recovering from the 6.3 xorg mess

I am bringing this topic over from the freebsd-stable list
where I started 
the thread. I am hoping to learn more about what went wrong
in my case and 
what if anything can be done to fix it.

A little background. I have been using FreeBSD since 2.2.
present hardware 
is an Intel brand D865 motherboard, Matrox G550 AGP video
card, only 
using the vga port. Viewsonic PT810 monitor

This hardware ran X without problems under FreeBSD 6.0, 6.1
and 6.2. It 
runs X fine under OpenBSD 4.3 and Slackware 12.0

1. Clean install of 6.3 using the X-developer distribution.

2. cvsup the stable branch

3. make and install buildkernel using GENERIC

4. make and install world

5. configure X using xorgconfig

6. quick inspection of resulting xorg.conf looks fine

7. startx, with no customized .xinitrc, x won't even start
up

8. tracked problem down to no installed input-keyboard,
input-mouse or 
video-mga devices. Only found a very minimal set of devices
in the base 
install.

9. installed missing devices from pkg

10. x starts up but video is hosed, scan rates all wrong no
matter what 
gets put in the xorg.conf. modelines don't work. can't
change modes from 
keyboard. lines precessing through display, unuseable
desktop

11. another freebsd user suggested using xandr. Desktop scan
problem can 
be controlled to an extent by xandr but it doesn't report
all the true 
refresh rates and won't accept manually entered rates. Looks
like the mga 
device doesn't support many higher resolution screens with
refresh rates 
above 60hz. I guess, so much for CRT monitors capable of
higher refresh 
rates.

12. took hard drive to computer with nvidia GForce 2 MX400.
pointed 
xorg.conf to the nv device and x started normally.
resolutions can be 
changed from keyboard.

13. problem would seem to be partly in the mga device.

14 found these disturbing entries in Xorg.0.log

(--) MGA(0): BIOS at 0xF7000000
Requesting insufficient memory window!: start: 0xf6800000
end: 0xf77fffff 
size 0x2000000
(EE) Cannot find empty range to map base to
(WW) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block not detected!


My first question is why weren't the input-keyboard and
input-mouse 
devices loaded in the default install?

Just how badly broken has the video-mga device gotten in
FreeBSD.

I have heard from a 6.3 user who cannot change resolutions
from the 
keyboard and he is using an ati device.

drm0: <ATI Radeon RV280 9250> port 0xa000-0xa0ff mem
0xe0000000-0xe7ffffff,0xfd800000-0xfd80ffff irq 16 at device
0.0 on
pci1 info: [drm] AGP at 0xf0000000 128MB info: [drm]
Initialized radeon
1.25.0 20060524

So what is going on with xorg in FreeBSD 6.3? Is there
anything I can do
to fix the problems.

Thanks,

peter

_______________________________________________
freebsd-x11freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-x11
To unsubscribe, send any mail to
"freebsd-x11-unsubscribefreebsd.org"

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008, Warren Block wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, peter stern wrote:
>
>> 14 found these disturbing entries in Xorg.0.log
>> 
>> (--) MGA(0): BIOS at 0xF7000000
>> Requesting insufficient memory window!: start:
0xf6800000 end: 0xf77fffff 
>> size 0x2000000
>> (EE) Cannot find empty range to map base to
>> (WW) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block not detected!
>
> It's a bug/problem with the way historical X tries to
read the video BIOS. 
> In the past, it really didn't matter, everything still
worked.
> In fact, it still may work with the mga 1.4.7 driver in
ports.
>
> Newer versions of Xorg made more radical changes, and
xorg-7.3 in particular. 
> Experimental versions of the latest mga driver
(1.9.100) really want to read 
> the BIOS in order to support features like dual
monitors.  Based on how it 
> works in Linux, and how it will be done in future
versions of xorg, here's a 
> patch for xorg-server under 6-STABLE:
>
> ht
tp://wonkity.com/~wblock/mgapatch/xorg-patch.txt
>
> If you only have one monitor, you can use the mga 1.4.7
driver from ports, 
> which will also take modelines.  The 1.9.99 and 1.9.100
versions allow two 
> monitors but apparently ignore modelines.
>
>> Just how badly broken has the video-mga device
gotten in FreeBSD.
>
> Reading the video BIOS under FreeBSD can be fixed
temporarily with the patch 
> above.  Upcoming versions of xorg will fix it
internally.
>
> Otherwise, problems with the mga driver are probably
not specific to FreeBSD.
>
> -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA
>

The mga in ports reports as 1.9.1. It doesn't work properly.
I did a 
deinstall followed by a reinstall and it remains broken.

I went to x.org and grabbed the 1.4.6.1 source. I installed
that and now x 
seems to be working properly. startx starts up in the
default resolution 
listed in xorg.conf and x responds to keyboard change of
mode lines.

Is there an easy way to determine the version number of the
driver? I am 
now curious what version is being using in Slackware 12 and
OpenBSD 4.2 
which both work properly.

I still want to know why the x-developer 6.3 installation
had no 
input-mouse or input-keyboard devices. Why was a broken mga
driver shipped 
with no warning it was broken? I am getting the impression
the x in 6.3 
was not very well tested.

Thanks for your explanations and suggestions.

peter
_______________________________________________
freebsd-x11freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-x11
To unsubscribe, send any mail to
"freebsd-x11-unsubscribefreebsd.org"