Re: Xorg without int10

[Michael <macallan%netbsd.org@localhost>]

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Hello,

On Sep 23, 2009, at 2:30 PM, Emmanuel Dreyfus wrote:

> I want to use a X display that would not show BIOS and NetBSD boot
> messages. My first idea was to use a serial console and run the X  
> server
> from rc.local
>
> That breaks, because on Xorg launch, xf86OpenConsole() fails. It seems
> Xorg really wants a non serial console to exist.

> Then I tried to set up a dual display system, with a video card used  
> for
> the console and the other one for the X display. This fails because  
> the
> second video board has not been initialized by the BIOS:
>
> Xorg fails to start, with:
> (II) NV(0): Initializing int10
> (WW) NV(0): remove MTRR a0000 - c0000
> (WW) NV(0): remove MTRR c0000 - 100000
> (EE) Cannot find empty range to map base to
> (EE) NV(0): Cannot read V_BIOS (3)
> (EE) NV(0): Failed to initialize the int10 module; this screen will  
> not
> be initialized.
>
> Then I tried option NoInt10, but it does not help:
>
> (**) NV(0): Option "NoINT10" "yes"
> (**) NV(0): Option "InitPrimary" "yes"
> (EE) NV(0): Failed to initialize the int10 module; this screen will  
> not
> be initialized.

So the nv driver insists on using int10 which apparently fails because  
it can't read the card's ROM. Someone(tm) needs to fix that in  
libpciaccess, the code there attempts to read it via /dev/mem, not  
sure if that's allowed on your system.

> Is it possible to set up a X display without BIOS assitance on i386?

That depends on the card. Some drivers can cold boot their hardware  
( I know this works with Matrox Millennium I and II cards for example,  
I had both working as secondary heads on an U10 years ago ) but others  
can't, and something as complex as a halfway modern GeForce or Radeon  
likely falls into this category.
I would suggest to poke around and figure out why exactly the Xserver  
can't access the card's ROM. IIRC int10 would use the ROM to cold boot  
the card in some sort of x86 emulation which for obvious reasons can't  
work without the ROM image.
You will have to specify a device entry for your keyboard, otherwise  
the kbd driver will try to read raw scancodes from ttyE0.

good luck
Michael

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