How did you switch to FreeBSD?

astyle said:
This one is not making sense... why would someone want to load both i915kms and amdgpu? You only need one of them for graphics in FreeBSD. Those two drivers compete for the same hardware resources, which need to be allocated on an exclusive basis.

Plugging one monitor into AMD GPU and another into mobo's HDMI/DP/VGA/etc port that feeds from i915 Intel iGPU will create race conditions in the kernel, and that's what causes the kernel panic.

I'd say an easy solution is to just let the discrete AMD GPU card handle all the graphics, and drive both monitors. Maybe disable the integrated graphics in the BIOS altogether?

An idea occurred to me - does Windows handle this mixing of drivers any better?
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Not 100% sure, but if I recall correctly, there was at least a notebook that internal LCD is physically connected to iGPU in some Core i CPU and external display port is physically connected to nvidia dGPU.
Yes, it was not AMD, but notebooks using this kind of configuration which uses AMD dGPU instead of nvidia dGPU would be possible, and in such a case, both i915kms and amdgpu would be forcibly required.
More unlikely, but wouldn't be a combination of iGPU in AMD RYZEN CPU and Intel ARC dGPU?
 
T-Aoki said:
Not 100% sure, but if I recall correctly, there was at least a notebook that internal LCD is physically connected to iGPU in some Core i CPU and external display port is physically connected to nvidia dGPU.
Yes, it was not AMD, but notebooks using this kind of configuration which uses AMD dGPU instead of nvidia dGPU would be possible, and in such a case, both i915kms and amdgpu would be forcibly required.
More unlikely, but wouldn't be a combination of iGPU in AMD RYZEN CPU and Intel ARC dGPU?
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If you read the PR from the beginning, it's a desktop system with AMD dGPU and Intel iGPU... That's why I suggested the solution I did - to plug both monitors into the dGPU, and not bother with iGPU...

In laptops with dGPU, I don't think it's quite possible for the dGPU to drive the laptop's internal screen...

It's pretty difficult to make use of both dGPU and iGPU at the same time - or can someone provide me with a screenshot and a description of how that was pulled off? ;)
 
astyle said:
In laptops with dGPU, I don't think it's quite possible for the dGPU to drive the laptop's internal screen...
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My ThinkPad P52 can disable iGPU and use internal LCD dedicated for nvidia dGPU. This is why I'm forced to purchase this expensive one...

astyle said:
It's pretty difficult to make use of both dGPU and iGPU at the same time - or can someone provide me with a screenshot and a description of how that was pulled off?
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I'm not an Lenovo internals, so this is just a thought.
Maybe some hardware DP switcher is incorporated and controlled by UEFI firmware.

See "Graphics Device" subsection of "Display" section at page numbered 63 (actually, 81/170).
 
astyle T-Aoki thanks, however I'm not seeking technical support here. The linked examples were to concisely flesh out the bullet points …

… essentially, for opening poster clueless to know that the points are based on very recent first-hand experience (not second- or third-hand observations involving unidentified users from some unknown point in the past).

clueless I have very recent first-hand experience of Reddit (I'm a moderator for /r/freebsd – if you'd like to ask the same questions there, you'll be welcome). People who choose to avoid Reddit for maybe a decade and refuse to look in the FreeBSD area are, debatably, not qualified to make catty comments about current style.
 
Crivens and fellow moderators: thanks.

astyle T-Aoki <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/645686> includes a specific example of using a single GPU in a dual-GPU notebook. (The topic is specific to HP ZBook 17 G2.)

clueless so:
  • it's not all doom and gloom (impossible to boot an enterprise-class 2023 HP notebook, show-stopping problems with a 2011 MacBook Pro)
  • if you're lucky, you'll have a computer with which your preferred desktop environment will work very well on FreeBSD.
Retrospective: FreeBSD-RELEASE became bootable with a far broader range of computers in May 2022, when UEFI boot was improved for AMD64.

T-Aoki said:
… I hope every notebooks having dGPU implement this feature.
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For what it's worth, in 2019:

Many of the issues with dual GPUs really only happen on MacBooks. While other vendors have a BIOS setting or a software switch, Apple still uses a multiplexer chip that can go bad. And if it does, no switching between GPUs is possible. I just wish there was a way to force a specific GPU to be active. …
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First thing you have to do is to install FreeBSD with X/Wayland and web browser and test whether the browsers works well. If you have working browser, you can prepare to install LibreOffice and all other necessary software and move your user files.
 
grahamperrin said:
astyle T-Aoki <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/645686> includes a specific example of using a single GPU in a dual-GPU notebook. (The topic is specific to HP ZBook 17 G2.)
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That's the thread where I linked to Wikipedia's explanation of NVidia Optimus... And in that page:
When a user launches an application, the graphics driver tries to determine whether the application would benefit from the discrete GPU.
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Maybe the Windows version of the driver tries to do that kind of determination... I would not expect the UNIX version to have that kind of advanced capability... in UNIX driver versions, we're normally grateful if the graphics work at all, maybe acceleration, maybe CUDA/ROCm, maybe dual monitors plugged into same GPU...
 
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