Xorg error: New athlon laptop, radeonhd video - unable to load
fbdev
Da Rock
freebsd-questions at herveybayaustralia.com.au
Mon Dec 19 22:23:17 UTC 2011
On 12/20/11 03:05, Warren Block wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Dec 2011, Da Rock wrote:
>
>> On 12/19/11 21:31, Da Rock wrote:
>>> I hate to come with this kind of a query, but my googling hasn't
>>> come across a satisfactory answer.
>>>
>>> I'm running an install on a brand new laptop for a client, and I'm
>>> trying to get X up using xdm- nothing. The logs says it failed to
>>> load fbdev because there is no data module.
>>>
>>> I try uninstalling fbdev and running a rebuild of xorg- its still
>>> using the builtin configuration and still can't load fbdev. No
>>> devices detected.
>>>
>>> I run Xorg -configure, and it shows the radeon card fine, 2
>>> displays. Still working with the config file, but it seems fine.
>> correction - its dual display issue that I've never had trouble with
>> before (I also have installed on a HTPC with same memory, phenom quad
>> core, uses a radeon HD card and a NVidia HD card). And no, the Xorg
>> -config /root/xorg.conf.new [-retro] doesn't work as it is locking up
>> and I can't even ctl-alt-backspace, I have to acpi power off to shut
>> the system down. Google's still not giving me any hope... :( Last
>> time I came across this level of issue was with a solo vintage intel
>> card on yet another laptop- it froze the system too.
>>
>> BTW, who says multicard vga is rare?
>
> Some newer laptops have dual GPUs, an onboard Intel combined with one
> from another vendor for higher performance. There's hot-switching
> between the two, but AFAIK it's not supported in FreeBSD. There may
> be a BIOS option to disable one or the other. There should still be
> two video outputs.
>
> More than one video card at a time is a different issue, which is also
> unsupported on FreeBSD AFAIK:
> (WW) VGA arbiter: cannot open kernel arbiter, no multi-card support
It appears that it is something that needs to be resolved pretty quickly
then. The linux guys jumped on it quick as (I'm not ribbing by the way)
- probably their guys came across it sooner than BSD users.
What has thrown me is the fact that I didn't even consider it as a
problem because I already had installed on a dual video system- ATI card
and NVidia onboard, both that will work on a linux system, and that FBSD
has no problem like this either; it just works. Weird...
So what are my options then? I have 2 high performance cards I can't
use? VESA is not exactly an exciting solution - or secure: it somehow
retains the image displayed in memory, and shows it as it loads up X the
next time.
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