Some good impressions of 10.1, Intel and Xorg

S

scottro

After reading about the vt(4) driver solving some Intel issues, I gave FreeBSD-10.1-RC3 a spin.

Usually, I build x11-servers/xorg-server from source and choose to not use HAL. There's no real reason for me doing this, it's just that I always wind up trying to start X without enabling hald(8) and wind up with a frozen system. (That tag is leading to a link saying there is no man(8) for hald, and searching using all rather than section 8 still brings up nothing--however, if you're on your own system and type man hald you'll get it.) This time, however, I used the package, just to enjoy not having to add anything to /etc/make.conf.

This is on a Clevo laptop with an Intel video card. Prior to this, if I ever tried to get out of X, or go to another console, X froze (what kind of tag should I use for X? I swear, I'm never going to get my tags right --oh well, I'm going for file--minor petty annoyance, I prefer the lower case tags--I feel like the old forum used to have it in lower case, but actually don't remember--but I digress.)

When I first tried going to a console or closing, I found the same thing I always had, that the machine froze and was no longer responsive to input (though I could use SSH and get to it that way.)


Once I added
Code: 
kern.vty=vt
to /boot/loader.conf as suggested, however, I was then able to close X, use ctl+alt plus an F key to get to a console, and all the things I've been able to do on my workstation with an x11/nvidia-driver. The last issue that I ran into was that X was taking over a minute to start. I found the answer in a 2009 post here (can one like a 5 year old post or is that frowned upon?), https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/startx-bad-display-name.8003/#post-46611. I hadn't changed my /etc/hosts to match my /etc/rc.conf file's hostname. Once I did that, everything was great.

TL;DR, FreeBSD-10.1 with the new Xorg version and the vt(4) driver seems to have solved many issues with Intel graphics cards.
 
Hi scottro, nice post. I'm not familiar with Clevo hardware. What type of Intel hardware? I'm struggling with HD3000. It used to work perfectly with the old xorg stack but does not with the new one. I'm assuming you are referring to FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE? I'm willing to try anything to get my 3D and openGL render back but really do not want to attempt updating if it's not going to do anything for me. Have not read anything in updating yet 10.0-RELEASE to 10.1-RELEASE.
 
I mean 10.1-RC3 to be specific, RELEASE should be out soon. Clevo is some generic type laptop, I got mine from rjtech.com a couple of years ago. As for upgrading from 10 to 10-1, it didn't go smoothly for me, but I think I missed some things--not sure what, and I wouldn't warn people against doing it, because I suspect it was error on my part, but do make backups first. :)

As for the Intel graphics card, I'm not even sure which card--I think it's a 4600, but I'm getting that from looking at rjtech's site and seeing what they offer now, when this is something I bought a couple of years ago.
 
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