Code:
Video driver loaded at boot time
If you want to automatically load a video driver at boot time, we recommend to do it from /etc/rc.conf:
kld_list="radeonkms"
Loading the driver from /boot/loader.conf is not recommended and may not even work. Loading i915kms like this is known to cause a hang early in boot with a black screen.
It should not be necessary to load a video driver at boot time unless you spend a lot of time in the console, but it sounds to me you just want to go straight to slim/mate anyways. Now about this one line to load the KMS driver at boot, as you see quoted above, it is recommended to use /etc/rc.conf. But if you do need to load
a driver at boot time, this should be the way to do it for intel using /etc/rc.conf
Keep in mind that setting this has absolutely nothing to do with your xorg/mate desktop experience. It helps to know the intel drivers have 3 parts,
-Kernel Modesetting Driver, included with the kernel. (Typically only used to give better experience on TTY console, but some people find the driver more stable and use it for Xorg, too, instead of xf86-video-intel)
-xf86-video-intel driver (install with pkg, the infamous driver from intel.)
-mesa-dri (dependency should be pulled in already, this is needed for graphic acceleration stuff)
More importantly, Install the xf86-video-intel driver and it should all "just work!"
If you want to experiment between drivers and configuration options, you can try setting xf86-video-intel specific options, or even uninstalling xf86-video-intel entirely and instructing xorg to fallback on using the KMS driver. Try both the KMS or the xf86-video-intel driver and see which works best for you by creating the following file:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
for xf86-video-intel,
Code:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "SNA"
Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection
Note the "TearFree" option, I have had really great luck with this! A lot of people do not know about it. Using this option, I do not even need a compositor like compton.
for kernel modesetting,
Code:
Section "Module"
Load "modesetting"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "modesetting"
EndSection
Note: Some users who have newer hardware are required to do something similar, by installing the drm-next-kmod package and enabling its' modules within 12.0-CURRENT to gain support for the newer hardware. It seems the future of intel graphics is moving toward the modesetting driver, apparently it is a more maintainable and stable codebase.
Regarding setting multi-display and resolution, I like the little app "lxrandr". It only creates a .desktop file in ~/.config/autostart, however, and the trouble is many window managers do not load it. I just put in my .xinitrc a line to grep and cut the xrandr command from the lxrandr generated file, problem solved:
Code:
# use lxrandr generated display settings
$(cat $HOME/.config/autostart/lxrandr-autostart.desktop \
| grep Exec \
| cut -d "'" -f 2)
Finally, regarding the xorg-minimal meta pkg. Installing xorg-minimal will give you the minimal pkgs you need for working Xorg server / desktop experience... Or just install each one manually, makes no difference:
- Xorg : x11-servers/xorg-server
- mouse_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse
- kbd_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard
- xinit : x11/xinit
- xauth : x11/xauth
- vesa_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa
Note the last one, the vesa generic driver. It may be uninstalled if you are using a specific, eg. more performant driver! Or you can keep it handy, as a backup, I guess. The tricky part is, if for whatever reason your intel driver gets uninstalled/borked, xorg will just automatically fall back to a lesser driver, and not even let you know about it. Performance loss may be felt, however. I see this often with people complaining about video performance, and don't even realize they are using the "wrong" or generic driver.