Re: Setting up X

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sat, 29 Jun 2013 01:29:25 -0700 (PDT)
    From:        Waitman Gobble <uzimac%da3m0n8t3r.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <20130629082925.D913C36F4B1F%dx.burplex.com@localhost>


  | The 304.88 BSD Nvidia driver supports the 560M.

And the 660M ?

  | I would recommend running BSD on your machine over Linux.

You mean FreeBSD, right?   I have (months ago now, perhaps almost a year,
back when I was looking for anything better than wintrash) booted it from the
CD (or DVD) image, and not everything was supported, but I can certainly
try again.

  | Running NetBSD within qemu is totally a piece of cake,
  | and you may not experience the issues you have with VirtualBox on
  | Ubuntu.

I'll give that a try sometime.  I'd really prefer native NetBSD though...

When I tried it FreeBSD also didn't support the wireless card - it is an
ath or some vintage (AR9485) (read on the web that it is a close relation of
another chip that is supported - a cheaper version - and yes, I know that
usually means the driver needs to do more work to compensate).  That's less
of a problem than the X driver support, as I have a USB wireless that
NetBSD (and I assume probably FreeBSD) supports, and from a quick glance at
the linux driver source it did not appear as if it will be that hard to add 
support once I have a real need for it.

  | I have not noticed the issues mentioned running NetBSD on VirtualBox
  | with a FreeBSD host.

They're not that serious - it's just that if I leave the system for a
while, I need to switch to linux and then come back to NetBSD to get the
mouse back (just clicking makes it work, but linux steals it again within
a minute - but once linux actually gives the mouse to virtalbox it stays
there until the system goes idle again).    And I need to reboot more
frequently than once a week - not usually a problem as the linux people
don't seem to have suspend to disc working, or I don't know how to enable
it, if I put the laptop in its bag to carry it (supposedly suspended) it
quickly gets quite hot.   I should also say that (at least when I first
installed it this way) the virtualbox image was actually intended for the
previous linux (ubuntu 12) rather than the ubuntu 13 I'm running, which
might also contribute to the oddities.

But thanks for the suggestion, I really hadn't considered using FreeBSD as
a host, and I should have.

kre