Re: Navigating a complex x11 setup?

On Thu, Jan 02, 2025 at 06:58:16PM -0500, Zaphod Beeblebrox wrote:
> I have a laptop that is perfectly serviceable.  It has Intel Integrated
> graphics _and_ nVidia Quadro graphics.  The idea being that only
> applications that need the Quadro use it.
> 
> The Intel is: "4the Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller"
> cpu: i7-4800MQ
> The nVidia is: GK106GLM (Quadro K2100M)
> 
>  For some time, I've used the Intel driver and the nVidia secondary
> driver.  This has worked well and still appears to work... but not
> entirely.  Sometimes moving things about the screen leaves artifacts ...
> other times, it's  a mess.  A full refresh fixes it, mostly.
> 
> With another machine, I was told to use the modesetting driver --- but this
> fails to find a /dev/dri entry.
> 
> Help?

I fear that this will not qualify as "help" -- but I empathize: my main
laptop (a Frankenmachine composed of parts from 4 Dell Precision M4800s)
shares most of the above characteristics:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4900MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz (2793.60-MHz K8-class CPU)

vgapci0@pci0:1:0:0:     class=0x030000 rev=0xa1 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x10de device=0x11fc subvendor=0x1028 subdevice=0x15cc
    vendor     = 'NVIDIA Corporation'
    device     = 'GK106GLM [Quadro K2100M]'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA

vgapci1@pci0:0:2:0:     class=0x030000 rev=0x06 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x0416 subvendor=0x1028 subdevice=0x05cc
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = '4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA

Up through FreeBSD stable/12, I just used the Nvidia device & driver,
and that seemed to work OK -- including suspend/resume (which is
important in my case, as I suspend the laptop while cycling to or from
work).

My recollection is that as of 13, suspend/resume didn't work without
graphics/drm, so I ended up delaying my migration off of 12; by the time
I managed to figure things out enough to work, stable/14 was out, so I
migrated to that (just before stable/12 went EoL).

So I ended up just no longer using the Nvidia driver, since (as you
note) the modesetting driver for x11/nvidia-driver-390 doesn't
actually provide usable GLX support, as far as I can tell.

But I am able to track stable/14 & head on the machine (daily), as well
as update all installed ports daily (well, I use a separate build
machine for www/chromium -- but it's around to build stuff for other
machines anyway).  So it may be old & klunky (and, in fairness, a bit
quirky -- mostly because of age & wear & tear), but it's a fairly decent
machine....

Sorry it's not actually information you can use.

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill                              david@catwhisker.org
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people
what they do not want to hear." -- George Orwell

See https://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.