# X.org ATI 6550 Card and Vesa Driver



## TjPhysicist (May 7, 2013)

Hi,

*I* am trying to get Xorg working on my desktop with an ATI card and the VESA driver. *H*ere are the steps taken (the first bit is the output of `X -configure`): http://bpaste.net/show/96937/, and here is my xorg.conf.new: http://bpaste.net/show/96940/

I don't want anything fancy like 3*D* and so on, so I don't really care about an ATI driver which will likely never work for my card, but *I* would like to get at least a basic VESA driver working with a decent resolution. 

*A*dditionally installing the ATI driver makes `X -configure` with 
	
	



```
cannot change group or owner of /dev/dri!2 no such file
```
 (or similar) error.

*I*f *I* just run `startx` or X without KMS enabled in make.conf (after recompiling everything) I get this: 

http://bpaste.net/show/97005/


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## adamk (May 7, 2013)

Sadly, it's quite possible that the video card does not support VESA. 

I know you said you don't care about the ATI driver as you don't think it will ever likely work for your card, but that's not true. 2D acceleration is certainly available now, but it does require that you use the very new KMS support for radeon GPUs:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/AMD_GPU


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## Beeblebrox (May 7, 2013)

If adamk is helping, you cannot find a better guru on Xorg issues.

Just my 2 cents: What is the output of
`$ ls /dev/dri*`?

The below message should have given a clue that you have not loaded the kernel module required for your card...

```
/dev/dri!2 no such file
```


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## TjPhysicist (May 7, 2013)

adamk said:
			
		

> Sadly, it's quite possible that the video card does not support VESA.
> 
> I know you said you don't care about the ATI driver as you don't think it will ever likely work for your card, but that's not true. 2D acceleration is certainly available now, but it does require that you use the very new KMS support for radeon GPUs:
> 
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/AMD_GPU



I tried installing the ATI driver (from ports) and loading it using `kldload radeon` which worked, but it still complained about being unable to change /dev/dri (which makes sense, since it doesn't exist). When I tried that, i was using -CURRENT (as of yesterday) and the new x11/xorg as well as kms enabled in make.conf. Are there any extra patches I have to download? x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati says that it has KMS disabled in the Makefile until KMS is fixed completely (I went into the Makefile and took that line out as well to see if that would make a difference, still no).


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## adamk (May 7, 2013)

Take a look at the link I gave above. It gives you the location for the codebase. It is not yet merged in -CURRENT.

Adam


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## TjPhysicist (May 7, 2013)

adamk said:
			
		

> Take a look at the link I gave above. It gives you the location for the codebase. It is not yet merged in -CURRENT.
> 
> Adam



O whoops, my mistake, I missed that the first time, just saw it. *C*loning and compiling now. Thank you.


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## TjPhysicist (May 7, 2013)

Additionally I forgot to mention that I have HD 6530D from the Northern Islands series, hopefully enough stuff works to be functional as it's not there on that table.


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## TjPhysicist (May 9, 2013)

adamk said:
			
		

> Sadly, it's quite possible that the video card does not support VESA.
> 
> I know you said you don't care about the ATI driver as you don't think it will ever likely work for your card, but that's not true. 2D acceleration is certainly available now, but it does require that you use the very new KMS support for radeon GPUs:
> 
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/AMD_GPU



Just compiled the kms-radeon branch of the Git thing linked on https://wiki.freebsd.org/AMD_GPU then recompiled all Xorg stuff again (enabled KMS and NEW_XORG) but I still get the following: 
http://bpaste.net/show/97509/

The radeon driver is loaded, however `ls /dev/dri*` gives 
	
	



```
ls: No Match
```


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## adamk (May 9, 2013)

Try loading the (iirc) radeonkms kernel module before starting X. This will blank the console, so you will have to either type `startx` blindly after, or log in remotely via ssh.


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## TjPhysicist (May 9, 2013)

Yes, I see the radeonkms module, loaded it (nothing happened oddly enough, maybe because I'm using VESA on the console?), still the same issue. Even more weird, is that now I deinstalled x11-driver/xf86-video-ati and then ran `startx` and it all works dandy (except I don't get 1080p, just 1024x768 which is the best mode I could find to use with VESA driver).


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## TjPhysicist (May 9, 2013)

I just rebooted with radeon and radeonkms enabled via loader.conf. I get the following (what I THINK is a kernel panic):


```
info: [drm] igp_read_bios_from_vram Incorrect BIOS signature: 0x450F
error: [drm:pid0:radeon_get_bios] *ERROR* Unable to locate BIOS ROM
drmn0: error: Fatal error during GPU init
info: [drm] radeon: finishing device.
[TTM} Memory type 2 has not been initialised
```

This happened the first time I rebooted after recompiling stuff with the new source and so on, but then I could boot again this evening, and now it's back to this.


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## adamk (May 9, 2013)

Sorry, not sure what's going on there. All I can say is that I am able to get 2D acceleration just fine with an HD6850 and an HD6950.

I'd suggest sending an email to the folks working on the FreeBSD KMS code, or the freebsd-x11 mailing list.

Adam


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## andersbo87 (May 27, 2013)

TjPhysicist said:
			
		

> I just rebooted with radeon and radeonkms enabled via loader.conf. I get the following (what I THINK is a kernel panic):
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



Pretty much the same thing happens to me as well. The only difference is that I use a Radeon HD 6770M. I didn't try typing `kldload radeonkms` before starting X (because the screen froze, I thought my Mac had frozen and rebooted the machine instead of typing `startx` as suggested above). I also added radeonkms to /boot/loader.conf, and got the same panic-like condition you got. However, I was able to `kldload radeonkms` *after* starting X, but running `kldunload radeonkms` (while in X), resulted in an other kernel panic. The uploaded file, core.txt.bz2, contains a dump of the panic, included messages from `dmesg`.


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## adamk (May 27, 2013)

That's a laptop video card...  Is this a laptop with hybrid graphics? If so, I would not expect the radeon GPU to be usable.


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## andersbo87 (May 27, 2013)

adamk said:
			
		

> That's a laptop video card...  Is this a laptop with hybrid graphics? If so, I would not expect the radeon GPU to be usable.



I guess it is. It has both an Intel HD Graphics 3000 and a Radeon HD 6770M. I can only use the Intel card Mac OS X. When I'm using Windows and FreeBSD, I'm forced by Apple to use the Radeon card. As far as I know, Apple's BIOS emulation (which only works on MBR formatted disks) does not support changing graphics cards. So I guess I'm a bit out of luck thereâ€¦


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