Iris Pro P6300 intel X11 driver (was Re: intro)

[Scott Bennett]

Tom Rushworth <tom.b.rushworth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Before I get to the real content, a list etiquette question - should I 
> top/interleave/bottom post, and should I trim?  Does the list care?

     Editing in line is the norm, and top-posting is considered rude and
is usually denounced.  I usually will not respond to a top-posted followup,
but if I do, I always delete everything from the top-poster's signature
onward and then proceed to edit in line; IOW, if his own text contains
references to information not present, he can be asked to provide it.
Top-posted topics are very hard to follow, so I chop them off to make them
easier to follow or drop.  Some people complain that their smartphones'
software is too primitive to allow them to edit in line, but that just
means they should use an appropriate device (e.g., a computer with a decent
editor) when they wish to participate in a mailing list or news group.
>
> Problem summary: new machine with Intel Iris Pro P6300 graphics, FreeBSD 
> 11 runs in console mode but I can't get an X server running.
>
> This is just a partial update on the issue, I haven't had time to finish 
> all the suggestions.
>
> Suggestion 1 - try FreeBSD 12
> I spent a day and installed head as of 2017/10/15 (or thereabouts) but 
> it doesn't work out of the box (the console works, just not the X server 
> with the intel driver or any other default driver).  I have lots more 
> digging to do with it to make sure I really do have the latest, and that 
> the configuration is correct, so this is ongoing.
>
> Suggestion 2 - try TrueOS

     TrueOS *is* FreeBSD 12 (at the moment) at its heart.

> I downloaded the USB stick image.  There doesn't seem to be a 'live' 
> option in that image (at least I couldn't find it with a few minutes of 
> poking around), and the installer does not use the intel driver, so I 
> hunted down another drive for the machine and did a full install. 
> Configuring the video driver to be intel during the install does give a 
> working X server, and checking the XOrg.log file confirms that the intel 
> driver is the one being used.
>
> So now I either have to learn to like TrueOS and Lumina, or figure out 
> where my source version or configuration is wrong for the FreeBSD-12 
> setup :).  I'm probably going to do a bit of both.

     Or you can just install the window manager of your preference, and
use that.  I haven't yet used TrueOS, but the times I've installed and used
PC-BSD (the predecessor to TrueOS) I always installed my usual choice
(WindowMaker) and proceeded happily on.  Lumina will still be there if you
need to use it.  The only nuisance is that some of the special TrueOS
graphical applications may work better with Lumina, just as the earlier ones
did with KDE, which was the PC-BSD standard before Ken Moore wrote Lumina
for PC-BSD.
>
> The good news is that there is a working intel driver for the Iris Pro 
> P6300.
>
> Thanks for the help and suggestions - I'll update again if I figure out 
> the plain FreeBSD-12 setup.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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