• MarkLinimon
• WorkAreaGraphics2

FreeBSD DRM and Graphics Support

Introduction

This page and all the linked articles presents the status and directions of all the low-level components making FreeBSD usable as a desktop.

This includes:

• Servers:

  • X.Org-related ports: xserver, libraries, tools

  • Wayland-related ports (support in progress)

• Libraries:
  • Mesa ports: libGL, dri, libglesv2, libEGL, freeglut, libGLU, libGLw, mesa-demos, libosmesa

  • OpenCL low-level libraries

  • Userland drivers (ie. xf86-*)

  • Input devices detection and configuration
• Kernel drivers:
  • Kernel-side GPU drivers (i.e. drm-* kernel modules)

It does not include:

• Gnome, KDE or any other integrated desktop environments. Please reference their individual pages.

• Image processing or drawing software applications.

Developer info and TODOs

Developer information, including tasks in progress and similar, is available in the developer section.

TODO

Tasks currently worked on by the Graphics Team

Tasks available to contributers

Contact

• Mailing List: freebsd-x11

• IRC: #freebsd-xorg (EFnet)

• Gitter: https://gitter.im/FreeBSDDesktop/Lobby

• GitHub: Various Repos

We also have a blog, which contains posts about:

• Upcoming changes
• Technical background and questions
• Report team changes and how we work
• Report to the community following an event

Hardware Support

Chipsets

Most x86-class machines will have a graphics chipset from one of the following manufacturers. Each one has its own set of configuration considerations.

The tables included are not an exhaustive list of supported hardware. Hardware is only listed if and when it has been explicitly tested/confirmed by developers and/or users. Graphics hardware missing from these tables may or may not work. If you have tested hardware that is not on the list, please report the results.

Intel Integrated Graphics (aka HD Graphics)

Intel HD Graphics refers to the class of graphics chips that are integrated on the same die as an Intel CPU. This Wikipedia entry provides a good overview of the various variations and names used for generations of Intel HD Graphics. You will find Intel HD Graphics chips on many modern laptop and desktop systems that ship with an Intel processor. As far as FreeBSD goes, and starting with 12.0-RELEASE, there are two generations of support for this platform:

• drm-kmod
• drm-legacy-kmod

Both are supplied as ports, and provide a kernel module to enable the integrated graphics chip on Intel CPUs. Generally speaking if you have a system with one of these graphics adapters it is suggested to install the drm-kmod metaport, which should work well on systems starting with the "Broadwell" generation. This code is under active development and allows us to track more closely the drivers present in the Linux kernel. For haswell based systems, if the drm-kmod port does not work, it is suggested to install the drm-legacy-kmod. This is based on our previous code that matched the Linux 3.8 kernel drivers.

This page contains a table should illustrate the state of various Intel chipsets.

Furthermore, if you notice high CPU usage or excessive tearing while viewing HD video it is reported that installing the libva-intel-driver is helpful, as it enables VAAPI support on these systems. This package should be installed in addition to the drm-kmod, mesa-libs and mesa-dri packages.

Example Configuration For Post Broadwell System

A common configuration is a user who has an Intel laptop with a Kabylake Intel i915 HD Graphics chip. To enable the chipset one would follow these instructions:

• Install the drm-kmod package

  • $ sudo pkg install drm-kmod

• Take note of the post-install package message as it contains important information - specifically add this to your /etc/rc.conf or /etc/rc.conf.d/intel file:

  • kld_list="/boot/modules/i915kms.ko"

• Ensure your UID is a member of the "video" group.
• Restart your system; you should see the i915kms.ko get loaded and a flash on your console as we switch over to the new display driver.
• Start Xorg via your usual method (i.e. startx, GDM, etc.)

Note: For systems that are able to take advantage of this updated DRM code you do not need to prepare an xorg.conf configuration file, and installing the xf86-video-intel port is optional. Our Xorg should autodetect the driver, and utilize the modesetting Xorg driver and glamor driver.

AMD Graphics

AMD based GPUs are also supported using the drm-kmod port or package. Unlike the i915 Intel graphics driver there are two separate modules available for AMD devices based on their generation. The modules are named:

• amdgpu
• radeonkms

To view the AMD graphics support matrix view this page. The Xorg project also has a great resource on decoding AMD marketing names to engineering friendly names here.

It is important to note that there is currently a conflict with both AMD drivers and the EFI frambuffer. The current workaround, when booting via UEFI on these systems, is to disable the framebuffer via /boot/loader.conf:

hw.syscons.disable=1

This will have the side effect of there being no console output until either the amdgpu or radeonkms kernel driver is loaded. Please see this Github issue for more context.

One final note - there is a patch available here that will allow you to use Vulkan, OpenCL, Xwayland and OpenMW when using Wayland.

AMD GPU

AMD GPU is the kernel module that can be used to support post-HD7000 or Tahiti GPUs. To enable graphics on these systems you would do the following:

• Install the drm-kmod package

  • $ sudo pkg install drm-kmod

• Take note of the post-install package message as it contains important information - specifically add this to your /etc/rc.conf or /etc/rc.conf.d/amd file:

  • kld_list="/boot/modules/amdgpu.ko"

• Ensure that your UID is a member of the "video" group.
• Restart your system; you should see the amdgpu.ko get loaded and a flash on your console as we switch over to the new display driver.
• Start Xorg via your usual method (i.e. startx, GDM, etc.)

Radeon KMS

Radeon KMS is a distinct driver intended for older AMD based GPUs that are available in pre-HD7000 or Tahiti GPUs. To enable graphics on systems with these GPUs you would do the following:

• Install the drm-kmod package

  • $ sudo pkg install drm-kmod

• Take note of the post-install package message as it contains important information - specifically add this to your /etc/rc.conf or /etc/rc.conf.d/radeon file:

  • kld_list="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko"

• Ensure that your UID is a member of the "video" group.
• Restart your system; you should see the radeonkms.ko get loaded and a flash on your console as we switch over to the new display driver.
• Start Xorg via your usual method (i.e. startx, GDM, etc.)

Virtual Machines

VMware

Experimental support for accelerated graphics in FreeBSD as guest OS in VMware was added to drm-devel-kmod.

Known bugs:

• There is a known race condition where the machine can lock up when loading the graphics driver or starting X. So far this has only been observed when the guest is configured with more than 1 CPU.

VirtualBox

A DRM driver for VirtualBox is going to be added to the Linux source tree in the next coming minor versions. Once it's there, a FreeBSD port is planned. Stay tuned here or check out the blog for updates.

Compatibility

The combinations of graphics hardware and software is bewildering. Because of this, it is completely infeasible to support every combination.

The best that FreeBSD can do is to document known configurations that are known to either work, or not work.

Our primary constraints are:

xorg upstream

• Unfortunately, from time to time, upstream discontinues support for existing chipsets, due to lack of developer time and interest.

• FreeBSD is simply not in the position to keep multiple versions of xorg available in the Ports Collecction.

device driver upstreams

• Many manufacturers consider the description of their chipsets to be proprietary information, and thus provide only binary drivers.
• As newer versions of these binary drivers are issued, the manufacturer may discontinue support for older chips.
  • There is nothing FreeBSD can do about these limitations. Although in some cases we try to support multiple versions of these drivers, it takes a lot of effort.

Reporting

Before reporting your experience, please check to see if your configuration is currently documented in the links above, or in KnownIssues.

Reporting Syccessful Results

If everything works, let us know on the mailing list. Your information helps us confirm which hardware/software configurations work well.

Please include:

• dmesg command output

• pciconf -lvbce command output

• pkg info command output

• Contents of xorg.conf file (and included sub-files, if any)

• Contents of Xorg.log
• Any other details that may be relevant

Reporting Issues / Bugs

If encountering problems in either the kernel driver or the in-development ports, post the following information to the mailing list

• dmesg command output

• pciconf -lvbce command output

• devinfo -vr command output

• sysctl hw.model

• pkg info command output

• Contents of xorg.conf file (and included sub-files, if any)

• Contents of Xorg.log (if the problem is at X.Org startup or during your X session)
• Any ports build or installation errors (if relevant)

• If a kernel panic: Contents of core.$n.txt (in /var/crash)

• Any other details that may be relevant

Due to limited manpower, you may have to try to debug problems yourself. Please consult DebuggingTips.

Debugging Tips

• It is useful to see what features the kernel reports as being available, especially in regards to driver features exposed via the linuxkpi. On FreeBSD these are mapped to sysctl compat.linuxkpi. The best way to see what's available for your driver is to execute sysctl compat.linuxkpi after you loaded the driver. For description of what these parameters do, call sysctl with the description flag.

  • % sysctl -d compat.linuxkpi.enable_fbc

    compat.linuxkpi.enable_fbc: Enable frame buffer compression for power savings (default: -1 (use per-chip default))

• Periodically you will have a kernel panic but a core will not be recorded. You can test setting this sysctl knob which will prevent you from entering ddb on panic which has been found to unreliable in some circumstances:

  • debug.debugger_on_panic=0

• Also, adding this to your /boot/loader.conf can help in these scenarios:

  • dev.drm.skip_ddb="1"

• The following can be useful for providing context and can be set in /boot/loader.conf to ensure debug output remains enabled. The one problem with it is that debug output will slow things down enough to mask many problems.:

  • dev.drm.drm_debug_persist="1"

• Want to enable all DRM related debug flags at runtime? There is a knob for that:

  • dev.drm.drm_debug=-1

• kms drivers through linux-kpi report debugging information using debugfs. To mount it:

  • # mkdir /debug && mount -t debugfs none /debug

• To test how hardware acceleration is working you may want to run glxgears, but by default it may force syncing with your display (60fps for example). To disable this you can invoke glxgears like so:

  • $ env vblank_mode=0 glxgears

Known Issues

• Permission errors, or inability to start X when using the DRM kernel modules? Make sure your user is a member of the video group, otherwise you will not have access to /dev/drm/ devices.

• Xorg -configure crashes with a "Segmentation fault"; it is a known defect. Do not use Xorg -configure anymore: it is recommended to let Xorg auto-configure itself. If you need to override part of the configuration, create a config file under /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ containing only the relevant section.

• There are reports that users on i386 hardware have problems using the drm-kmod package. A workaround for this is to disable PAE via /boot/loader.conf: hw.above4g_allow=0

Legacy Documentation

There is a copy of the previous iteration of this page available here. Hopefully no critical information was left out during this migration, but please notify the team if anything was missed!

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CategoryStale