HI , tried to write this info down to gather all the required setup info in one place.
Who is the maintainer of the HANDBOOK for this type of stuff ?
should end up in an extended 5.3 section maybe.
Comments & Additions are welcome / nesseary maybe .......
=======================================================================================
How to set up Nvidia environment on FreeBSD 14 /15
Nivida OpenGL & VDPAU works without linux emulation. To use things like OpenCL, Google-Earth
and CUDA, Linux Emulation needs to be set up in working configuration.
#1 make sure the you have defined :
LINUX_enable="YES" in configuration file /etc/rc.conf
#2 install RockyLinux-9 base system
to make sure that unsuiable linux emulator is not installed from ports or PKG
first Define:
DEFAULT_VERSIONS+= linux=rl9
in Configuration file /etc/make.conf
If you dont have a /etc/make.conf file copy the default version from
/usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf and add
DEFAULT_VERSIONS+= linux=rl9
to the end of the file.
Then Install Rocky Linux 9 Base using Ports or PKG.
/usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-rl9
Reboot you computer .
#3 Setup /etc/fstab to support Linux emulation
The /compat/linux devices is not available until linux emulation is running.
# Device Mountpoint FStype Options Dump Pass#
/dev/gpt/efiboot0 /boot/efi msdosfs rw 2 2
/dev/nda0p3.eli none swap sw 0 0 # swap device-name is machine dependent
fdesc /dev/fd fdescfs rw 0 0
proc /proc procfs rw 0 0
linprocfs /compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0
linsysfs /compat/linux/sys linsysfs rw 0 0
After yet one more reboot the Linux emulation is fully available.
#4 Install Nvidia driver and tools.
The following PKGs / Ports is to be installed.
x11/nvidia-driver Present driver is version 570.
x11/nvidia-xconfig small utility that generates /etc/X11/xorg.conf
x11/nvidia-xsetting GTK GUI that allows some interactions with the Nvidia GPU
( will install some Gnome Toolkit packages if missing.)
x11/linux-nvidia-libs will install centos7 if linux=rl9 is not defined above. required to install Rocky Linux9 libraries.
graphics/nvidia-drm-kmod Is expected to also install graphics/nvidia-drm-61-kmod.
graphics/nvidia-drm-61-kmod should be auto installed by above.
graphics/nvidia-texture-tools
Multimedia/libva-nvidia-driver to enable firefox additional H/W rendering support-
www/firefox to use/utilize libva-nvidia-driver APIs
(
https://github.com/elFarto/nvidia-vaapi-driver?tab=readme-ov-file#direct-backend)
emulators/libc6-shim installs Linux glibc ABI emulation layer.
devel/clinfo to verify OpenCL function.
multimedia/vdpauinfo to verify VDPAU function
astro/google-earth-pro to verify Nviidia Linux graphics emulation.
#5 COnfiguration and setup.
/etc/rc.conf needs the below two operators in kld-list.
kld_list="nvidia-modeset nvidia-drm"
/boot/loader.conf need this sysctl definition to start drm funktion.
hw.nvidiadrm.modeset=1
After Rebooting and starting you favorite Graphic desktop environment you should be able to run these tests :
The Google-earth-pro application should work with full graphics acceleration.
following the advise at :
https://github.com/elFarto/nvidia-vaapi-driver?tab=readme-ov-file#direct-backend
will make firefox use your GPU more.
These test are run on a QUADRO Turing mobile T1000 GPU. on FreeBSD 15-current.
$ nv-sglrun nvidia-smi
/usr/local/lib/libc6-shim/libc6.so: shim init
Sat Apr 12 19:57:53 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.124.04 Driver Version: 570.124.04 CUDA Version: 12.8 |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 Quadro T1000 Off | 00000000:01:00.0 On | N/A |
| N/A 36C P8 5W / 50W | 1074MiB / 4096MiB | 1% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
$ nv-sglrun clinfo
/usr/local/lib/libc6-shim/libc6.so: shim init
Number of platforms 1
Platform Name NVIDIA CUDA
Platform Vendor NVIDIA Corporation
Platform Version OpenCL 3.0 CUDA 12.8.90
Platform Profile FULL_PROFILE
Platform Extensions cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_fp64 cl_khr_3d_image_writes cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd cl_khr_gl_sharing cl_nv_compiler_options cl_nv_device_attribute_query cl_nv_pragma_unroll cl_nv_copy_opts cl_khr_gl_event cl_nv_create_buffer cl_khr_int64_base_atomics cl_khr_int64_extended_atomics cl_nv_kernel_attribute cl_khr_device_uuid cl_khr_pci_bus_info cl_khr_external_semaphore cl_khr_external_memory cl_khr_external_semaphore_opaque_fd cl_khr_external_memory_opaque_fd cl_khr_semaphore
Platform Extensions with Version cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics 0x400000 (1.0.0)
( Three scrrens full of data snipped )
$ vdpauinfo
display: :0 screen: 0
API version: 1
Information string: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library 570.124.04 Tue Feb 25 03:38:37 UTC 2025
Video surface:
name width height types
-------------------------------------------
420 8192 8192 NV12 YV12
422 8192 8192 UYVY YUYV
444 8192 8192 NV24 YV24
420_16 8192 8192 P010 P016
422_16 8192 8192 UYVY YUYV
444_16 8192 8192 Y_U_V_444_16
( Three scrrens full of data snipped )
Turns out FreeBSD's Linuxlator is already so good it can do this sort of tricks
