# Framebuffer and S3



## tim_212 (Aug 20, 2009)

I have an elderly laptop machine which I use as an emergency backup and for occasional experimentation. It must run X for accessibility reasons.

It was running Debian but repeated problems from updates breaking the system leads me to try again to get BSD working.

freeBSD is basically installed.

Lots of things are dodgy but fixable. Network, keyboard, mouse, power, nothing too difficult.

X is a whole different game and I want to prove that can work. (just the video, other parts are easy)

Right now X is dead.

X under freeBSD does report roughly the correct video hardware (I say roughly because this is one confusing heap of hardware device) 

A web search finds there is a specific freeBSD driver
xf86-video-s3virge  / X.Org s3virge display driver
This does not appear on disk search, but would it?

I seem to recall Debian works provided that driver is _not_ used, fbdev I think it was. Linux must be told to use framebuffer before boot.

-configure blah blah, all done

The debug log shows no errors, just warnings about mouse and keyboard. Not worried about those.

It probes using different drivers then seems to succeed with vesa. Gives resource ranges which look to me like low memory mapping. If so looks sane. PCI detail matches card detect.
That is hopeful.

Conf.new contains no named devices. Test of course is lockup time.

"Screen0" (0)
"Monitor0"
"Card0"

Any ideas on where to go from here?


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## adamk (Aug 20, 2009)

The s3virge driver is part of the x11-drivers/xf86-video-s3virge port.  If you don't have it on your disk, it's because you don't have the ports tree installed   You can also install the package with 'pkg_add -r xf86-video-s3virge', but only do that if you installed Xorg the same way (ie. if you didn't install Xorg from the ports tree).

Exactly how are you testing X?  Just 'Xorg' and 'Xorg -config xorg.conf.new' will start up X, but leave the screen black, without the ability to control+alt+backspace to quit out of X.

Adam


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## tim_212 (Aug 20, 2009)

Nothing on find, assuming I remember how that 'nix stuff works. 

I'm struggling with terminology problem, words with different meanings. Port means nothing to me because it is ambiguous. 

I have installed binary (pre-compiled). In my view this ought not to make the slightest difference to usage but I do not know the freebsd software management system. 

Risked it anyway, tried pkg_add (network card decided to work this time). 

Replied unavailable but is wrong url. Asked for latest but the install is stable. Hand checking from this computer, file is in the expected place.

Typing in the long url. Produces either can't stat or with -r unable to fetch.

No black screen, doesn't get that far, freezes at "Using config file:" blah
Disk activity ceases so I assume is dead.

This thing is _going_ to give in.


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