Startup with black screen

Questions about the installation of FreeBSD
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Geos16
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:04 am

Startup with black screen

Post by Geos16 »

Hello to the community

Booted from liveusb with selection of the radeon gpu drm driver and everything went smooth so i installed into ssd. System booted from the ssd and it looks like the gpu driver is loaded and i got the white screen (with the message to press i-interactive). After this i supposed to be in the desktop, but i got a black screen and i can't see a thing. I checked my /etc/rc.conf and it has : kld_list="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko".
It is a pre-HD7000 or Tahiti gpu with NO EFI, just regular bios boot. I repeat that liveusb successfully found the right gpu module and booted fine. The problem is on the SSD install . Any suggestion would be appreciated - thanks.
Geos16
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Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:04 am

Re: Startup with black screen

Post by Geos16 »

The older image, that of 8-2020 works without any issue.
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ericbsd
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Re: Startup with black screen

Post by ericbsd »

Did you try the AMD GPU driver? The old release was loading both drivers in the same time.
Geos16
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Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:04 am

Re: Startup with black screen

Post by Geos16 »

Hello.. It needs the radeon configuration (radeonkms.ko). I confirmed this as i'm posting from freebsd 12.2 installed from scratch (took me some time though). Imho looks like a xorg auto configuration problem ,as the driver from Ghostbsd booted fine in this November release( white screen with small letters and finally black screen - cant see anything) and had zero issues with the August release (workable system). I will try ghost bsd again to try and solve this (in another ssd). Thank you..
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ericbsd
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Re: Startup with black screen

Post by ericbsd »

From the drm-kmod documentation "/boot/modules/amdgpu.ko" is to be use for HD7000 and later GPU. /boot/modules/radeonkms.ko for pre HD7000.

Maybe if xorg.conf is removed it will work better. I am working on changing the stack of drivers to remove some conflicts and to make it easier with AMDGPU.

Geos16 wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 8:07 am Hello.. It needs the radeon configuration (radeonkms.ko). I confirmed this as i'm posting from freebsd 12.2 installed from scratch (took me some time though). Imho looks like a xorg auto configuration problem ,as the driver from Ghostbsd booted fine in this November release( white screen with small letters and finally black screen - cant see anything) and had zero issues with the August release (workable system). I will try ghost bsd again to try and solve this (in another ssd). Thank you..
also, what did you install as a driver for your card on FreeBSD?

And what is your card?
Geos16
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:04 am

Re: Startup with black screen

Post by Geos16 »

I have an old amd 6450 with kld_list="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko". I decided to build graphics/drm-fbsd12.0-kmod from ports now for freebsd 12.2. I don't know if the pkg works for kmod, as i haven't tried it in 12.2. Everything looks good. Also I can remember that August image of ghostbsd worked perfectly out of the box.
Finally i did some testing with an Nvidia card with the proprietary drivers and nvidia xorg config and had ZERO issues :It is a shame for such a big card manufacturer (AMD) not sharing a proprietary driver with the community.
I can't imagine how difficult is for a developer to test all different combinations.
Geos16
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:04 am

Re: Startup with black screen

Post by Geos16 »

This fellow has the same problem , but with an intel card in 12.2 and they also suggest to install drm-kmod from the Ports Collection.

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/star ... een.77983/
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ericbsd
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Re: Startup with black screen

Post by ericbsd »

It is already install in GhostBSD.
grahamperrin
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radeonkms, black screen, drm

Post by grahamperrin »

Geos16 wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 3:54 pm … kld_list="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko" … Everything looks good. …
If ever you find a black screen with 13.0-STABLE GhostBSD, you might try drm in lieu of radeonkms i.e.

Code: Select all

kld_list="drm"


This obscure hint is based on experience with radeonkms with SDDM with FreeBSD 13.0-CURRENT and 14.0-CURRENT.

I imagine that Slick-Greeter (with OpenRC) will be less prone to issues than SDDM (with FreeBSD), so users of GhostBSD might never need to follow the hint, but it's worth seeding.
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