A few system details: FreeBSD scythe.lovett.com 4.9-RC FreeBSD 4.9-RC #0: Thu Oct 16 14:02:55 PDT 2003 root@scythe.lovett.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386 Bootstrapped from a minimal install from the 4.9-RC2 ISO image. Relevant devices: agp0: <VIA Generic host to PCI bridge> mem 0xf8000000-0xfbffffff at device 0.0 on pci0 nvidia0: <GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X> mem 0xf4000000-0xf7ffffff,0xf2000000-0xf2ffffff irq 11 at device 0.0 on pci1 Ports of the same vintage: XFree86-4.3.0,1 XFree86-FontServer-4.3.0_2 XFree86-Server-4.3.0_11 XFree86-clients-4.3.0_3 XFree86-documents-4.3.0 XFree86-font100dpi-4.3.0 XFree86-font75dpi-4.3.0 XFree86-fontCyrillic-4.3.0 XFree86-fontDefaultBitmaps-4.3.0 XFree86-fontEncodings-4.3.0 XFree86-fontScalable-4.3.0 XFree86-libraries-4.3.0_6 XFree86-manuals-4.3.0 Xft-2.1.2 nvidia-driver-1.0.4365 (compiled with WITH_FREEBSD_AGP=YES) The problem: Using the 'nv' driver brings up X with no problems. Switching to the 'nvidia' driver, I get: (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to allocate a DMA push buffer context (EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting *** The exact same configuration and set of ports works fine on the same hardware with -current. After a quick conversation elsewhere, it was noted that USER_LDT, whilst the default in -current, is not present by default in -stable. Adding "options USER_LDT" to /sys/i386/conf/GENERIC, buildkernel/installkernel, and a rebuild of nvidia-driver later, I got a panic: [...] #11 0xc0702420 in ?? () #12 0xc026272a in spec_ioctl () #13 0xc0262455 in spec_vnoperate () #14 0xc033f06d in ufs_vnoperatespec () #15 0xc025ee1f in vn_ioctl () #16 0xc0238bae in ioctl () #17 0xc039e311 in syscall2 () #18 0xc038eec5 in Xint0x80_syscall () #19 0x8441a07 in ?? () Bugger. No debugging kernel built with GENERIC. Ok. Add in "makeoptions DEBUG=-g # (growl, maim, slash, burn)", buildkernel/installkernel, rebuild nvidia-driver and reboot, we switch back to the previous behavior (no panic! gah!): (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to allocate a DMA push buffer context (EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting *** Any suggestions? -aDe (currently back to the 'nv' driver)