Date: Tue, 12 May 2020 00:43:35 +0530 (IST) From: Vishal Subramanyam <ekalavya.bsd@gmail.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Cannot load intel driver(i915kms) without screen blanking out Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.22.395.2005120024590.1269@devMachine>
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I have a Intel Core i5-3320M processor with integrated graphics, FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE, GENERIC Kernel. 1) Had a fresh install of FreeBSD, tried using built-in i915kms driver present in /boot/kernel. Used kld_list in /etc/rc.conf to load the driver. Screen blanked out after a few lines during boot (presumably right after the point the driver was loaded, until then I was getting lots of boot messages as usual). 2) Installed drm-legacy-kmod, and used the driver file that it provided, i.e., /boot/modules/i915kms.ko. Same result as before. 3) Installed xorg-minimal. Executed startx command. Blank screen. Had to reboot (Ctrl-Alt-Bksp was suggested in some forums to return to tty, but didn't work). 4) Installed xorg. Installed xf86-video-intel. startx worked perfectly. Read the Xorg.0.log in /var/log/, seems intel driver was loaded and was used without any problems. 5) Tried to do a `kldload i915kms` in xterm, it said it had already been loaded into the kernel. This meant that xorg could load and use i915kms, but I possibly could only load it but not "use" it to view my tty. 6) Couldn't view other ttys using Ctrl-Alt-XX shortcut. When I tried to do so, the screen stayed the same but the windows in the window manager went out of focus. 7) I guessed that I did enter another terminal, but simply couldn't see the prompts. So I mentally assumed there was a login prompt and went ahead. I typed out my login stuff and pressed enter. Then I assumed there was a prompt infront of me and entered a command to start another xorg session. Note: Till now, I am still looking at the TWM xterm windows that are out of focus, not at a text console. 8) I execute startx infront of this mental virtual console. Voila. Another xorg session is started at ttyv10 (the original was at ttyv9), indicating that the terminal was there, but it simply wasn't visible and that I could switch to them by using Ctrl-Alt-XX. What's happening? Why can't I use i915kms to view my tty? Why is xorg able to use it? PS: When the screen goes blank while loading i915kms, I think its simple not able to display the tty's contents. So if I do my "mental" trick there and continue as if everything was there, will it work? I am going to try it now.
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