PowerMac G5 and KMS

[Mark Millard]

On 2017-Mar-2, at 9:37 AM, Justin Hibbits <jrh29 at alumni.cwru.edu> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:42 AM, Hiroo Ono (小野寛生)
> <hiroo.ono+freebsd at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I recently installed 12-current powerpc64 r313561 to a PowerMac G5
>> (it is dual processor, but I do not know its detail).
>> 
>> When I try to load drm2.ko and radeonkms.ko,
>> the screen turns into black and recovers, then the system locks.
>> kldload command does not return, no response to keyboard input, etc.
>> 
>> Is it possible to use KMS on FreeBSD/powerpc64?
>> 
>> The log in /var/log/messages is
>> 
>> after "kldload drm2",
>> 
>> kernel: info: [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
>> 
>> and then, after "kldload radeonkms",
>> 
>> kernel: iic0: <I2C generic I/O> on iicbus0
>> kernel: iic1: <I2C generic I/O> on iicbus1
>> kernel: drmn0: <ATI Radeon AP 9600> on vgapci0
>> kernel: info: [drm] RADEON_IS_AGP
>> kernel: info: [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RV350 0x1002:0x4150
>> 0x1002:0x4150).
>> kernel: info: [drm] register mmio base: 0x90000000
>> kernel: info: [drm] register mmio size: 65536
>> kernel: info: [drm] igp_read_bios_from_vram: ===> Try IGP's VRAM...
>> kernel: info: [drm] igp_read_bios_from_vram: VRAM base address: 0x98000000
>> kernel: info: [drm] igp_read_bios_from_vram: Map address:
>> 0xc000000061412000 (262144 bytes)
>> kernel: info: [drm] igp_read_bios_from_vram: Incorrect BIOS signature:
>> 0x0000
>> kernel: info: [drm] radeon_read_bios: ===> Try PCI Expansion ROM...
>> kernel: info: [drm] radeon_read_bios: Map address: 0xc000000061412000
>> (131072 bytes)
>> kernel: info: [drm] radeon_read_bios: Incorrect BIOS signature: 0x2AFF
>> kernel: info: [drm] legacy_read_disabled_bios: ===> Try disabled BIOS
>> (legacy)...
>> kernel: info: [drm] radeon_read_bios: ===> Try PCI Expansion ROM...
>> kernel: info: [drm] radeon_read_bios: Map address: 0xc000000061412000
>> (131072 bytes)
>> 
>> As the system locks up here, I have to power it off forcibly.
> 
> Congratulations (?) you are quite possibly the first person to report
> even attempting to use radeonkms on powerpc64.  Frankly, I'm not
> surprised that it doesn't work for you.  Unfortunately, I don't have a
> solution, or even a means to track it down.  Looking at the log
> snippet, my first guess is there may need to be a provision added to
> the driver for non-x86.  Do you know what card this is?
> 
> Adding a couple other lists with people who might have more insight.
> 
> If it can be made to work, I'd definitely want to get a Radeon card for my G5(s)
> 
> - Justin

Back on 2014-Nov-21 I wrote the following in one of my messages on the
lists on that day:

> FYI: I've been building and trying Jean-Sébastien Pédron's kms-drm-update-38 branch when Jean requested (sometimes with patches that Jean provided). This was to give Jean some (indirect) access to a powerpc64 (PowerMac G5) Radeon context for some radeonkms development. (Jean had been hoping to get my card going in that context.) We got to the point that a kldload for radeonkms did not complain/refuse but the display was then munged up and the driver could not find the Video BIOS. The fact that it is a Radeon X1950 for the video hardware may make it odder than usual for PowerMac G5 Radeons. But it is the only Radeon that I have access to for G5's. (The card works in Mac OS X 10.5.) 

(As I remember this was a PowerMac G5 so-called "Quad Core" as the G5
context. I do not currently have access to the X1950 card.)

I'm not sure from what I read if things are about the same vs. if things
are worse now. I do not remember the details from back then, such as
console vs. X11 that I was not explicit about in the quoted material.

I eventually gave up on using X11 "for a time" --and have not tried again
so far. I've no clue about the current status for X11 on PowerMacs of
any kind --or what I'd need to do to try it for the Radeon X1950 or
any NVIDIA cards. (Currently an NVIDIA card is installed.)

I will eventually have access to the X1950 again, but not soon.

===
Mark Millard
markmi at dsl-only.net