I decided to try and dual boot FreeBSD on m new Dell 700M. Everything finally settled down and I figured I would occupy my time with BSD once again. I installed BSD compiled Xorg. I run xorgconfig and setup everything.

I encounter a problem, when I run startx i get an error saying "VGA(0): Driver cant support depth 24" and "Screens found but none have usable configurations".

This is because I cannot properly configure the video card and the screen H and V sync rates. When I go through the config my video card which is an intel 855 is no in the chipset list, and I cannot find the proper combination of H and V sync to accuretly display 1280 x 800 @ 60hz.

Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated.

I have noticed this is where I often get stuck when it comes to installing bsd on any computer.

Here is a link of someones xorg.conf file for the same computer:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mmastran/...re-2/xorg.conf

Try the command
gtf 1280 800 60 -x

I LOVE YOU.

Oh, that means it worked.

New problem. I cant get it to do my resolution. I got KDE compiled and fluxbox and they always run at 1024x768. I generated the modeline and plugged that in but to no effect.

It still doesnt work.

Would it be safe to just use the dudes xorg.conf in place of mine to test it out, or should I continue tweaking the one I have?

Any insight to this problem would greatly help, this is the only place I get stuck on when it comes to installing bsd.

I did some more research, it seems that it wont be possible to successfully run FreeBSD on the 700M. The Intel 855 video bios incorrectly provides information about supported resolutions to Xorg. Linux has a work around through a utility that modifies the tempoary memory to fool the system. Someone attempted to modify the linux utility to work for freebsd but was unsuccessful, I tried to install it and it returns only errors.

I guess it wont be possible to run Xorg on a 700M. Thanks Intel for your craptastic video card.

Time to buy a new laptop me thinks.

You could try the computers web siite or the intel site. They may have some firmware updates to fix the problem. When I tried to install Mandrake Linux on my HP Presario laptop, the screen would be reduced size, even during the installation. Upgrading the bios fixed that problem.

You might cut and paste parts of that guys xorg.conf file. Since it's the same computer model, and so both the video card and monitor are the same, your xorg.conf file should work with bsd also, since the x windows code is the same.

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mmastran/fedora-core-2/
Take a look on the page above the previous. There is more information and an email address.

Good Luck!

It does not work. That patch does not work for BSD.

Linux and BSD use different architectures. Compiling that program on BSD will not work nor using someone elses xorg.conf file. If it was made on a linux machine it wont work on a BSD machine. I tried several xorg.conf files that claim to work with my laptop but none do. Unless I go to linux or intel solves this problem it will be unlikely that I will be able to run BSD on my laptop.

Eureka. I have found this http://www.chzsoft.com.ar/855patch.html

I downloaded the 855patch for BSD, I did the corrections to the Xorg.conf file, enabled dri and etc. I put it in /usr/bin and ran the file before starting Xorg. The file returns that the VideoRam has been changed, I start X and nothing happens. The resolution stays 1024x768. I would like to try the other 855wrap instead of the patch but its only for linux.

Any ideas guys, I feel I am getting close.

Damn, no hope I think. I posted a bug report on some site my friend gave me. Im stupid and forgot to bookmark it after posting the report.

Any ideas guys?