This is an old revision of the document!

Whilst broadwell support still appears to be some way off, you should be able to use the scfb framebuffer driver in the mean time. It does not provide accelerated graphics, and is missing some features like brightness adjustment and support for external displays, but it works just fine on built-in laptop displays for simply desktop use and even playing videos.

You have to boot using the new vt(4) (aka newcons) for the scfb framebuffer driver to work. This is the default if you boot using UEFI, but not if you boot using (legacy) BIOS mode.

You can check which console you are using using: $ sysctl kern.vty

On my laptop, I have to boot using UEFI mode to get this to work at all; if I try to boot using BIOS mode but with that sysctl manually set to use vt(4) it doesn't work on my laptop. Your Intel NUC may be the same. https://man.freebsd.org/vt https://wiki.freebsd.org/Newcons

Steps to setup X11 with the SCFB driver:

1. Boot to a console (ensure X is installed as per the handbook, but not running)

2. Install the x11-drivers/xf86-video-scfb port/package: # pkg install xf86-video-scfb

3. Remove the x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel port/package: # pkg remove xf86-video-intel

4. Unload the i915 and i915kms kernel modules: # kldunload i915 # kldunload i915kms

5. Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to remove anything related to intel graphics. The only section of the file you should need is the following: Section “Device” Identifier “Card0” Driver “scfb” EndSection

6. Start X and enjoy your laptop graphical display (even if it is not accelerated).

Refer to the scfb X11 framebuffer driver man page here: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=scfb&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+10.2-RELEASE+and+Ports&arch=default&format=html