FreeBSD-12.1 on laptop

Polytropon freebsd at edvax.de
Thu Nov 28 21:20:51 UTC 2019


On Thu, 28 Nov 2019 20:24:26 +0530, vm finance wrote:
> Its highly likely that its misconfigured ;( trying my best to get it to
> work so I can do my real work ;( rather than bothering everyone.

No big deal. ;-)



> I am thinking of quitting this startx...and use ssh to login to the laptop
> to do my work.

You need to make sure the following applies to your system:

Stuff you don't need gets removed (nvidia kernel module and
probably nvidia X driver - if you don't have nVidia hardware,
there's no reason to have those installed and _loaded_).

First try the i915kms.ko supplied by FreeBSD (the OS version,
_not_ the ports version). Don't touch anything DRM-related
yet. Install the xf86-video-intel driver for X. Check that
there is no xorg.conf on your system that (for whatever
reason) tries to explicitely load the nvidia driver. With
no configuration file, autodetection should work just fine.

If you see you _need_ the DRM kernel module from ports, get
the ports tree, build it yourself:

	# cd /usr/ports/graphics/drm-kmod
	# make

In case it's already installed (check the output of the
following command: "pkg info 'drm*'"), remove the installed
version first, then install yours:

	# make deinstall
	# make reinstall

Then check the configuration files again: _no_ xorg.conf,
relevant entries in /boot/loader.conf or /etc/rc.conf as
per the documentation.

If you have successfully rebooted, check the output of
"kldstat". Verify that your username is a member of the
group "video". If not - add it. Then login as that user,
and run "startx".

It should work.

Summary: Know your system's state _before_ trying to add
something new.



> Basically use ssh over wifi and continue

That's possible, but why surrender that fast?



> 1. Are there any known issues with getting wifi to work in non-X
> environment in 12.1 RELEASE?

Not that I know. You just have to add the correct entries to
/etc/rc.conf, and your access credentials to /etc/wpa_supplicant_conf,
that's it. Here is an example:

In /etc/rc.conf:

	wlans_wpi0="wlan0"
	ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

In /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:

	network={
		ssid="NETWORKNAME"
		key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
		psk="THEPASSWORD"
	}

Substitute NETWORKNAME and THEPASSWORD accordingly. :-)

The wireless network will be brought up on system startup
automatically. To find out your WiFi adapter's name, check
"pciconf -lv | less" and "ifconfig -a" (this command is also
very convenient to verify that you are connected).

You can find more information here:

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-wireless.html

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/wireless.html

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/setup-wifi-network-step-by-step.67577/

You can always use the console to check each step for success,
so no guessing needed if you seem to have connection problems.



> 2. Is there a way to have multiple consoles (like we do Alt-F1, Alt-F2 ....
> ) for Linux?

For Linux? In how far?

FreeBSD has virtual consoles that you can select with Alt+PF1, Alt+PF2
and so on. You can press PRINT to cycle through the consoles, and of
course SCROLL LOCK or PAUSE to activate and deactivate the scroll
buffer (scrolling with arrow and page keys).




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...


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