[Solved] Device hint at installation [SOLVED]

[ASX]

Executing startx WITHOUT loading i915 leads to the same familiar panic
Executing startx AFTER loading i915 begins starting X, perhaps even completes it, but screen remains dark.

This is a progress: I would like to see two things from this working setup:

Code: Select all

/var/log/Xorg.0.log
dmesg

Also, see if this can help:
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/50270/

[askfor]

I am sorry, I haven't seen your reply, I thought you have given up om me. I think I know what is going on here. This card is old Intel 82855, which seems to be supported only as VESA. I think that kernel tries to use Intel driver. I will keep experimenting with FreeBSD, it is easier because there is no live CD.It also crashes on starting X. Going to simply try editing Xorg.conf and set VESA as device. Also going to try vesa_load="YES" in loader.conf

UPDATE:
I am definitely getting somewhere with this. I ahve FreeBSD 11 installed. Executed Xorg -configure. The result is just as I expected. DEVICE section lists intel driver for video, instead of vesa. FreeBSD documentation list chipsets supported by intel driver and my chipset is not here. I replaced "intel" with "vesa" in xorg.conf, but it didn't work quite well. There was a blank screen, no window manager started. However, there was no kernel panic and I was able to return to console mode.

There are many confusing things to investigate, like xorg.conf showing two video devices instead of one and some error messages in Xorg logs.

[askfor]

Greetings !!!

And thanks for your help. Posting this from Firefox on FreeBSD 11. An error message from Xorg -configure helped.

There are two video outputs on the laptop, LCD and VGA output for external monitor. Xorg recognizes them as two different cards. For unknown reasons BIOS default is "VGA analog". Other choices are "Thinkpad LCD" and "Both". "Both" seems like logical default, and I don't understand why "VGA Analog" is default. Anyway, setting to BOTH resolved the problem.

Another problem I had was that I didn't know D-BUS must be running to start Firefox.

Thanks again.

[ASX]

Hi askfor,
glad you solved your issue. Indeed, if "VGA analog" is the default is a rather strange setup.