FreeBSD-12.1 on laptop

[Per Hedeland]

On 2019-11-28 11:03, vm finance wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Its Intel's "UHD Graphics 620". I don't see it installed/loaded under
> "kldstat".
> 
> Do you think steps mentioned in
> http://www.srobb.net/freebsdintel.html
> 
> would suffice to get around the issue I have?
> If not, could u please suggest next steps.
> 
> Pls let me know. Thanks so much!

Sigh, after all the discussion and problem / fix reports (mostly on
the freebsd-x11@ list, which I'm adding to Cc) about the "new DRM"
stuff, one would think that there should be some simple-to-follow
*FreeBSD* web page that explained it all and could be pointed to if
not immediately found.

There is https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics, which IMHO is neither
simple to find nor to follow, and which still has the broken-with-12.1
"pkg install drm-kmod" advice. I think it is sad, since there's a lot
of great work that has gone into this - personally I have a laptop
that wouldn't have had *any* graphics (on FreeBSD) without it, and I
know I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, enough ranting - if you look at the "Intel Integrated Graphics
(aka HD Graphics)" section on the above page, and specifically the
"Example Configuration For Post Broadwell System", and *skip* the bad
pkg advice, you'll find that the next step is to add

     kld_list="/boot/modules/i915kms.ko"

to rc.conf - and actually the "post-install package message" will have
told you so, but yeah, who reads those things...

The problem (not explained anywhere that I can find right now) is that
after building and installing the drm-kmod port (or package), you have
*two* drivers called i915kms installed. One is part of the base
system, /boot/kernel/i915kms.ko - this is the one that doesn't work
for you (or me), and gets loaded if you do "kldload i915kms". The
other is from the port that you installed, and it's the above
/boot/modules/i915kms.ko - you must ensure that this is the one that
is loaded.

The above line makes sure that this happens at reboot (loading via
boot/loader.conf has been reported to *not* work in at least *some*
cases, and there's no advantage over loading via /etc/rc.conf), but
you can also do it manually for testing, by using the full path with
"kldload":

   kldload /boot/modules/i915kms.ko

Read and follow also the subsequent steps in the example, as well as
the "Note:" at the end of the section. If your card is actually
supported (and frankly I'm not sure how to figure that out in any
other way than trying it), you should be fine at that point.

--Per Hedeland