recovering from the 6.3 xorg mess

[peter stern]

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, Warren Block wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, peter stern wrote:
>
>> 14 found these disturbing entries in Xorg.0.log
>> 
>> (--) MGA(0): BIOS at 0xF7000000
>> Requesting insufficient memory window!: start: 0xf6800000 end: 0xf77fffff 
>> size 0x2000000
>> (EE) Cannot find empty range to map base to
>> (WW) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block not detected!
>
> It's a bug/problem with the way historical X tries to read the video BIOS. 
> In the past, it really didn't matter, everything still worked.
> In fact, it still may work with the mga 1.4.7 driver in ports.
>
> Newer versions of Xorg made more radical changes, and xorg-7.3 in particular. 
> Experimental versions of the latest mga driver (1.9.100) really want to read 
> the BIOS in order to support features like dual monitors.  Based on how it 
> works in Linux, and how it will be done in future versions of xorg, here's a 
> patch for xorg-server under 6-STABLE:
>
> http://wonkity.com/~wblock/mgapatch/xorg-patch.txt
>
> If you only have one monitor, you can use the mga 1.4.7 driver from ports, 
> which will also take modelines.  The 1.9.99 and 1.9.100 versions allow two 
> monitors but apparently ignore modelines.
>
>> Just how badly broken has the video-mga device gotten in FreeBSD.
>
> Reading the video BIOS under FreeBSD can be fixed temporarily with the patch 
> above.  Upcoming versions of xorg will fix it internally.
>
> Otherwise, problems with the mga driver are probably not specific to FreeBSD.
>
> -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA
>

The mga in ports reports as 1.9.1. It doesn't work properly. I did a 
deinstall followed by a reinstall and it remains broken.

I went to x.org and grabbed the 1.4.6.1 source. I installed that and now x 
seems to be working properly. startx starts up in the default resolution 
listed in xorg.conf and x responds to keyboard change of mode lines.

Is there an easy way to determine the version number of the driver? I am 
now curious what version is being using in Slackware 12 and OpenBSD 4.2 
which both work properly.

I still want to know why the x-developer 6.3 installation had no 
input-mouse or input-keyboard devices. Why was a broken mga driver shipped 
with no warning it was broken? I am getting the impression the x in 6.3 
was not very well tested.

Thanks for your explanations and suggestions.

peter