Hello,

I want to build a computer with AGP 8x to get familiar with the latest openbsd (5.0, amd64). I have an option of using cards from nvidia (tnt2 m64, geforce 2 mx, FX5200) or amd (radeon 9xxx).
Which one of this two has better hardware support?

Thanks

The radeon 9xxx GPU will give you some 3D acceleration. You will not have any 3D acceleration from the nvidia GPU.

Adam

If you have the latest version of X11, and if the OpenBSD kernel has support for it, you might be able to get support through either nouveau or the proprietary driver from Nvidia. The latest Mesa build has support for the Gallium3D API for nouveau and you will be able to get decent acceleration off of it if your kernel has support for your video card, but it could be disabled and may require you to rebuild your kernel to enable it.

nvidia does not have a proprietary driver for OpenBSD, nor is nouveau available. Again, the radeon 9xxx GPU is the only one in that list that will provide 3D acceleration.

Adam

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Nouveau should be available in the latest release as it was supposed to be added back in 4.3 with Xorg 7.3 citing this whitepaper they released back in 2008:

Support for it might however be minimal or disabled by default requiring a full rebuild of the kernel, libdrm, and mesa to enable support, however it was stated support as there, but without any definitive proof it works out of the box, I would suggest going with the Radeon at this time.

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Unless I'm mistaken, the only mention of nouveau in the PDF you linked to says:

That's under the *BSD TODO list, and isn't associated with any release or date.

As you can see from browsing the cvs source tree, there's no nouveau code in the DRM directory:

http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvswe...s/dev/pci/drm/

In the GENERIC config file, there is also no option, commented out or available, for nouveau:

http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvswe...e=text%2Fplain

Support for nouveau on OpenBSD is neither minimal nor disabled by default. It's non-existent. If you still don't want to believe me, here's the response from the only OpenBSD DRM developer, when asked "there is no nouveau support in OpenBSD, correct?":

If you're keen on 3-D support it might be better to use FreeBSD. I just installed PC BSD today on my old laptop and it has out of the box support for both the proprietary NVIDIA driver (nvidia) and nouveau. Talk about choice!

OpenBSD and NetBSD don't seem to be tailored to cater to desktop users looking for gloss and shine. FreeBSD has certainly come on, certainly if PC BSD is any clue...

I am very happy with OpenBSD 5.0; it positively shines on my old 850 MHz IBM eserver that has a 20 GB HD and 768 MB RAM. I was impressed that xorg ran out of the box with zero configuration on my part. The unit is responsive running Fluxbox.

Yes, but I am talking about desktop users looking for shine and gloss... and desktop specific stuff that works with relatively little configuration.

I agree that you can turn NetBSD or OpenBSD into a desktop system, but I found it hard to configure all the settings just right, especially for laptops. For example, I could never ever get the Suspend/Resume to work on NetBSD or OpenBSD even after thorough research because KDE never recognized the PolicyKit.conf settings, nor could I configure screen backlighting to work right, and of course, 3-D effects is impossible as there are no 3-D drivers for graphics as noted earlier. Also I doubt whether NetBSD or OpenBSD developers are actively developing device drivers for USB video devices like webcams and such. It would be way down on their priority list.

Also many things like Bluetooth which we take for granted on Linux are probably not as easy to configure on BSD systems in general.

I know FreeBSD mostly just gives you a system that's very basic out of the box and requires downloading and installing tons of packages to get very simple things working like X11 and such, but does PC-BSD come more like a standard Linux system with most of everything working out of the box?

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PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD and has been modified to be more user-friendly to use with graphical front-ends for system configuration. During the installation routine you can choose what types of applications to install. Yes. PC-BSD works out of the box.

PC BSD is impressive that way. I set it up in less than an hour. The actual installation takes some time because the DVD has 3.6 Gigs of data and there is no way to deselect the main system components (of which KDE is a part), but post-install configuration is minimal for a desktop system. It even logs in graphically and X is configured graphically as well.

I've been looking for a few new OSes to grab and learn while I wait for my Hard drive to get in my budget.

It looks like PC-BSD, OpenIndiana (if I can ever get it to detect my ASIX USB NIC), and Slackware will be getting a partition each once it arrives along with Windows 7.

I'm a long-time FreeBSD user, but, I had to move to OpenBSD as FreeBSD 9.0 would not boot-up on this old box. I must say that I am happy with the switch as OpenBSD 5.0 works well indeed.
Good luck with PC-BSD.

The big problem with OpenBSD is that you cannot get the official distribution without paying for the CD-set. I am not against charging for distributions, but it makes OpenBSD out of reach of those who simply want to use it in a non-commercial setting - see it's harder to justify the cost and makes more sense in enterprises which require dedicated and secure server systems.

I am aware that the OpenBSD installation can be done with the downloadable CD and I know what it does, but you get the most basic system possible and you need to spend a lot of time in building up the system through downloading large ports and making other desktop-specific customizations. The same result can be achieved with PC-BSD (for a desktop) with lesser effort at the cost of fine-grained customization.

Yes, OpenBSD has other advantages, but those are advantages that are most beneficial to server setups, dedicated firewalls etc.

If a user wants a BSD for desktop usage, I HAVE to recommend PC-BSD based on my current experiences simply because it even blows some Linux distros out of the water for ease of use and a setup that just works. It's also clean in the sense that you "jail" the ports and the self-containing PBIs won't mess with the system files at all.

I'm downloading 9.0-RC1 as I write this. It appears to have enhancements that make it even better for desktops.