[RndTbl] intel-media-driver with Intel 1165G7 and Rocky 9

[Adam Thompson]

Keeping in mind that RHEL (and thus Rocky, Alma, et al.) ships a specific kernel version and generally sticks with it throughout the lifespan of the distro version (Red Hat Enterprise Linux Release Dates - Red Hat Customer Portal<https://access.redhat.com/articles/3078>)…

You may be able upgrade to newer kernels using e.g. the elrepo repositories.  See How to Install Latest Linux Kernel in RHEL 8 (linuxshelltips.com)<https://www.linuxshelltips.com/install-linux-kernel-rhel-8/#:~:text=Installing%20Kernel%20in%20RHEL%208%20First%2C%20update%20your,-y%20install%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elrepo.org%2Felrepo-release-8.el8.elrepo.noarch.rpm%20%24%20sudo%20rpm%20--import%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elrepo.org%2FRPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org>.  But now you’re getting far away from what’s well-supported.  You would generally speaking be better off just upgrading to EL9, to get a newer kernel.  Or Fedora.  Or Arch or Gentoo if you need to be on the bleeding edge and either have no life, or want less of one. ;-)  (There’s also LFS if you are seriously twisted.  Don’t go there.)

If your goal is compatibility with other systems, and it works well enough as-is, then yeah, leave it alone.  The days of being able to mix and match versions of core software components are [mostly] about 15yrs in the past, by now, sadly.
-Adam


From: Roundtable <roundtable-bounces at muug.ca> On Behalf Of Chris Audet
Sent: Saturday, March 4, 2023 12:40 PM
To: Continuation of Round Table discussion <roundtable at muug.ca>
Subject: Re: [RndTbl] intel-media-driver with Intel 1165G7 and Rocky 9

@Adam great breakdown, thanks!

>Maybe it would be helpful if Chris told us his laptop brand / model
Lenovo Thinkbook 14 G2 ITL with Intel 1165G7 (no dedicated GPU, just Intel iGPU)

>and confirm what the base issue is
Thankfully there's no actual problem I'm trying to fix, as far as I can tell the Intel iGPU works great out of the box, including browser video decode.
This was mostly a follow up from last month's meeting.  It was suggested that the hardware might be too new for the kernel that ships with Rocky 9, and I was directed to look at the Intel stuff on this KB<https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia>.  If no action is needed then then I'll just keep on truckin' 🙂

>you probably don’t want to enable RPMFusion on any corporate system without checking with your company’s lawyer(s)
Good insight, I never considered this.  This is a personal device but we've also got a handful of Rocky Linux VMs at work, so I will double check.

On Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 11:33 PM Adam Thompson <athompso at athompso.net<mailto:athompso at athompso.net>> wrote:
Ah, yes, much detail was omitted in the OP :-).

Both nVidia and AMD have solutions for that under Linux, but IIRC they barely worked.  I think nVidia's was called Optimus, can't recall the AMD name.

The VAAPI driver may or may not help his system, but it sure won't do GPU switching!

The nVidia binary drivers may work with Wayland, but as of ~12mos ago, the consensus was "just run X", and I can't find anything that says it's officially supported at all.

The AMD story is barely even documented... typical. :-/ It was relatively rare in the wild to find switchable AMD GPUs in the first place.

As usual, ArchLinux has top-notch documentation on the subject: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/hybrid_graphics

Looks like if you want PRIME under Waytland, you may be pulling a Panasonic: just slightly ahead of your time!

-Adam

Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>
________________________________
From: Trevor Cordes <trevor at tecnopolis.ca<mailto:trevor at tecnopolis.ca>>
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2023 11:18:14 PM
To: Adam Thompson <athompso at athompso.net<mailto:athompso at athompso.net>>
Cc: Continuation of Round Table discussion <roundtable at muug.ca<mailto:roundtable at muug.ca>>
Subject: Re: [RndTbl] intel-media-driver with Intel 1165G7 and Rocky 9

On 2023-02-18 Adam Thompson wrote:
> You’re not seeing any results because that’s not a kernel module.

Ya, no .ko.xz, no kernel module in the rpm.

Adam nailed it.  But we should go back to Chris' main pain point, which
you might have missed because he brought it up at the last meeting: (I
think) he wants the hardware/software switching that some laptops do
between discrete / onboard video auto-switching to work in linux.

But now that we're reading all this detail, I'm a bit baffled because
Intel doesn't really do a discrete / onboard thing at all, do they?
Now, maybe Chris has a Intel-onboard / Nvidia-discrete laptop, which
were somewhat common on the high-end in the past?

And AFAIK no one ever got those to work with Linux (in X) without
having a reboot in between and doing a bunch of driver disabling/etc.
They were more a Windows thing.

And I think (from other conversations) he doing this because games.

Maybe it would be helpful if Chris told us his laptop brand / model,
and confirm what the base issue is.

P.S. Nice that Intel is trying to do linux drivers "right" (sans the
auto-switching).  I fight with the nvidia binary akmod issues every few
years, and it's a real pain they don't just integrate it all into the
kernel.
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