DragonFlyBSD Updates Its Intel + Radeon Linux-Ported Graphics Driver Code

[phoronix]

Phoronix: DragonFlyBSD Updates Its Intel + Radeon Linux-Ported Graphics Driver Code

DragonFlyBSD developer François Tigeot continues his trek of near single-handedly porting the Intel and Radeon DRM graphics driver code from the Linux kernel to this BSD...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=DragonFlyBSD-DRM-4.12.14-Port

[kylew77]

I've met people who use FreeBSD as a daily driver and do myself, I've met people who use OpenBSD as a daily driver, I have even met people that use NetBSD as a daily driver operating system. I have NEVER met someone that uses DragonflyBSD as a daily driver on their laptop or workstation. According to this link https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=arti...20200608075708 OpenBSD has newer graphic support than this "bleading edge" BSD OS. To me Dragonfly will allways be a research platform. I love their inovation but they are seriously lagging behind the times with hardware support. Kudos to the lone developer updating the graphics core though, my hats off to him!

[aht0]

Less devs, what'd you expect. I used it for a while for generic desktop but I was using HD6950 at the time for GPU. Vega support ain't that far off tho

[kylew77]

I used it for a while for generic desktop but I was using HD6950 at the time for GPU.

How did Dragonfly I guess fly (ha ha) for you as a daily driver compared to the other major *BSD operating systems. Pretty sure I've seen you post that you use FreeBSD too, how was the comparison?

[aht0]

How did Dragonfly I guess fly (ha ha) for you as a daily driver compared to the other major *BSD operating systems. Pretty sure I've seen you post that you use FreeBSD too, how was the comparison?

Hauntingly familar and utterly strange simultaneously. Directory structure is pretty much 1:1 with FreeBSD. Init system's same, methods you configure something's much the same. Easy to orient and relatively easy to set up. Ports management (dports) was slightly different but used FreeBSD's for a base - bunch of the software from there was available, bunch of it wasn't). And then came kernel, entirely different animal with I think older pattern of FreeBSD device names ("da" instead of "ada" etc). That took some getting used with.

Main problem spots were setting up raid (command line tools pretty much), finding sufficient information (documentation is not even remotely on the par with FreeBSD - tho often FreeBSD older documentation also worked [unless subject matter involved kernel]), no forums serving as "repository of knowledge". Things you can guess yourself.

Performance was decent, once I got it going. I ran it on Asus ROG Strix B450-I I bought after RMA'ing other board to have some desktop rig besides laptop. Previous board (Gigabyte Aorus-M) didnt want to know anything of Dfly (kernel trap error on POST). I'll probably try it again, once I see Dfly hitting support for Vega's (should be pretty soon, drm 4.16 should have support for Vega's in it)