status of linux games support

[zebdits]

Zander, can you shed some light on this problem?

It looks similar to this one:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=124233

There are also a recent PR about it:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/133144

Thanks.

[zander]

I took a look at this on FreeBSD 8.0-CURRENT last weekend, but didn't get a chance to investigate very closely. I filed a bug.

[zebdits]

Originally Posted by zander

I took a look at this on FreeBSD 8.0-CURRENT last weekend, but didn't get a chance to investigate very closely. I filed a bug.

I think that the same happens on 7 using linux_base > fc4 and compat.linux.osrelease=2.6.16.
Do you think it's a Nvidia problem or a linux emulation layer or both?

[zander]

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to either question, though my guess is that the problem on FreeBSD 7 is the same as the one on FreeBSD 8. The Linux libraries shipped for Linux ABI compatibility are the same shipped for Linux, which suggests a problem with FreeBSD's Linux emulation, but we'll have to see.

[zander]

@zebdits: does the problem reproduce if you replace the libnvidia-tls.so.180.xx library shipped in the FreeBSD driver package with the tls variant? For example (for 180.60):

# sh /path/to/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.60-pkg0.run -x
# cp -pR NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.60-pkg0/usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.180.60 \
/compat/linux/usr/lib

[zebdits]

No, it doesn't!
linux-* games are starting after replacing the file!

[zander]

OK, thanks. We'll update the installer to dynamically decide which TLS library to install for a future NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics driver release. For now, please copy the tls variant from the Linux .run package matching whichever NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics driver release you're trying to use.

On a related note, we identified the root cause of a hang seen when starting Linux OpenGL applications as root without a `modprobe` -> `true` symlink on FreeBSD. We'll fix this problem and improve this path for a future release, as well.

[arundel]

@zander: hi there. just wanted to let you know that the solution you suggested also works for CURRENT.
i'm using linux_base-f9-9, release 185.18.14 of the nvidia drivers and compat.linux.osrelease is set to 2.6.16.
after replacing libnvidia-tls.so.185.18.14 with the one from the linux driver all issues i was having with linux 3d apps are gone. no more core dumps! :-)

thanks a bunch. hope this fix will make it into the next release of the nvidia driver.

[arundel]

@zander: could you describe the difference between the two libs

libnvidia-tls.so.185.18.14 and
tls/libnvidia-tls.so.185.18.14 which come with the linux driver package?

having the latter one work under freebsd is great, but obviously the first one doesn't work because of a problem in the linux emulation layer which still needs to be fixed.

cheers.

[zander]

@arundel: the two libnvidia-tls libraries support different TLS models: the one currently shipped with the NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics driver supports the old-style TLS model, the tls/ one the new ELF TLS model. The crashes you were seeing were not due to a problem with the Linux emulation layer. Future NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics driver releases will automatically determine which library to install.

[barbara]

For who is experiencing problems, especially with linux-quake4 and linux-doom3 , I've updated my pr with fixes for RELENG_8 and RELENG_7:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=118230

For who is experiencing problems with rtcw (on same branches) and recent drivers, look at my messages in this PR (search for 6 Jan 2010):
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=133144