Solved skylake laptop can't see loader menu, but can boot

Something, it looks like it might be a sentence or two, appears and disappears too quickly to read. I'm using an external display but nothing appears on either it or the laptop screen. Then, after about 10 secs the boot messages begin in 800x600.

After that, i915kms (installed from drm-next-kmod port) loads later and things look nice in console and xorg.

Is there something I need to put in loader.conf? I tried kern.vty=vt, but nothing changed.

The native resolution of the laptop screen is 1080x1920.
Should I try setting kern.vt.fb.default_mode?

/var/run/dmesg.boot says when i915kms loads:
Code:
[drm] Initialized
drmn0: <drmn> on vgapci0
vgapci0: child drmn0 requested pci_enable_io
vgapci0: child drmn0 requested pci_enable_io
[drm] Memory usable by graphics device = 4096M
Failed to add WC MTRR for [0xc0000000-0xcfffffff]: -22; performance may suffer
[drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
i915/skl_dmc_ver1_26.bin: could not load firmware image, error 2
[drm] Connector eDP-1: get mode from tunables:
[drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.eDP-1
[drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
[drm] Connector DP-1: get mode from tunables:
[drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.DP-1
[drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
[drm] Connector HDMI-A-1: get mode from tunables:
[drm]   - kern.vt.fb.modes.HDMI-A-1
[drm]   - kern.vt.fb.default_mode
[drm] GuC firmware load skipped
[drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20160919 for drmn on minor 0
VT: Replacing driver "efifb" with new "fb".
start FB_INFO:
type=11 height=1080 width=1920 depth=32
cmsize=16 size=8294400
pbase=0xc0240000 vbase=0xfffff800c0240000
name=drmn0 flags=0x0 stride=7680 bpp=32
cmap[0]=0 cmap[1]=7f0000 cmap[2]=7f00 cmap[3]=c4a000
end FB_INFO
drmn0: fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
i915/skl_dmc_ver1_26.bin: could not load firmware image, error 2
[drm] Finished loading i915/skl_dmc_ver1_26.bin (v1.26)
[drm] RC6 on
 
Does it make any difference if you only use the laptop screen? Also: what FreeBSD version are you using?

And of course: does it make any difference if you try to boot the laptop from other media, for example a FreeBSD rescue environment?
 
Sorry, I forgot to mention it's 11.2-Release.
Doesn't matter if an (HDMI) screen is connected.
There is no beastie loader menu booting from the install media (USB drive).

I just installed yesterday.
 
And did you add anything specific in /boot/loader.conf? Also: does the POST screen of the laptop itself actually show or is that all black too? Because if that's the case them I'm pretty sure you got some kind of a hardware problem on your hands.

Don't bother with stuff such as kern.vty because, as its name implies, that only affects the kernel which doesn't get used until after you boot it.

However... you could look into the console setting. Try forcing it:

Code:
console="vidconsole"
That's the only reason I can come up with which could directly affect your bootloader. I verified /usr/src/stand/defaults though and this setting hasn't suddenly changed.
 
There does not appear to be a POST screen on the laptop. All I know you can do is hold down F2 to get into a very stripped down firmware with hardly anything to configure except the boot device. There is an option in there to enable/disable a System76 logo, but it is stuck on enable. Nevertheless, I've never seen a logo at startup. Anyway, when I was running Linux the first thing you see is grub.

The laptop is a System76 (= some kind of Clevo with modified firmware) with a 15" display. I have to flip it over to see the sticker to find out what silly animal they call it. I think it is Gazelle ( "gaze11").

console="vidconsole" in /loader.conf didn't change anything.


Here's what I have in /boot/loader.conf now:

Code:
kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
zfs_load="YES"
# hw.vga.textmode=1
#kern.vty=vt
kern.ipc.shmseg=1024                                                                               

kern.ipc.shmmni=1024
kern.maxproc=100000                                                             
mmc_load="YES"   
mmcsd_load="YES"                                                                                 
sdhci_load="YES"                   
ahci_load="YES"                                                                                     
atapicam_load="YES"                                                             
fuse_load="YES"                                                                 
coretemp_load="YES"                                                             
tmpfs_load="YES"                                                               
aio_load="YES"                                                                 
libiconv_load="YES"                                                             
libmchain_load="YES"                                                           
cd9660_iconv_load="YES" 
msdosfs_iconv_load="YES"                                                       
snd_driver_load="YES"                                                           
acpi_video_load="YES"
linux64_load="YES"                                                             
linprocfs_load="YES"
ext2fs_load="YES" 
vboxdrv_load="YES" 
#joy_load="YES"
 
Just for fun, I booted the latest TrueOS 18.06, I think. A boot menu appeared at the native resolution of 1920x1080. So beastie menu is possible...at least for their loader. Nothing special in the loader.conf.....

However it was all downhill from the beastie: The xorg-based GUI installer would not start and the Intel 3160 wifi was not automatically detected. Wasn't expecting miracles but it's not any better on this laptop than 11.2-RELEASE. Actually a little worse because the kernel source and ports, which you need to get xorg working) aren't included right outta the box.
 
Putting mode 0 in /boot/loader.rc.local fixed it: I can now see the boot menu in glorious HD.
 
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