# [FreeBSD 13-CURRENT or switching back to STABLE] using X/KDE5?



## dchmelik (Jun 5, 2020)

I'm using FreeBSD 13-CURRENT Unix for hardware support (only other option on particular PC is Slackware 14+-CURRENT GNU/Linux, also using that sometimes) and to report issues/bugs if I can (I also use FreeBSD & Slackware stable releases on an older PC: no issues there.)

I thought I'd get a little farther with KDE, but it's almost unusable (50% of anything I do results in slows/halts, or things might finish displaying right 50% the time or be incomplete--not finish--50%) so I'm wondering if I even did setup/install right.

Last month I made a current snapshot CD/DVD.  As in the handbook (first time, since I installed only stable in late 1990s) I updated /usr/src and did the make & install of world & kernel, clean old(-libs, and of course reboots in between and after,,) then built Xorg/KDE ports (previously tried packages but removed them.)

Should I try something else or is KDE5 more a work in progress for FreeBSD-current right now?

I'd have to backup/delete my entire Slackware KDE files first, which I've done before, then got a fresh/default/blank KDE session on FreeBSD... I managed to turn off search/indexing eventually (otherwise it'd halt maybe overnight while indexing) then set my positions, backgrounds/panels for three monitors.  Editing the panels was another matter... currently it's probably not going to work unless I take all day with it being incomplete/halting 50% of edit actions...

Some programs do seem to run alright, but I don't know if I'll be able to pin them to panels either (what I use instead of desktop icons, though I'd really like a Windows 3, win3 style of program group boxes like CDE, NsCDE)... and I do so much with the panels & system-tray I'll wait for suggestions/instructions/requests to configure or debug (which I'm willing to do if encountering common issues.)

On Slackware they said roll back to earlier QT5 than the most current... maybe similar problem in this case?


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## SirDice (Jun 5, 2020)

dchmelik said:


> I'm using FreeBSD 13-CURRENT


Topics about unsupported FreeBSD versions

All versions of FreeBSD use the exact same ports tree. Thus they have the exact same applications available to them.


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## dchmelik (Jun 5, 2020)

SirDice said:


> Topics about unsupported FreeBSD versions
> 
> All versions of FreeBSD use the exact same ports tree. Thus they have the exact same applications available to them.


I also use AMDGPU (drm-devel-kmod)--which didn't work for me on 12.1--and which apparently may still cause some X problems.

I guess this thread should be deleted then... don't the CURRENT users & programmers at least have a listserv<->NNTP connection?  That's not all, but since years/decades ago, now you can even use both those with a web-forum (like FUDForum)... it'd be weird if all that discussion wasn't possible on NNTP and a connected web-forum...


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## SirDice (Jun 5, 2020)

dchmelik said:


> I also use AMDGPU (drm-devel-kmod)--which didn't work for me on 12.1--and which apparently may still cause some X problems.


We can probably help with that. Assuming it's a supported AMD card (not all new cards are supported yet).


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## dchmelik (Jun 5, 2020)

My card (a type of Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX Vega64) works with drm-devel-kmod, so it might work on 12.n?  I'd probably switch back to latest 12.n-STABLE,  at least until I setup an extra system for testing current.  Maybe I just made mistakes from 11 to 12.1? (or didn't know as much) Everything might've seemed to install fine, then just only one of the three monitors worked (finally worked on 13-current)... should I ask about this in another thread? (in forums -> base system -> system hardware, maybe?)  If I could switch back I'd guess I wouldn't even have this X/KDE problem at all...


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## SirDice (Jun 5, 2020)

dchmelik said:


> My card (a type of Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX Vega64) works with drm-devel-kmod, so it might work on 12.n?


Not sure, the drm-devel-kmod requires kernel changes that aren't in 12 yet. So that's off the table. I am completely lost when it comes to AMD graphics card nominations, I just can't tell what card has what chipset any more, there are so many different names being used. 



dchmelik said:


> should I ask about this in another thread? (in forums -> base system -> system hardware, maybe?)


The X.org section is fine for this. These drivers have more to do with X any way.


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## dchmelik (Jun 5, 2020)

Okay; well, I've always booted to command-line-only and will expect/need graphics/monitors to work well (various ways) there first before ever considering installing X.  If that's okay, I'll still ask there...


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## SirDice (Jun 5, 2020)

For systems without X you don't need those DRM drivers. The console itself only supports one monitor, there is no multi-monitor support on a TTY connection.


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