# Do we still have Ryzen woes?



## dalpets (Aug 9, 2019)

I would like to install FBSD 11.2 on a budget Asrock B450-HDV motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 3 2200G cpu.
After considerable research online I come away with a feeling that Ryzen implementation went through major teething problems, making installation problematic with earlier iterations of the OS. 

Before I commit to purchasing related hardware could you tell me if an installation with Ryzen is now mostly trouble free. I would definitely want to utilize the vega apu feature & thereby successfully achieve a desktop GUI.

I am not a guru with any form of unix but want to use this installation as a learning experience to launch from.

If you have any comments or you're aware of any reasonably detailed resources online that could help me achieve the above (particularly theGUI) I would be most grateful.

Thank you for any help


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## badbrain (Aug 9, 2019)

My information could be outdated so do confirmation yourself. Even on Linux, Ryzen still has many problems. People recommended to use latest kernel and mesa. Some said Ubuntu since 18.04 has rock solid support for it. But many still found problems. I don't own it myself, though.


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## shkhln (Aug 9, 2019)

blackdog said:


> People recommended to use latest kernel



That's completely normal for any new hardware supported by in-tree drivers. Kernel releases _are_ driver releases.


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## shkhln (Aug 9, 2019)

dalpets said:


> could you tell me if an installation with Ryzen is now mostly trouble free



https://github.com/FreeBSDDesktop/kms-drm/issues?utf8=✓&q=is:issue+is:open+2200G


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## ralphbsz (Aug 9, 2019)

The big question here is not the base OS (kernel and command-line stuff), but the graphics support. When reading people's reports of experiences (good and bad), segregate them whether they are doing a desktop/workstation (with GUI) or a server (without).


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## CraigHB (Aug 9, 2019)

I'm planning a couple builds that will run FreeBSD, one with a Ryzen7 3700X and another with a Ryzen5 3400G.  So I'm interested in support for that stuff as well.  

The first one is for a home desktop system and will have a graphics card, probably nVidia.  Second one is to try using FreeBSD for an HTPC.  Hopefully by the time I put it together support for the on-chip Vega 11 graphics will be trouble free.


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## Kraust (Aug 10, 2019)

I have a 1700 and RTX 2070, and I have been running just fine on a 13-CURRENT build from a few weeks ago. I do see some periodic freezes (once every few days), but there doesn't seem to be any logging to indicate why. 
Big thing for me - 13-CURRENT does not experience an issue I would see weekly on Linux. This issue consisted of my system powering off improperly and causing my machine to be inoperable until I removed the CMOS battery. Modern marvel that switching to FreeBSD fixed this.

But yes, any IGP (Like the 2200G you posted) is going to have bad performance in general. 2200G specifically released with a lot of issues, even on Windows.
I was getting very slow kernel compilation time, but that might just be because I am underestimating how long it takes to build the base file system, even on a 8c/16t system.


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## tingo (Aug 10, 2019)

Ryzen works just fine here:

```
tingo@kg-core2$ sysctl hw.model
hw.model: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor           
tingo@kg-core2$ uname -a
FreeBSD kg-core2.kg4.no 11.3-RELEASE-p1 FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE-p1 #0: Tue Jul 23 18:21:16 UTC 2019     root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
```
graphics card isn't vega

```
vgapci0@pci0:7:0:0:    class=0x030000 card=0x80991462 chip=0x677b1002 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]'
    device     = 'Caicos PRO [Radeon HD 7450]'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA
```
It works mostly fine (there is a weird bug were sometimes colors are wrong after the monitor comes out of standby).


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## dalpets (Aug 12, 2019)

Hi I'm considering a new AMD computer running a Ryzen apu processor. Before I commit to hardware I would like to know if you were successful in achieving a desktop GUI with an available apu capability. If so what hardware combination did you use?

If you have other thoughts on the subject I would be glad to here them, particularly if you used a Ryzen video card as an option to an apu cpu processor, and if there are certain hardware options that you would avoid.

Thanks for any help


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## scrappywan (Aug 12, 2019)

Interested to hear what users have to say as well. The next computer I build for desktop use could be Ryzen based if FreeBSD plays nicely with it. It's my understanding that Bhyve compatibility wasn't the greatest on Ryzen CPUs.


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## drclaw (Aug 13, 2019)

I've got a Ryzen 3600 and it works fine. Apart from an issue with the amdcore temperatures not reporting correctly, which I raised and has already been fixed   (https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239607)

Note this box is primarily a headless server, so I don't have any comment around VGA support etc as it doesn't impact me. I've got a rather ancient ATI 4350 in there for the occasional time I need to log onto it heh.


```
% uname -a
FreeBSD dutch 12.0-STABLE FreeBSD 12.0-STABLE #2 r350624M: Wed Aug  7 08:43:02 AEST 2019     root@dutch:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC  amd64

% sysctl hw.model
hw.model: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor

% sudo dmidecode -t processor

<snip> 
        Version: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor
        Voltage: 1.1 V
        External Clock: 100 MHz
        Max Speed: 4200 MHz
        Current Speed: 3600 MHz
        Status: Populated, Enabled
        Upgrade: Socket AM4
        L1 Cache Handle: 0x0012
        L2 Cache Handle: 0x0013
        L3 Cache Handle: 0x0014
        Serial Number: Unknown
        Asset Tag: Unknown
        Part Number: Unknown
        Core Count: 6
        Core Enabled: 6
        Thread Count: 12
        Characteristics:

% pciconf -lv

<snip>

vgapci0@pci0:38:0:0:    class=0x030000 card=0x02a41043 chip=0x954f1002 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]'
    device     = 'RV710 [Radeon HD 4350/4550]'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA
hdac0@pci0:38:0:1:      class=0x040300 card=0xaa381043 chip=0xaa381002 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]'
    device     = 'RV710/730 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4000 series]'
    class      = multimedia
    subclass   = HDA
```


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## sidetone (Aug 13, 2019)

I don't have a Ryzen, but the AMD graphics on the APU capability works well on mine. Mine is Kaveri. So long as the video architecture is supported, that should work. It doesn't matter if it's as a card or in the APU, the driver treats it the same. It just takes extra setup in installing ports, and configuring files to get AMD graphics to work.


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## shkhln (Aug 13, 2019)

Duplicate of https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/do-we-still-have-ryzen-woes.71830/.


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## SirDice (Aug 13, 2019)

Threads merged.


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## MMacD (Aug 13, 2019)

I need to assemble a new everyday system as well as a new "muscle" system, and would prefer to use Ryzen hardware (but Nvidia video) for performance, cost, and to support AMD.  But what I seem to be reading here is that there are still significant integration problems of some kind(s).  True?


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## shkhln (Aug 13, 2019)

MMacD said:


> would prefer to use Ryzen hardware (but Nvidia video) for performance, cost, and to support AMD. But what I seem to be reading here is that there are still significant integration problems of some kind(s). True?



Wtf are you reading? I've yet to see here a single complaint not related to APUs or PCI passthrough. Both are niche topics.


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## MMacD (Aug 13, 2019)

shkhln said:


> Wtf are you reading? I've yet to see here a single complaint not related to APUs or PCI passthrough. Both are niche topics.


Well, you can't think that calling them "niche topics" makes the problems go away, so what's the point?  Problems are problems.


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## shkhln (Aug 13, 2019)

MMacD said:


> Well, you can't think that calling them "niche topics" makes the problems go away, so what's the point?



The point is that not everyone needs this functionality. For example, you obviously do not. APUs are completely irrelevant if you intend to use Nvidia GPU and you won't be asking generic questions if you were seriously interested in using bhyve.


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## Phishfry (Aug 13, 2019)

Kraust said:


> This issue consisted of my system powering off improperly and causing my machine to be inoperable until I removed the CMOS battery. Modern marvel that switching to FreeBSD fixed this.


Now that is what I would call an ACPI bug....


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## SirDice (Aug 13, 2019)

MMacD said:


> Well, you can't think that calling them "niche topics" makes the problems go away, so what's the point?


When you walk into a bakery you will notice all the customers are ordering bread related products. If you walk into a butcher you'll notice all customers ordering meat products. You are on a support forum. You're bound to only see problems. People that don't have issues generally don't post their success stories.

Searching for problems is very likely to result in a skewed or warped view. Watch out for that.


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## MMacD (Aug 13, 2019)

SirDice said:


> You are on a support forum. You're bound to only see problems. People that don't have issues generally don't post their success stories.


I agree, of course.  I was trying, perhaps clumsily, to discover whether the reports in the thread are just the tip of an iceberg.  My experience, over the years, is that problems in one subsystem often imply problems elsewhere too that just haven't come to light yet.  I certainly didn't intend to upset anyone.


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## sidetone (Aug 13, 2019)

If the driver for the graphics chipset is available, and if the Ryzen CPU works for the available architectures, then it should just work. I know that graphics drivers works (treating the graphics card the same as the graphics on an APU). Of course, some will still insist there's a problem.

For the CPU architecture, I've seen others say it works before. Look to see if the specific Ryzen model works.


drclaw said:


> I've got a Ryzen 3600 and it works fine.


Look on the FreeBSD wiki if the graphics chipset driver is available. If the graphics chipset is listed as it works on https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/AMD-GPU-Matrix, then the graphics should just work, whether or not the graphics is on the APU or on a graphics card. For a non-graphical or console desktops, the VESA driver is also expected to work well enough.


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## stratacast1 (Aug 24, 2019)

I was using a Ryzen 1600 for FreeBSD last year and had 0 issues with it. I was quite pleased. I didn't try FreeBSD + bhyve + Ryzen though, and I've heard there are some hit and miss issues there


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## sigsegv (Sep 2, 2019)

I have a cheap test server I threw together from a low-cost Gigabyte B450 board and a Ryzen 2400G.  I don't run a GUI on it, but it seems to run fine.  I had two spare 120 gig SSDs I threw in the box and striped them with ZFS.  I have not tried X and I have not tried NVMe.  I'm running FreeBSD 13 Current.


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## recluce (Sep 5, 2019)

In summary, the question whether the Vega graphics unit is properly supported using Ryzen APUs has not yet been answered.


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## sidetone (Sep 5, 2019)

It has been answered a million times already.


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## recluce (Sep 5, 2019)

sidetone said:


> It has been answered a million times already.



Really? I know that the question regarding Ryzen *CPU* functionality under FreeBSD has been answered (if not a million times). Kindly provide a few links that clearly demonstrate first hand evidence that full Vega Graphics APU functionality is confirmed, including 3D acceleration and hardware decoding of common video codecs, like h.264/h.265.


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## sidetone (Sep 5, 2019)

sidetone said:


> Look on the FreeBSD wiki if the graphics chipset driver is available. If the graphics chipset is listed as it works on https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/AMD-GPU-Matrix, then the graphics should just work, whether or not the graphics is on the APU or on a graphics card. For a non-graphical or console desktops, the VESA driver is also expected to work well enough.


The Vega chipset is in the link, labeled as working. 11.2 is the minimum version.


AMDRadeon Pro WXVegaWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel module


From a year ago, that list had less capabilities, it said 3d acceleration didn't work for many of them, and now the webpage doesn't mention that, so that is an implication that it has been fixed enough or improved.

Everyone says Ryzen CPU works. I don't have a Ryzen, but I have an AMD GPU, and my video driver off of it works. Perhaps more confirmation is needed for a specific chipset with a latest driver. It really should work. Nothing less than reporting a few bugs. APUs and graphics drivers have come a long way from a few months, and last year, up to two years ago.

I experimented with an AMD APU a few years ago when it wasn't known to work, then I used an additional video card for the available driver. I thought I could help report on if an APU would be treated the same by drivers then as a graphics card. The CPU part of the APU worked without a problem.  A few settings, some counterintuitive in bios had to be set to get around limited graphics, and selecting output. I don't remember if the APU worked well with the VESA driver, I believe it did, but overall the VESA driver did work without the video card, and just the motherboard's capabilities. Whether the APU was working with VESA then, or the rest of the motherboard, didn't make a difference, in how slow VESA was for Radeon hardware. Now due to the improvements of graphics drivers, the graphics on the APU works on the same chipset RX Volcanic. The Turks ATI card was supported, otherwise, I needed VESA, back then.

The 5th column is the minimum FreeBSD version. This is a part of the list including all listed cards that need the amdgpu driver.                                                                          


AMDRadeon HD 7340Northern Islands / WrestlerWorks9.3, 10.0Post 11.2 can use "amdgpu" kernel module via drm-kmod portAMDRadeon HD 7560DNorthern Islands / CaymanWorks9.3, 10.0Post 11.2 can use "amdgpu" kernel module via drm-kmod portAMDRadeon HD 7660DNorthern Islands / CaymanWorks9.3, 10.0Post 11.2 can use "amdgpu" kernel module via drm-kmod portAMDRadeon HD 7700Southern Islands / Cape VerdeWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel moduleAMDRadeon HD 7800Southern Islands / PitcairnWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel moduleAMDRadeon HD 7950Southern Islands / TahitiWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel moduleAMDRadeon HD 8000Sea IslandsWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel moduleAMDRadeon HD Rx 200Volcanic IslandsWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel moduleAMDRadeon Pro WXPolarisWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel moduleAMDRadeon Pro WXVegaWorks11.2use "amdgpu" kernel module


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## olli@ (Sep 5, 2019)

recluce said:


> In summary, the question whether the Vega graphics unit is properly supported using Ryzen APUs has not yet been answered.


Yes, it has, and the answer is “it depends”. The Vega graphics of 2nd generation (Ryzen-2xxx) works, the Vega graphics of 3rd-generation (Ryzen-3xxx) does not appear to work yet.

Of course you can always use an additional graphics card; I've put an Nvidia GT 1030 (cheap, low-power, silent) into my workstation and I'm happy with it. Driver support for it is rock-solid.


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## CraigHB (Sep 5, 2019)

At some point I'd like to put together a little mini-ITX system using a 3rd gen AMD APU, so hopefully by the time I do that Vega on-board graphics support will have been fully addressed.  

In the near future I plan to put together a desktop system with a 3rd gen Ryzen CPU and nVidia graphics so my take on that is it should be fully supported currently.


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## recluce (Sep 5, 2019)

Thanks to sidetone and especially Olli, this helps. So if you want to use an AMD APU, there is really no reason for Ryzen 3x00G at the moment, as these still use the Zen+ architecture and offer an incremental improvement over the 2x00G CPUs only. Ryzen 4x00G is supposed to change that, but will not be out before next year.

CraigHB: I assembled a Mini-ITX system with a 2nd generation Ryzen CPU and (fanless) GT1030. I can confirm that this works fully and out of the box, using FreeBSD 12-STABLE, the NVidia proprietary driver and the MATE desktop. As I was lazy, I used sysutils/desktop-installer to install the GUI stack on top of a freshly installed Base system, which worked very well.

I used zroot, simply for the sparse filesystems - I ran into issues with UFS where the installer created some filesystems like /var too small. For that reason (and as I had some leftover parts) I gave the system 8 GB of RAM, even though it is just used as a HTPC.


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## CraigHB (Sep 6, 2019)

That's what I hope to do with a mini-ITX build, use it for an HTPC.  Right now I'm using Linux on ARM for my TV box, but it just would just be cool to employ FreeBSD as widely as possible.  Some big challenges with that, but all part of the fun.

And yes the APU products do seem to lag a generation behind the CPU products.  Though if I'm into gen 4 on the APU I might be back at square one waiting for graphics support.  In any case using a gen 2 APU might be a better option.


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## recluce (Sep 6, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> That's what I hope to do with a mini-ITX build, use it for an HTPC.  Right now I'm using Linux on ARM for my TV box, but it just would just be cool to employ FreeBSD as widely as possible.  Some big challenges with that, but all part of the fun.
> 
> And yes the APU products do seem to lag a generation behind the CPU products.  Though if I'm into gen 4 on the APU I might be back at square one waiting for graphics support.  In any case using a gen 2 APU might be a better option.



Actually, I moved the two HTPCs in the house to FreeBSD because of issues / challenges with Linux. The worst one was that sound support broke again and again, especially regarding Pass-through of DTS and AC3 over S/P-DIF. Also, audio lagging with Pulseaudio on Linux (when not using Pass-Through) was bad enough on one of the systems that audio frames were dropped or playback sped up to catch up, which led to effects remarkably sounding like a record player skipping and not keeping turn-speeds constant. Lastly, the Ubuntu-based systems tended to randomly self-destruct on updates and reliably blow up when trying to upgrade to a new distro release. Add the shiny new systemd to the mix and I had enough!

Unless you want something exotic, FreeBSD should not be hard to adapt to HTPC use and give you a lot less trouble once it is up and running.

Back on topic: Even with the 2200G, CPU performance is way beyond anything you will need for a HTPC. That thing is running a bit faster than an old server with *two* Xeon E5345 CPUs here (tested by building FreeBSD from source).  Also, the 2200G / 2400G both support Video Core Next and thus hardware decoding for H.262, MPEG-4, VC-1, VP9, H.264 and H.265, just like the newer 3x00G CPUs. So you should be good for low CPU loads during playback as well.


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## CraigHB (Sep 7, 2019)

Hey thanks for that info on HTPC and FreeBSD, was wondering how difficult it might be, haven't looked into it at all yet.  That's sounds like good advice, just use a gen 2 APU.  Sounds like a plan.

I don't have too much trouble with my Linux TV box since I use a product called CoreELEC and those guys deal with things that break.  They provide a ready to fly image for my hardware and they do good work, updates are pretty trouble free.

Still I would actually like to get away from PulseAudio as it's written by the same guy that did systemd.  Don't think too highly of that guy in terms of programming talent, but I'm not really one to judge since I don't write software for operating systems.  I just know I've read complaints about the quality of his code.

Such a case of the Microsoft way of releasing software, put out crap and fix it with patches after it's made everyone's life hell for a time.  They should call it Lindows.


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## recluce (Sep 7, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> Still I would actually like to get away from PulseAudio as it's written by the same guy that did systemd.  Don't think too highly of that guy in terms of programming talent, but I'm not really one to judge since I don't write software for operating systems.  I just know I've read complaints about the quality of his code.



Pulseaudio is capable of causing great havoc, even though it often "just works". If you want to avoid Pulseaudio completely, install XFCE as the desktop environment. At that point, nothing depends on Pulseaudio - at least if you build from source, no idea how some ports might be configured for pre-built packages. Just avoid building anything else (e.g. Firefox) with Pulseaudio. You likely want OSS and possibly sndio. My experience is that KODI works best if built with OSS support only.

If you have Pulseaudio on your system to support the desktop environment (e.g. MATE), I would still make sure that KODI is built without Pulseaudio, to make sure it uses OSS. KODI plus Pulseaudio plus DTS/AC3 passthrough is *not* a happy relationship!


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## CraigHB (Sep 8, 2019)

Cool, good info.  I've just been using fvwm as my window manager without a desktop environment.  Haven't found those full desktop systems to be of any benefit really. Like the simplicity of a basic window manager, but I don't know how that will work out with Kodi which I would use as my media player.

In any case sounds like I would need to use some ports with non-stock configs.  I definitely prefer to use the FreeBSD audio stuff.  Always try to keep things as FreeBSD as possible especially at the system level.  To be honest I'm not much of a GNU fanboy, but it's not something you can avoid and will only get more utilized by FreeBSD in the future.  I try not to make an issue of it.

From what I've read FreeBSD is pushing for better GNU/Linux compatibility these days which I don't think is necessarily a bad idea, but I hope they can avoid too much cross pollination.  I really don't like the way they manage things in GNU land.   FreeBSD has really good management and I hope it stays that way.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 8, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> I hope they can avoid too much cross pollination.


You spelled pollution wrong.


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## CraigHB (Sep 8, 2019)

Haha, putting it nicely I guess.


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## recluce (Sep 8, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> Cool, good info.  I've just been using fvwm as my window manager without a desktop environment.  Haven't found those full desktop systems to be of any benefit really. Like the simplicity of a basic window manager, but I don't know how that will work out with Kodi which I would use as my media player.



If you just want to run KODI, you have the option to select KODI as the X-Session upon Log-In, in that case you will have no window manager or desktop running.

XFCE is fairly light-weight and well integrated with FreeBSD - and you have the option to <ALT>-<TAB> out of KODI to get to web browser, for example. If you run XFCE, you may need to address screen tearing (e.g. by using Compton as the compositor), this is well covered here on the forum.


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## CraigHB (Sep 11, 2019)

Yeah that would be good, being a TV box its only purpose for life would be to run Kodi.   Anything else I'd just do from an ssh session.


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## puretone (Oct 9, 2019)

recluce said:


> In summary, the question whether the Vega graphics unit is properly supported using Ryzen APUs has not yet been answered.



Personal experience: 
#1)  2400G + Gigabyte/Aorus B450 ITX = no DRM Vega graphics love. (-12.0, -CURRENT )
#2) Same 2400G chip + Gigabyte/Aorus X570 ITX = DRM Vega works, no issues (-12.0, -CURRENT)


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## userxbw (Mar 13, 2020)

this is a might be old thread I know that link for post #22 is old it only goes up to FreeBSD ver 11.2 and I am now having to run 13 current due to my wifi card too new for old school FreeBSD. nevertheless I got it on a laptop Lenovo 330s w/ _Ryzen_™ _5 2500U_ mobile APU integrated with _Radeon_™ Vega 8 graphics. its vga works but whenever it gets done downloading the xorg / xfce to have a gui -- do I need to try the amdgpu driver, I think that is what Linux is using. or will the "radeonkms" kernel module via drm-kmod port be a better one. or just leave it. I do not know I do not even have a gui yet. downloads is slowwwwwwwwww. must be the server side.


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