Pentium/Celeron laptops can't run a DE, does anyone got it working?

K

kriptomahsun

For example currently I use Pentium N3700 laptop, Linux works but on FreeBSD, even though I load the i915kms driver it won't start the xorg. Also with ghostbsd, it will install but nothing will show up, only tty screen.
 
kriptomahsun said:
For example currently I use Pentium N3700 laptop, Linux works but on FreeBSD, even though I load the i915kms driver it won't start the xorg. Also with ghostbsd, it will install but nothing will show up, only tty screen.
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How much RAM do you have? Laptops with N3700 typically come with about 4 GB pre-installed.

Also, just loading the correct driver via/etc/rc.conf is not enough. Do you have graphics/drm-kmod installed? The FreeBSD User Handbook can walk you through the installation and setup.
 
astyle said:
How much RAM do you have? Laptops with N3700 typically come with about 4 GB pre-installed.

Also, just loading the correct driver via/etc/rc.conf is not enough. Do you have graphics/drm-kmod installed? The FreeBSD User Handbook can walk you through the installation and setup.
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I have done both. 4GB is enough for UFS. It simply hangs and throws a lot of messages in to the tty screen. Let me grab a screenshot.
 
This happens:
 

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I'd suggest going for a clean re-install, complete with re-formatting of the SSD/HDD.

For that re-install, get to the base running system (make sure you can login from command-line, like in the User Handbook), and then install just graphics/drm-kmod. Then do the following:
Code: 
# kldload i915.ko

Yeah, do it by hand, and see what happens. The screen should flicker, and switch to a higher resolution, even in command-line. And you should be able to proceed to be able to use command-line even after this.

If this succeeds, you're good to continue the installation. If not, please post back and describe the errors that the steps above generated.
 
You may also want to try the frame buffer driver - just to see if the problem is in the i915kms and get the X going. Create
/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/fb.conf with something like this inside:

Code: 
Section "Device"
    Identifier "scfb"
    Driver      "scfb"
EndSection

If it works, check if your GPU is supported by the version of drm-kmod.
 
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