Bug 223111

Summary: x11/xorg: Please include the xf86-video-vmware and the xf86-input-vmmouse ports in x11/xorg
Product: Ports & Packages Reporter: Thomas Hellström <thellstrom>
Component: Individual Port(s)Assignee: freebsd-x11 (Nobody) <x11>
Status: Closed Not Accepted    
Severity: Affects Many People CC: crees, thellstrom, val, zeising
Priority: --- Flags: bugzilla: maintainer-feedback? (x11)
Version: Latest   
Hardware: amd64   
OS: Any   

Description Thomas Hellström 2017-10-19 12:00:33 UTC 
The xf86-video-vmware- and xf86-input-vmmouse packages / ports enable VMware users to automatically have a functional desktop when installing the xorg package.

The xf86-video-vmware driver is one of the hardcoded Xserver drivers that are tried at Xserver start, and it backs off if not run on a VMware platform.

Autodetection support for vmmouse+devd has just been filed as a bug. Meanwhile there should be no harm in including it in the Xorg port.

Thanks,

Thomas Hellström
vmware
Comment 1 Niclas Zeising freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2018-01-12 22:36:41 UTC 
Hi!

Almost no drivers are included in the default install of x11-drivers, see list below.

    kbd_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard
    mouse_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse
    scfb_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-video-scfb
    vesa_drv.so : x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa

I'm not sure I want to include this driver, since it's easy to install separately, and adding it would clutter up installs for all non VMWare use cases.  I have to think this over some.
Comment 2 Chris Rees freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-01-17 19:24:48 UTC 
It might be nice to include it by default in x11/xorg-drivers though, what do you think?

No one is forced to use it, but when xorg-drivers is installed, the VESA drivers are put in, which works for pretty much any 'bare metal' installation, and for an extra 300kB or so, I'm not sure it would upset anyone?

https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23240
Comment 3 Niclas Zeising freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-01-20 09:51:57 UTC 
Today, xorg-driver only installs the bare minimum of drivers by default, which means, keyboard, mouse, vesa and scfb (vesa but when running with EFI, basically).
I'm not sure if we want to change these defaults.
Comment 4 Chris Rees freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-01-20 13:05:02 UTC 
I understand where you're coming from-- if we take the view that xorg-drivers installs everything needed for pretty much *any* computer to run X, then we should imagine that it is a reasonable expectation that vmware machines also work with xorg-drivers.

If you're still not a fan, perhaps instead we could have a meta-port specifically for vmware machines, so that in the vmware docs they suggest installing this port and all the recommended stuff gets installed.  That means we don't have to recommend the user install about ten ports at the start.
Comment 5 Val Packett 2020-01-20 14:21:16 UTC 
Is xf86 video vmware even relevant? Shouldn't modesetting just work with vmwgfx in the kernel?

Also someone should write an evdev driver for the vmmouse.
Comment 6 Thomas Hellström 2020-01-20 17:01:35 UTC 
I haven't tested in a while, but I never saw vmwgfx working with freebsd.

Besides, xf86-video-vmware enables things like guest autofit, overlay support and superior xrender speeds compared to modesetting.
Comment 7 Chris Rees freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-01-27 14:55:32 UTC 
The x11-drivers/xorg-drivers port allows X11 to run in a bare-bones sense, just as it does on a bare metal machine.  In that sense, this is how xorg-drivers is meant to work; a bare minimum install to check for base functionality.

Perhaps you could add the vmware drivers to open-vm-tools port?  I'm happy to look at facilitating that if you let me know.
Comment 8 Chris Rees freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-01-27 15:00:01 UTC 
(In reply to Chris Rees from comment #7)
Just to clarify, I mean, the drivers work with VMWare too.