Some important video problems (S3)

V

Vladimir1922

Hi there.
I am struggling with the installation of FreeBSD 9 on a very old laptop (Thinkpad T22). It has a s3 videocard, which is not supported in FreeBSD, so I tried to use the vesa driver. The problem is that after switching to a virtual console, it will freeze the computer (this happened in Linux too, so my bet is for a problem in xorg), the new thing is that after the first "freeze", it won't work anymore, unless I reinstall xorg. As this was annoying, I decided for a non-X install, using the framebuffer (like browsing the web using links -g). However, when jumping to "framebuffer", I have tha same problem: A black screen, and a totally frozen system. As far as my limited knowledge tell me, I am using Vesa, not exactly any S3 driver, so how this is happening? Is there any chance of using at least Framebuffer or Svga (svga won' t freeze, but is not working neither)

Thanks in advance
 
Well, that is important :\ I didn't found drivers for the S3, and had read on an old post that the support was broken. I may find the same freezing problem if I go to a console, and no fix to the framebuffer thingie, but if I can at least watch videos and pictures, I'll be happy.

I am going to cheat and use pkgpg, and post the results
 
SirDice said:
Try x11-drivers/xf86-video-s3 or x11-drivers/xf86-video-s3virge.
Click to expand...

It worked!... halfway

It still freezes the computer when switching to a virtual console. Actually this is a problem, because when I do "poweroff", or press the power button, it kills X, and goes to the console... So it will freeze the poor laptop, and I have to "force" shutdown it by keeping the power button pressed, which I don't think is very good. At least I have to read every time I boot a "system not correctly unmounted" warning. I think this is xorg fault, more than FreeBSD, as Linux with different kernels did the same to me.
 
Try to set both console and xorg color depth at 16bit or at least the same value. At some high video resolutions the 24/32 color depth cannot be set, not enough video ram, maybe.
 
freethread said:
Try to set both console and xorg color depth at 16bit or at least the same value. At some high video resolutions the 24/32 color depth cannot be set, not enough video ram, maybe.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the answer. I already tried to set both at 16 bits, I tred also with 8, but it won't accept anything less, and it crashes the same. I also tried to desactivate the VESA module, but there is the same result... My video card has 8mb of RAM

As an alternative, there is some way i can fix it, or at least shut down my computer without hanging it? (like some way of umounting the root filesistem, which i recon will hang it too, but would be less risky)
 
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