# Intel Chip problem with FreeBSD



## maciejsitko (Feb 17, 2015)

Linux user here.

Tried to install FreeBSD following the Handbook - it didn't work, throws me a black screen. Then moved on to see a couple of tutorials and it does the same, either it's black screen or I actually see the windowing system but the screen is so dark that it is very hard to see anything.

I'm sure the problem lies in Intel Chip drivers.

Just to check whether that's the issue, I tried to install PC-BSD. So, live CD looks exactly the same - so dimmed that I barely see anything.
`lspci | grep VGA` gives me:

```
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
```


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## Juanitou (Feb 17, 2015)

These are not supported yet, work is ongoing in CURRENT. There’s even some current threads about backlight:
https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2015-February/date.html#end

Also: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/Update i915 GPU driver to Linux 3.8


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## maciejsitko (Feb 17, 2015)

Okay, bye bye FreeBSD then.


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## sk8harddiefast (Feb 17, 2015)

A bright example of: How a user reacts on FreeBSD's hardware limitation.....


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## maciejsitko (Feb 17, 2015)

What else is the user supposed to do?


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## sk8harddiefast (Feb 17, 2015)

You didn't understood. I didn't say that with sense of irony.
FreeBSD have a hardware limitation but I guarantee that they do everything is possible.
Me too, I have the same hardware limitation problem on my laptop.
So I am going to move to CURRENT. Is unstable but is an option if you can't be patient.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 17, 2015)

We'll see I may give it a test shot, but I don't play around on my laptop and can't afford loosing data if thats to be my default work environment.


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## sk8harddiefast (Feb 17, 2015)

Then CURRENT is not an option for you. CURRENT is the bleeding edge of the code.
Has all the new futures and drivers but also a lot of bugs. In reality is the developer's version.
But. Me for example, I am not a patient person. I can't wait one year for a driver.
I will do it. If will crash, crashed. So simple.


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## wblock@ (Feb 17, 2015)

The vesa driver works on Haswell processors.  It probably will not support all available resolutions, and is not too fast, but sometimes can be sped up: Thread xorg-vesa-driver-massive-speedup-using-mtrr-write-combine.46723/.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 17, 2015)

Just tried CURRENT and still the same issue, screen too dark to see anything or no visual at all.

Now, I laughted when my mate couldn't make FreeBSD work, but now I know why since his problem was black/dark screen as well. Didn't know that FreeBSD doesn't quite support a wide variety of the hardware platforms to the extent of different OSes, such a shame.


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## wblock@ (Feb 17, 2015)

A lot of people still run `Xorg -configure` without vt(4), which does the same thing.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 17, 2015)

`Xorg -configure` gives me black screen of death.

Just tried that on my girlfriend's PC and that's Toshiba (Intel graphics as well, like nealy most of the laptops), and both FreeBSD and PcBSD throw fatal Xorg error and this doesen't even proceed to GUI from this point. It fails to find a display screen (EE).

I'm trying both each time to check whether it's my cock-up, or a general 'hardware unsupported' thing. In this case it says to contact Xorg, no matter what I do, but I think i'd just rather pass on that. It's way too much.

I shall try the vesa driver tomorrow


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## sk8harddiefast (Feb 18, 2015)

I use Intel HD4000 on my lenovo using FreeBSD 10.1
See here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/how-to-lenovo-p400-touchscreen-freebsd.50373/


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 18, 2015)

HD4000 works on the workstation I'm using now back with 9.0 a year ago.

maciejsitko If you are just wanting to run FreeBSD like a Linux user, you can but you sometimes find certain things, mobile specifically, take a while to catch up to the new stuff. However, in the 10 years I've been using FreeBSD, I've never had any issues using the hardware I have including this workstation which I built from scratch using the latest, newest everything at that time.


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## sk8harddiefast (Feb 18, 2015)

Also have in mind. Is another thing to setup a FreeBSD for a desktop and different for a laptop.
FreeBSD created and develop to be a Server Operating System (Power To Serve)
Don't like Bluetooth, Batteries, Hdmi etc. But you can use it from desktop up to do complicated calculations like find the real *π* of the circle
Why we really use FreeBSD on a laptop?
Well. I am almost 5 years FreeBSD user. Some of us, they are over 10!
When you learn this specific Operating System, beside the hardware limitation, you see beauty. You see clean code. You see stability, security.
When developers says: We will do that, they do it until the end. They don't change opinion the next month.
FreeBSD is not for everyone. Is the elite of real UNIX and has none similarity with Linux. Maybe looks almost the same but definitely is not!
We don't try to port an OS to a laptop.
We have the passion to make our laptop serve our lives on every job we want
FreeBSD see all the hardware of my desktop. Every small part.
But my next computer will be a pure server designed to run specific FreeBSD!
`In real world, you buy a computer and try to port Linux or Windows or install drivers.
In real world, you buy specific hardware designed to run FreeBSD.`

(Maybe we make the first just because the most of us, we bought computer before learn FreeBSD but most of us will go to server as permanent FreeBSD users)
Is easy? Is not. Sometimes is very hard! But remember. FreeBSD is not for everyone.

PS: FreeBSD have a big list of supported devices. The most will work. Just because FreeBSD development is slower than Linux, new hardware is not supported immediately. But after 1-1.5 year is almost always fully supported. At least the well known devices


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## wblock@ (Feb 18, 2015)

drhowarddrfine said:


> HD4000 works on the workstation I'm using now back with 9.0 a year ago.


Right, but Haswell video is HD4400 or HD4600.  Intel's naming conventions do not make sense.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 18, 2015)

sk8harddiefast said:


> But my next computer will be a pure server designed to run specific FreeBSD!



I personally think it's crazy. This approach. It should the other way around, I mean why do you have to buy hardware that your system supports instead of OS supporting a wide variety of devices. This way FreeBSD community has almost zero growth potential. People can't be bothered with buying a PC to try out a desktop OS.

Anyway, tried your solution for Intel HD4000 and it's still the same issue of a very dark screen.

The only thing I haven't tried is vesa drivers.


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## hukadan (Feb 18, 2015)

> why do you have to buy hardware that your system supports instead of OS supporting a wide variety of devices


I wish it was that easy. The community is doing its best to support a wide range of devices. But resources are limited and sometimes the manufacturers are the ones to blame. I hope vesa drivers will work for you, FreeBSD is worth the effort.


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## sk8harddiefast (Feb 18, 2015)

`PS: FreeBSD have a big list of supported devices. The most will work. Just because FreeBSD development is slower than Linux, new hardware is not supported immediately. But after 1-1.5 year is almost always fully supported. At least the well known devices`

Because I don't play games and the powerful graphics card I need it for only see and render HD movies.
But. Did you tried to compile 2000 packages on a simple desktop? Well. I Believe that 2 xeon processors do the job much faster!
Also, I don't use LCD panels etc. And doesn't enthusiasm me anymore big cases with leds and coloring fans.
I have this computer 7-8 years. One day, I must change it. And I want to buy a server to do my job.
The only I need is graphics, sound, my external DVD-RW, 2 NICS for Link Aggregation a mouse and a keyboard.
It everything I need. I can have it on a desktop. I can have it on a server too. The difference? On server I have a lot of processing power.
On server FreeBSD will react smoothly. Like to be in his home.

Also you trying to setup FreeBSD and you say that to buy a server is a crazy approach? This is the reason FreeBSD exists! Everyone uses FreeBSD for everyday jobs is at least computer geek! You should know that. All of us we imagine a datacenter on our home!


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## Carbide (Feb 18, 2015)

maciejsitko said:


> The only thing i haven't tried is vesa drivers.



The VESA standard has been around for many years. Just about every CPU from a major maker supports it. It should be the first thing you try when you run into problems. 

My desktop has a Haswell processor. It works fine with the VESA driver.


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## ANOKNUSA (Feb 18, 2015)

maciejsitko said:
			
		

> I mean why do you have to buy hardware that your system supports instead of OS supporting a wide variety of devices.



Because that's the way it is. Everybody does it.

Let's get one thing straight: Windows is the only operating system under which the majority of people can expect to never experience hardware support issues.  This is not because Windows supports the hardware, but because hardware vendors develop drivers for Windows in order to maximize their profit margins and market saturation. The only role Windows plays in that process is to be installed on the greatest number of personal computers in the world, and since (as the OP said) most people can't be bothered with mucking around with anything after buying a new computer, vendors work under the assumption that most people will (and perhaps should) just use Windows. Hardware vendors support Windows, not vice versa.

OS X works very well on the very limited combination of hardware for which Apple has developed it. That's it. There's no guarantee it could work on anything else. People who want to (only semi-legally) run OS X on machines other than those manufactured and sold by Apple need to build computers with the same hardware combination, and then need to use collections of software shims to work around firmware and kernel incompatibilities. Again, it's expected that if you're gonna use the Mac OS, you're gonna use an Apple computer, and since the range of hardware is so limited---one model per product line per year, each containing one model of Intel CPU, one model of Nvidia GPU, Intel motherboards and Toshiba disk and optical drives---Apple has managed to work out deals with vendors for specialized drivers. It's very easy to develop a decent OS when you don't even have to think about hardware compatibility, since every one of your customers and employees are running the same computer year after year.

Linux works astoundingly well on a wide variety of hardware, from ten-year-old laptops to the latest souped-up desktops and enterprise-grade servers and even a few tablets, provided that hardware was manufactured by Intel and/or Nvidia. Try running a Linux distro with the latest kernel release on an all-AMD or ARM motherboard, and see how many problems you run into. I've yet to run a Linux distro on AMD hardware that didn't require users or developers to maintain their own separate Xorg builds in order to keep things running, and CPU throttling/frequency scaling can be a pain And while it's true that the Linux kernel contains drivers for tons of hardware and gets new drivers fairly early, much of the in-kernel drivers are for obsolete hardware, and many new drivers are made on the "Good enough" principle, after which they just lay around until something breaks (Nvidia Optimus comes to mind: as long as Bumblebee worked, nobody bothered writing a proper driver. Then not long ago Bumblebee broke, at which point everyone got pissed. Preliminary, official Optimus support has been sitting in the kernel for a long time with little progress). The Linux kernel contains dozens of obsolete or non-functional hardware drivers that exist only because nobody's bothered to remove them. In the last couple years, most of the in-kernel hardware support has focused on the latest Intel chip developments and Nvidia dual-graphics support, because _Intel and Nvidia have paid employees working on those things_. Most everything else hasn't changed in some time---partly because the hardware hasn't undergone any fundamental changes in some time, and partly because Linux devotees are already used to buying computers with hardware that's proven to work. Again, _it's very easy to provide a decent OS when everyone's using the same hardware_.

In all of these cases, though, the primary issues are graphics and ACPI, and FreeBSD is no different. FreeBSD does indeed support a wide variety of devices, but it isn't a wide variety of devices you're worried about---it's your graphics chip. *The only complaints I've seen about hardware support in my short time here all involve integrated graphics and ACPI (namely suspend-to-RAM).* The former is finicky; the latter, despite being a _de facto_ standard, varies from one machine to the next, and drivers for it are made _by_ vendors _for_ Windows. It was precisely this that kept me from switching to FreeBSD as my main OS for ~1.5 years. Everything else---SMP, USB support, wifi, SD card slot, AHCI interfaces, all of it---worked just fine the first time I tried FreeBSD some years ago. FreeBSD now contains support for multi-core CPUs, Intel hyperthreading, TRIM for SSDs, support for most wifi cards, for ZFS, for hardware and software RAID, and everything else you'd expect from an advanced, modern PC operating system. It just doesn't have a proper driver for your integrated grapics chip right this second. Yes, it takes a while for FreeBSD to catch up to new integrated GPUs because resources are limited (Do you buy a new machine every year, and write the driver for its GPU yourself?) and the devs insist on doing things right the first time. If you'd installed FreeBSD on a "typical" Intel + Nvidia desktop, though, you'd likely have nothing to complain about. Either everything else FreeBSD has to offer is worth waiting a few months for the next release, or it's not. That's your call.


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## kpa (Feb 18, 2015)

One thing to add what ANOKNUSA wrote above. Every operating system on the FOSS market is tested 99% by its users with the developers being able to find only a handful of the problems in their code by themselves because most of the problems are in corner cases that only show up on hardware the developers don't have access to. Now, for every FreeBSD user there is probably hundred or more Linux users. What does that mean to the level of HW support FreeBSD can offer with more "exotic" or bleeding edge hardware? You do the math.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 18, 2015)

Okay, in regards to my problem, can't get Vesa drivers to work properly.

Installed Lumina desktop to test it, but whenever I do startx it kind of goes into the same dark (but not black) screen.

Sooo I think that maybe it's using different Intel drivers instead of Vesa, *can I force the use of vesa drivers instead of default intel?* How?


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## Carbide (Feb 18, 2015)

You need to modify your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, or create one if it doesn't already exist, which is a possibility. Mine follows. DO NOT copy it verbatim.  Mine is for a two monitor system. You will need to familiarize yourself with X. Google is your friend. 

Better yet, install PC-BSD instead of FreeBSD and select VESA when given the chance. It is quite a bit easier than installing FreeBSD, then tacking on the graphical desktop.


```
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "XFree86 Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "Clone" "off"
EndSection

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/illinoy/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/dejavu/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/bitstream-vera/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/hebrew/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/vietnamese/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/indic/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/fonts-indic/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ae_fonts1/AAHS"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ae_fonts1/AGA"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ae_fonts1/FS"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ae_fonts1/Kasr"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ae_fonts1/MCS"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ae_fonts1/Shmookh"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/local/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/util/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "ddc"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
Option "Buttons" "6"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Generic Monitor"
ModelName "Generic Monitor"
EndSection



Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Generic Monitor"
ModelName "Generic Monitor"
EndSection


Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection


Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Screen 0
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "Generic Vesa Driver"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card1"
Screen 1
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "Generic Vesa Driver"
EndSection


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1080"
EndSubSection
EndSection


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Card1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1080"
EndSubSection
EndSection
```


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## maciejsitko (Feb 18, 2015)

That's what I exactly did but its still dark. 

Can't install PcBSD as the installation is too dark to see what I am clicking.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 19, 2015)

Okay, made it work under Lumina. 

Not quite happy as it looks ugly (stretched screen etc). But at least works.


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## PacketMan (Feb 20, 2015)

I could not get video to work on two used Dell boxes I bought. So I changed my thinking. I made them 'headless' servers, meaning no X. Those machines run flawlessly and do what I want them to do.

But Windows has broke my patience. So I got two used HP/Compaq machines; both run KDE, and I have a spare hard drive with a Lumina desktop I did with PC-BSD. Before the weekend is over, my only remaining Windows machine (8.1) will be for 'emergency' use only, and once I see that my family is happy with FreeBSD and KDE (maybe GNOME 3.14 soon  ) I just might try dual booting the other PC where Windows 8.1 can try to cry out "boot me please", only to fall on deaf ears.


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## Carbide (Feb 20, 2015)

maciejsitko said:


> Okay, made it work under Lumina.
> 
> Not quite happy as it looks ugly (stretched screen etc). But at least works.



The stretched screen is probably due to a setting you have that is not correct, but that said, as far as I know Lumina is at best in beta, maybe alpha state. You should probably test with another lightweight DE, such as xfce4, which works fine with VESA.

Also, you would get more and better help if you posted your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and /var/log/Xorg.0.log. And give the make, model, and native resolution of your monitor.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 20, 2015)

Yeah my aim was initially XFCE4 which I normally use on daily basis. And I'm happy about it, I personally think GNOME3 is junk, and KDE has some dodgy software features that either work or don't work at all, or maybe work in a very controversial matter.

Might try that out as Lumina is not that refined yet.


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## wblock@ (Feb 20, 2015)

vesa often does not support the native resolution of new monitors.


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## maciejsitko (Feb 21, 2015)

That I know, and It won't support mine, but the thing is it's very pixelized, therefore ugly.

Anyway, I think I'd have to wait for the support!


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