Intel’s Linux Sandy Bridge Graphics Still Troubling
When Intel launched their newest «Sandy Bridge» processors earlier this month there were no Linux benchmark results available. We were not seeded with any CPU in advance and the other publications that have flings with Linux were unable to get the Linux graphics support working. There is no «out of the box» Sandy Bridge support under Linux with Ubuntu 10.10 and other distributions released in the past few months. It was not until the time that Sandy Bridge launched that there was the releases of Linux 2.6.37, Mesa 7.10, and the xf86-video-intel 2.14 DDX that are the versions reported to play well with the new Intel graphics. Because of the lack of «out of the box» Linux support, there was a very scathing review at SemiAccurate.com that went as far as calling Sandy Bridge the biggest disappointment of the year. The code was said to be ready, but there is a challenge in installing open-source GPU drivers by many Linux users.
A day later, there was an acknowledgement by Intel’s Jesse Barnes (one of the Intel OSTC Linux graphics developers) that they sort of messed up but will be aiming for better timing with Sandy Bridge’s successor, Ivy Bridge. By the end of that week, the Linux 2.6.37 kernel was out there as well as a new version of libva for providing VA-API video playback acceleration, Mesa 7.10, and then the xf86-video-intel 2.14.0 X.Org driver. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) I was then given a Sandy Bridge processor (Core i5 2500K) by Intel’s PR department so that Linux graphics benchmarks could be put out there due to the other publications failing to build the open-source Intel driver stack. It was figured that everyone would be happy after that because building the kernel, Mesa, and the rest of the stack from source is pretty much an every-day occurrence around here.
The week since CES I had been testing some of the P67 motherboards that were received from the different vendors. The CPU performance under Linux is really great and compelling, as the results will show when published. Then the next step was to move onto an Intel H67 motherboard to take advantage of the new integrated graphics. A clean Ubuntu 10.10 installation was performed with its Linux 2.6.35 kernel, Mesa 7.9, and xf86-video-intel 2.12 DDX. On this clean installation, the Intel DDX driver worked fine and there was kernel mode-setting, but there was no form of 3D hardware acceleration due to the outdated bits, as expected.
Thanks to the speed of the Sandy Bridge processor, within about 16 minutes of the first boot I had the latest xf86-video-intel, Mesa, and libdrm code built from Git and installed the vanilla Linux 2.6.37 kernel from the Ubuntu mainline PPA. After a reboot, however, I noticed that Compiz did not flip on. Attempting to manually enable the compositing from the GNOME Preferences for the desktop effects still resulted in, «Desktop effects could not be enabled.» When launching Compiz from the command-line, it turns out the Sandy Bridge PCI ID is black-listed by Compiz. However, when skipping the black-listing checks, launching Compiz still failed miserably while the verbose libGL debugging information didn’t report anything out of the ordinary and all indications were that hardware acceleration was working.
My next step was to verify this with one of the common OpenGL benchmarks. After a quick FORCE_TIMES_TO_RUN=1 phoronix-test-suite benchmark nexuiz had worked out with hardware acceleration, it appeared the situation was going easy again. With this Intel H67 + Intel Core i5 2500K system running Ubuntu 10.10 with the Linux 2.6.37 kernel, Mesa 7.11-devel, xf86-video-intel 2.14, and libdrm 2.4.23, I then decided to run the common OpenGL games such as those in the recent open-source ATI Mesa benchmarks. It’s a simple, phoronix-test-suite batch-run vdrift nexuiz warsow openarena padman smokin-guns and selected 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, and 1920 x 1080 as the resolutions for each test to see how well the Sandy Bridge graphics and driver were scaling. However, in the end, I did not have a single valid result for one reason or another with each test.
VDrift ran the best overall, did not crash once even when testing it at all of the resolutions, and provided decent frame-rates, but there were random artifacts appearing on the screen. But this was just the start of the problems.
How do I get Ubuntu to boot on an Intel X79 (Sandy Bridge-E) system?
I am trying to install Ubuntu on the 128GB SSD and I seem unable to successfully boot Ubuntu. Here’s what I’ve tried:
- booting from a USB flash drive as well as DVD media
- UEFI turned on, UEFI turned off
- appending nomodeset acpi=off to boot parameters
- turning off all Intel stepping
- changing power control settings
- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
- Ubuntu 12.10
- Linux Mint 13
- disconnecting all hard drives except 128GB SSD
Nothing from the combinations of these seem to matter — I simply can’t get it to boot. It gets stuck in the same place showing this screen during the boot cycle and the only way out of it seems to force it to shut down.
I would appreciate any help on this.
We really need more information. Here’s stuff to include in your question: 1) What have you tried? 2) What did you expect to happen, but what happened instead? 3) Do other bootable media boot up? 4) What exact motherboard is it concerned? 5) What makes you think this is Ubuntu related? 6) anything else that might help. And consider removing the now no longer relevant comments.
Did you try to boot 12.10 (I assume 12.04 from the tag)? With a more recent kernel in 12.10 should support the hardware. Give that a try. Do you have the latest (1.5?) BIOS installed on it? (Sorry for the Sandy/Ivy confusion you’ve fixed up now!)
@JerryHolland This is essential information for a question to be answerable. It should have been in your question from the beginning. Please keep in mind that we can’t see your screen and other activity you do there. It’s of your own advantage to describe as much and complete as possible. Back to your issue: Try booting with nomodeset acpi=off (both, space separated) appended to the kernel boot parameter line. Here’s how: My computer boots to a black screen, what options do I have to fix it?
1 Answer 1
After many failed attempts I successfully got Ubuntu to boot on my computer by disabling the external SATA controller on my motherboard. I booted successfully with:
However, after this successful boot I began by turning the ASMedia controller back on AHCI mode and unplugging the four devices from the motherboard that use these ports, which successfully booted as well. Through trial and error I discovered the problems occurred when my CD/DVD drives were plugged in. I have two LG GH24NS95 drives that appear to be the cause of my problems from the beginning.
Intel Sandy Bridge Linux Graphics? It’s A Challenge
This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (I’ll be there again looking out for Linux), Intel will officially launch their next-generation Sandy Bridge micro-architecture and CPUs. The NDA though expired at midnight on these first CPUs so there is now a stream of reviews coming out. Is there any Linux graphics test results for the Core i3 2100, Core i5 2400, Core i5 2500K, and Core i7 2600K? Unfortunately, there is not.
Last month I already wrote at length about the support status of Intel Sandy Bridge in terms of its new chipsets and the CPUs. To summarize that, the support should be in place aside from LM_Sensors potentially not working with some of the new H67/P67 motherboards and to utilize the next-generation Intel graphics you will need to jump over some hurdles at this time. While we can easily jump those hurdles, not everyone can and it’s a hassle for many Linux users. Intel decided not to send out any Sandy Bridge CPU samples to us, so we are unable to deliver test results, but all I got were frustrated journalists asking me how to get the Sandy Bridge graphics working under Linux. So that they could then run the Phoronix Test Suite.
As I’ve been saying, Ubuntu 10.10 will not work fully with the Sandy Bridge CPU’s graphics as its stack is too old. Intel has been working on Sandy Bridge open-source Linux support going back a year now, and some of the DRM and DDX bits have been living in mainline trees for months, but it’s not the polished and proper support. For the proper Sandy Bridge experience you are left looking for the Linux 2.6.37 kernel, Mesa 7.10, the latest libdrm, and the xf86-video-intel 2.14.0 DDX that should be released in the next week or so. If you are trying to use MPEG2 / H.264 VA-API video acceleration, you will also need to be pulling libva (the VA-API library) from Git as the Sandy Bridge support upbringing is in no official release either.
With Ubuntu 10.10 you may get kernel mode-setting so your display will at least light up and you can use your desktop, but no Compiz, no 3D acceleration, no VA-API. To get all of this you will need to pull those five mentioned components (Linux kernel, Mesa, libdrm, xf86-video-intel, and libva [optionally for video acceleration]) from source or their tar-balls once they are officially released. These will not appear in Ubuntu 10.10 updates repository or anywhere else until Ubuntu 11.04 is released. If you’re lucky there will be a PPA / third-party repository with some of these bits, but nothing official.
Intel does have out launch-day support (in the form of Git code) for the new graphics found on Sandy Bridge, but you must be willing and comfortable building the graphics stack from source on any modern Linux distribution. This would be a big problem for new Linux users and even journalists — aside from at Phoronix where building graphics drivers from source is a daily ritual. Unfortunately, the open-source Linux graphics driver stack does not allow new/updated drivers to be easily installed like driver installations are done on Windows or under Linux with the ATI Catalyst and NVIDIA binary drivers.
Charlie Demerjian at SemiAccurate has written a very scathing review against Sandy Bridge for this very reason: Sandy Bridge is the biggest disappointment of the year. Charlie feels that Sandy Bridge is a broken platform since there aren’t Linux drivers working «out of the box» on Ubuntu 10.10. «The down side is pretty painful. Intel offers a bunch of must have, make your life better, brings world peace, flowers, and the like level features on Sandy Bridge. The working count on Linux? Zero on launch. The chance that they will ever work on Linux? Just slightly above zero, think the need for extended floating point precision to see that many zeros. So, back to the ‘must have or your coffee shop experience is not complete’ feature set. They include Video Processing Accelerators — never coming to Linux, Color Processing Accelerators — never coming to Linux, Skin Tone Enhancements — never coming to Linux, Adaptive Contrast Enhancement — never coming to Linux, Total Color Control — never coming to Linux, Video Decode in hardware — Q1, Video Encode in hardware — Q1, 3D acceleration — Q1 sooner rather than later and a host of software to use it — never coming to Linux.»
Due to the lack of drivers out of the box, he even compares the Sandy Bridge performance using the Mesa Software Rasterizer. Obviously the Mesa Software Rasterizer is bloody horrific, but it would have been possible and interesting to see Sandy Bridge running with the LLVMpipe driver to see how well that LLVM-based software pipeline works on this new Intel micro-architecture, but we’ll have to wait until we can get our hands on the hardware to be able to run some competent Linux tests.
Charlie though isn’t the only early Sandy Bridge Linux user facing these problems. One of my fellow Augustiner-drinking journalists from Munich was also facing problems. «No beef so far in getting the GPU to w0k under Linux, but I didn’t expect it would. Did you hear anything about support? I did ask Intel but no beef so far!«
After explaining things to him about needing the latest Git components at the time in mid-December, «Building what from git?