Hello, On Mon, 19 Jan 2026 22:56:10 -0700 Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling%kev009.com@localhost> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 3:47 PM Michael <macallan1888%gmail.com@localhost> wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:59:35 -0700 > > Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling%kev009.com@localhost> wrote: > > > > > With the modesetting default of AccelMethod "glamor", X will not start with: > > > glamor requires at least 128 instructions (64 reported) > > > > > > So it seems the older EXA radeon might be preferable, but something is > > > going wrong in the kernel. Has anyone looked into this drm stuff > > > recently? > > > > Do you actually care about DRM? If all you want is 2D accelerated X > > with xrender and a fast console you may be better off with radeonfb and > > the old, pre-KMS radeon driver. This is the default on macppc and > > sparc64 but hasn't been tested much on anything else. > > Will need > > options RADEONFB_BIOS_INIT > > if your card's connectors aren't the usual VGA and DVI. > I am just experimenting with a sentimental laptop and seeing what it > can do. The device under test is a ThinkPad T42p. I have a sister > system, an X40, with fairly less specs (low voltage Dothan CPU, Intel > Extreme graphics while the T42p is the maximum config of that era) > running XP and it can plausibly browse the web using a vintage Firefox > derivative like Mypal browser. I am trying to see if I can get the > firefox52 in pkgsrc to work at similar or better speed. I think it > needs full hw accel or opengl to have a chance to perform. I found palemoon quite usable on a 1.6GHz powerbook which has a mobility 9600 with 64MB, with xrender enabled, and 2GB RAM. Not sure what they mean by 'full hw accel' these days but I bet most of it is either xrender / alpha blending or video decoding. The old radeon driver will do at least xrender. Firefox52 was always rather sluggish by comparison. This is what it looks like: [ 1.000000] radeonfb0 at pci0 dev 16 function 0: ATI Technologies Radeon Mobility 9600/9700 (M10/11) NP (rev. 0x00) [ 1.000000] trying to read disabled BIOS... [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: No video BIOS, using default clocks [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: refclk = 27.000 MHz, refdiv = 12 minpll = 125000, maxpll = 400000 [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: 64 MB aperture at 0xb8000000, 64 KB registers at 0xb0000000 [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: display 0: initial virtual resolution 1280x854 at 8 bpp [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: using 32 MB per display [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: port 0: physical 1280x854 60Hz [ 1.000000] radeonfb0: port 1: physical 1280x854 60Hz [ 1.000000] wsdisplay0 at radeonfb0 kbdmux 1: console (fb, vt100 emulation) ... [ 2419.385] (II) RADEON(0): TOTO SAYS 00000000b0000000 [ 2419.385] (II) RADEON(0): MMIO registers at 0x00000000b0000000: size 64KB [ 2419.385] (II) RADEON(0): PCI bus 0 card 16 func 0 [ 2419.386] (==) RADEON(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 2419.386] (II) RADEON(0): Pixel depth = 24 bits stored in 4 bytes (32 bpp pixmaps) [ 2419.386] (==) RADEON(0): Default visual is TrueColor [ 2419.386] (II) RADEON(0): VGAAccess option set to FALSE, VGA module load skipped [ 2419.387] (==) RADEON(0): RGB weight 888 [ 2419.387] (II) RADEON(0): Using 8 bits per RGB (8 bit DAC) [ 2419.387] (--) RADEON(0): Chipset: "ATI Radeon Mobility 9600/9700 (M10/M11) NP (AGP)" (ChipID = 0x4e50) [ 2419.387] (--) RADEON(0): Linear framebuffer at 0x00000000b8000000 [ 2419.387] (II) RADEON(0): AGP card detected [ 2419.464] (II) RADEON(0): Attempting to read un-POSTed bios [ 2419.539] (WW) RADEON(0): Unrecognized BIOS signature, BIOS data will not be used [ 2419.540] (II) RADEON(0): Generation 2 PCI interface, using max accessible memory ... [ 2420.302] (II) RADEON(0): Render acceleration enabled for R300/R400/R500 type cards. [ 2420.302] (II) RADEON(0): Setting EXA maxPitchBytes [ 2420.302] (II) RADEON(0): num quad-pipes is 1 [ 2420.303] (II) EXA(0): Offscreen pixmap area of 60522496 bytes [ 2420.303] (II) EXA(0): Driver registered support for the following operations: [ 2420.304] (II) Solid [ 2420.304] (II) Copy [ 2420.304] (II) Composite (RENDER acceleration) [ 2420.304] (II) RADEON(0): Acceleration enabled [ 2420.304] (==) RADEON(0): DPMS enabled [ 2420.304] (==) RADEON(0): Silken mouse enabled ... [ 2420.312] (II) RADEON(0): Set up overlay video [ 2420.313] (II) RADEON(0): Set up textured video [ 2420.314] (II) RADEON(0): [XvMC] Associated with Radeon Textured Video. [ 2420.314] (II) RADEON(0): [XvMC] Extension initialized. have fun Michael