Linux KPI-Based DRM Modules Now Working On FreeBSD 11

It's now possible to use the graphics/drm-next-kmod port on FreeBSD 11 stable.

Thanks to work done by Hans Petter Selasky and others, this drm-next-kmod port is working on FreeBSD 11 stable. What's different with this package from the ports collection versus the ported-from-Linux Direct Rendering Modules found within the FreeBSD 11 kernel is that these DRM modules are using the linuxkpi interface.

Linux KPI is the FreeBSD effort for providing a Linux compatibility interface to make it easier to bring Linux DRM drivers to FreeBSD and for them to remain up-to-date against Linux upstream. The linuxkpi compatibility layer eases some of the differences between the Linux and FreeBSD kernels to allow more of the Direct Rendering Manager code to run unmodified.

As it stands now the graphics/drm-next-kmod port provides the AMDGPU, Radeon, and i915 drivers. Their state is based currently against the Linux 4.9 kernel. Yes, old compared to Linux 4.15~4.16 where we are at now, but better than the lag time found with some of the older DRM FreeBSD drivers.

Until now this port had to be run against FreeBSD 12-CURRENT but the news today is that it should work with FreeBSD 11-STABLE now that the necessary linuxkpi changes have been backported. This should open up more users to this experimental port if wanting better Intel or AMDGPU/Radeon graphics support. At this point there doesn't seem to be emphasis on the Nouveau driver since NVIDIA continues to offer an official but proprietary NVIDIA FreeBSD driver.

More details via the freebsd-stable list and FreshPorts.org.