recovering from the 6.3 xorg mess

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:20:46 -0800 (AKDT)
> From: peter stern <pstern at 65north.com>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-x11 at freebsd.org
> 
> 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.

You REALLY need to update your ports tree. 1.4.6.1 has been the version
in ports since January 2, 2008. 

At least for me, only 1.9.100 will properly support dual-headed
displays. I have had no problems with it and I think that, with a
current ports tree, your will find that Warren's patch to properly get
BIOS is already included.

In your /var/llog/Xorg.0.log you should see:
(--) MGA(0): BIOS at 0x80000000
WB: Reading 128K from /dev/mem address 0xc0000
(--) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block at offset 0x07700
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
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