NetBSD-5.1_STABLE, xorg, and i915drm problems

[John D. Baker]

I was helping a friend set up a Dell PowerEdge SC420 with NetBSD
5.1_STABLE (built from sources around 20 June 2011). He wants to run
the X window system. The xorg "intel" driver detects an i915 device but
fails to initialize because it can't open "/dev/agpgart".

Recalling something about i915drm, I checked the manual pages and rolled
a quick GENERIC kernel with the "i915drm" device included (and the other
options available but commented out).

I install this kernel and reboot. The dmesg output shows i915drm
attaching but complaining about not being able to initalize agpgart
(which makes sense since it's a PCIe device). Attempting to lauch
the X server gets as far as switching to the blank virtual terminal,
but then the machine reboots (I forget the message from savecore,
alas).

I rebuilt the kernel with the DRM_DEBUG and DRM_NO_AGP options. There
was more data about the chip/device printed, but I don't have access
to the output at the moment. I'm trying to get it. Starting the
X server again switched to the virtual terminal but crashed/rebooted
the machine again.

Is there a way to get X working on this machine with NetBSD 5.1? Or is
-current the only viable way forward at this time? Otherwise the onboard
video will need to be abandoned in favor of a PCI video card (the
machine's PCIe 16x slot has key bars in it so no PCIe video card can be
used.)

Thanks for any advice. I'll try to get the dmesg output and Xorg logs.

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