i386/134244: "intel" driver for Xorg is very broken

[Vedant Kumar]

>Number:         134244
>Category:       i386
>Synopsis:       "intel" driver for Xorg is very broken
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-i386
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue May 05 20:20:01 UTC 2009
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Vedant Kumar
>Release:        8.0 Current
>Organization:
none
>Environment:
FreeBsd vk.192.168.1.1 8.0-CURRENT-200902 FreeBSD 9.0-CURRENT-200902 #0: Sat Feb 21 05:58:23 UTC 2009 root at almedia.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
>Description:
The "intel" driver for Xorg has a history of bad performance, but recently it has been completely broken.

Here is a summary of the issue:
* when issuing "startx" on machines with an intel graphics card, Xorg briefly launches and then immediately freezes the system (tested with and without a xorg.conf file)

This issue has been plaguing Linux distributions for a while, though I don't know about the status of this in the -RELEASE FreeBSD (7.2).

I submitted the original bug report on this on the ArchLinux bug tracker, and we have determined that it is not a problem with the Linux kernel (obvious: it is reproducible on FreeBSD) or with other hardware. 

Our fix was to downgrade the driver to the last working version - and everything is back to normal.
>How-To-Repeat:
Issue "startx" on a machine with an intel graphics card, on FreeBSD 8.0 CURRENT.
>Fix:
I think that the best solution is the ArchLinux solution.

They created two packages; xf86-video-intel and xf86-video-intel-legacy.

The idea is that xf86-video-intel will constantly be upgraded as patches come in, but until it is fixed, users can be happy with xf86-video-intel-legacy (which will never change).

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: