a 750ti running FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE. You are now logged in as "root".

Objective:

Getting the 750ti to work properly with the proprietary nvidia-driver. Install KDE5. Boot automatically into the GUI.

Do this:
freebsd-update fetch

ee /etc/rc.conf

add linux_enable=„YES“

shutdown -r now

pkg install nvidia-driver

pkg install nvidia-settings

ee /boot/loader.conf

add nvidia-modeset_load="YES"

shutdown -r now

pkg install xorg

pkg install kde5 sddm

sysrc sddm_enable=YES

sysrc hald_enable=YES

sysrc dbus_enable=YES

service sddm start

shutdown -r now

And that's it. After boot you should be right in the GUI login screen.

Afterthoughts:

The GPU works well and stable. nvidia-settings is a nice, good looking tool to take a closer look at your GPU in the GUI.

Vulkan support: https://github.com/shkhln/nvshim

Thanks to all the incredible FreeBSD developers for making this beautiful OS possible.
Edit:
  • Replaced nano with ee
  • Deleted xorg configuration
  • Replaced reboot with shutdown -r now
  • Replaced nvidia-not-supporting-vulkan-on-freebsd-rant with link to nvshim
 
Remove that xorg.conf, you don't need it.

There's no need to start a service before you reboot. And please use shutdown -r now instead of reboot. The latter actually kills processes and doesn't run the proper service shutdown scripts.
 
I'm going to add that if you build from ports, you can choose to not use the Linux module. Also, I have not had to use HAL. What I have had to do, I think since 10.x, use install and use nvidia-xconfig and just let it run. Sometimes, (not always), I've needed the PCI specified in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which nvida-xconfig seems to do for me.
 
SirDice said:
Remove that xorg.conf, you don't need it.

There's no need to start a service before you reboot. And please use shutdown -r now instead of reboot. The latter actually kills processes and doesn't run the proper service shutdown scripts.
Click to expand...

Sometimes you do. I have not been able to get my nvidia devices to work on SLI or newer card without using nvidia-xconfig. My cards needed the specific BusIDs.
 
Lol, it's pretty short but I understand. Nano is quick and so is vi. It bugs me when people who do howtos mix in app personal preferences - I use Linux as well as FreeBSD but try to keep the two separated as far as software, commands, etc.
 
Sevendogsbsd said:
I also wouldn't unequivocally tell someone to install nano. That's a Linux app although it works fine on BSD and is a preference, not a requirement. The EE editor and vi work just fine. EE is actually easier to use than nano...
Click to expand...
They both might work fine but (a) I hate vi and only use it if I really have to and (b) nano is faster to work with than EE. At least for me because I also work a lot on Linux boxes.
 
SirDice said:
Remove that xorg.conf, you don't need it.

There's no need to start a service before you reboot. And please use shutdown -r now instead of reboot. The latter actually kills processes and doesn't run the proper service shutdown scripts.
Click to expand...

Thanks, done.
 
Sevendogsbsd said:
I also wouldn't unequivocally tell someone to install nano. That's a Linux app although it works fine on BSD and is a preference, not a requirement. The EE editor and vi work just fine. EE is actually easier to use than nano...
Click to expand...

Thanks, edited it. It's good to minimize the number of commands and using whats already there.
 
13elltovver said:
Is this nvshim official, are you in any way associated with nVidia?
Click to expand...

No, of course not. It's a little hack I've initially thrown together in 3 days (after waiting for official Vulkan support for two years!) in order to be able to play The Witcher 3 with dxvk under Wine. It's about as YOLO as it gets.
 
shkhln said:
No, of course not. It's a little hack I've initially thrown together in 3 days (after waiting for official Vulkan support for two years!) in order to be able to play The Witcher 3 with dxvk under Wine. It's about as YOLO as it gets.
Click to expand...

Well, a big thanks for sharing your "little hack".

It's realy a shame that nVidia does obviously think this is not important.
 
shkhln said:
...in order to be able to play The Witcher 3 with dxvk under Wine.
Click to expand...

So how is running Wine under FreeBSD and how is it playing games under it? I actually have some old Windows games I like to play once in while. I run Windows on my laptop computer, but putting together a desktop computer to run FreeBSD. Wondering if I can run those old Windows games on it.
 
CraigHB said:
So how is running Wine under FreeBSD and how is it playing games under it? I actually have some old Windows games I like to play once in while.
Click to expand...

Take a look at my post history, I've been complaining about Wine all over this forum. That said, If you only want to run old games, you should be fine.
 
13elltovver said:
I didn't find a working HowTo or Guide for this, so I made one, may it serve you well dear reader.

Starting point:

You have a pc with a 750ti running FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE. You are now logged in as "root".

Objective:

Getting the 750ti to work properly with the proprietary nvidia-driver. Install KDE5. Boot automatically into the GUI.

Do this:
freebsd-update fetch

ee /etc/rc.conf

add linux_enable=„YES“

shutdown -r now

pkg install nvidia-driver

pkg install nvidia-settings

ee /boot/loader.conf

add nvidia-modeset_load="YES"

shutdown -r now

pkg install xorg

pkg install kde5 sddm

sysrc sddm_enable=YES

sysrc hald_enable=YES

sysrc dbus_enable=YES

service sddm start

shutdown -r now

And that's it. After boot you should be right in the GUI login screen.

Afterthoughts:

The GPU works well and stable. nvidia-settings is a nice, good looking tool to take a closer look at your GPU in the GUI.

Vulkan support: https://github.com/shkhln/nvshim

Thanks to all the incredible FreeBSD developers for making this beautiful OS possible.
Edit:
  • Replaced nano with ee
  • Deleted xorg configuration
  • Replaced reboot with shutdown -r now
  • Replaced nvidia-not-supporting-vulkan-on-freebsd-rant with link to nvshim
Click to expand...
I am guessing You have the quote in the wrong place?
add
Code: 
linux_enable=„YES“
 
Alita said:
You have the quote in the wrong place?
Click to expand...
Speaking of quotes, those are wrong indeed.

Code: 
linux_enable="YES"

But besides that, the Linux emulation isn't required for the NVidia driver to work.
 
Just for completeness, the deleted xorg.conf needed to be replaced with:

/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

or:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

containing:

Code: 
Section "Device"
  Identifier "Card0"
  Driver "nvidia"
EndSection

(This can be found by generating the xorg.conf (using the tool provided by the nvidia driver) and then simply extracting just this part because the rest is implicit)
 
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