Haswel / i915 experimental test result

[Arto Pekkanen]

Do you have the directory /boot/kernel.i915 with the experimental kernel files in it? That directory must exist before /boot/loader can boot the experimental kernel from it.

If you do
# nextboot -k kernel.i915
# reboot

as root, then /boot/loader should boot kernel from /boot/kernel.i915/kernel -file after next reboot.

The "nextboot -k <kernel>" -command simply writes a "hint file" in /boot -directory, which overrides the default kernel path for /boot/loader.

If these instructions do not help, then problem is that I just have no idea how a PC-BSD system has been set up. I don't use PC-BSD or even ZFS myself. I only use base FreeBSD 10.2 with UEFI (which does not require installation of any stage0 and/or stage1 bootcode, only a 900k partition with specific type GUID and the file /boot/boot1.efifat written as partition contents with dd) or a standard gpt setup (with /boot/pmbr as stage0 and /boot/gptboot as stage1).

I've heard PC-BSD uses GRUB in some way. Is it possible that GRUB loads the /boot/kernel directly? If it does, then it does NOT care about the nextboot hint file at all, unlike /boot/loader. IF (and only IF) GRUB loads the system kernel image directly from boot partition (emphasis on _directly_), then you need to somehow configure GRUB to offer a boot menu item for the specific kernel. Unfortunately I cannot remember how GRUB is configured since it been a decade since I last time had to bother configuring GRUB. 

You could also ask in PC-BSD forums something like "how do I boot a custom kernel built in /boot/<kernel_name>" ...

On 23.11.2015 15:36, Isaac Raway wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've followed the directions on this page to install the experimental
> i915 kernel:
> 
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/Update%20i915%20GPU%20driver%20to%20Linux%203.8
> 
> I'm not sure that I booted into it correctly (pretty green with BSD in
> general, and only some experience with kernel builds on Linux). I have a
> Dell Latitude E7240 with a Haswell chip. Running PC-BSD 10.2 if that
> matters. I'm uncertain about if the boot did what I think it did because
> the uname output still say's it's a -RELEASE build:
> 
> # uname -a
> FreeBSD sebastian 10.2-RELEASE-p4 FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE-p4 #0: Tue Aug 18
> 15:15:36 UTC 2015    
> root at amd64-builder.pcbsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
> 
> The driver doesn't seem to load, using PC-BSD's Display wizard it
> reports a failure then restarts the wizard when I try to start X using
> the intel driver.
> 
> I've attached the dmesg output as requested on the above page. Let me
> know if anything else would be useful.
> 
> IJR
> 
> 
> 
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