ports/156405: x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati driver: no hardware rendering

[Niclas Zeising]

On 2013-08-29 18:39, Matthew Rezny wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 22:31:42 -0700
> Kevin Oberman <rkoberman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 5:26 PM, Thomas Mueller
>> <mueller6724 at bellsouth.net>wrote:
>> Starting X will load the driver at the proper time so that X can
>> takeover the display, keyboard, and mouse properly.
>>
>> I might also note that Intel KMS requires: WITH_NEW_XORG, WITH_KMS,
>> and the build of graphics/libdrm with the KMS config option enabled.
>>
>> If I sent this to you in the past, sorry. I have posted this
>> information a few times and it may or may not make a difference for
>> you.
> 
> I have not tried the Intel KMS as I have no applicable hardware, but I
> have read plenty of reports from people testing. I had assumed that
> when the KMS driver loads, it owns the video card and the kernel never
> gets to take it back. Does it also take over keyboard and mouse in some
> way? If so, that makes the problem worse and explains why some seem to
> have trouble getting a clean reboot/shutdown. I can't fathom why a
> video driver would take ownership of input devices.
> 
> The VT switching issue doesn't seem like it should be a big one to
> solve. The kernel knows how to reinitialize the video card in text mode
> as it already relies on that to switch to a text console while UMS Xorg
> is running. I first thought the issue with KMS was simply that there
> was not a provision for the kernel to tell the KMS driver to give up
> the card. However, unloading the module still doesn't give the video
> card back so there is something more than meets the eye.

VT switching is being worked on, and hopefully will make it in time for
FreeBSD 10.0.  I doubt that the driver takes ownership of input devices,
but maybe X does, and then fails to return them, in some configurations.
 I just tested on my laptop, which uses KMS, and I had no trouble
exiting X, got a black screen, then blindly type "startx" and have it
come back up again.  Neither was there any trouble powering off the
computer cleanly using the power button, so in the general case, the
computer is clearly still alive and working, even after exiting X.  The
only thing not working is the console.
Regards!
-- 
Niclas