Intel Integrated Graphics Troubleshooting

taradiddles · June 3, 2023, 1:23pm

Software Rendering or Video Lags

If you are experiencing this issue, you will see extremely slow graphics updates. You will be able to watch the screen and elements paint slowly from top to bottom. You can confirm this is the issue by looking for a line similar to the following in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file:

[   131.769] (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering

Newer versions of the Linux kernel have renamed the i915.alpha_support=1 option (which was originally called i915.preliminary_hw_support=1) to i915.force_probe=*, so if you needed this kernel option in the past you will have to rename it or add it to your configuration files (follow either GRUB2 or EFI, not both):

GRUB2: /etc/default/grub, GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line and Rebuild grub config (grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg)
EFI: /boot/efi/EFI/qubes/xen.cfg, kernel= line(s)

If you are unsure as to which parameter works with your kernel, check whether your kernel log from your latest boot has a message containing “i915: unknown parameter”.

Fix tearing (glitches/artifacts/corruption/…)

By default Qubes OS uses fbdev, the framebuffer/modesetting driver. Without compositing VM windows exhibit graphical artefacts (dom0 is unaffected). Workarounds:

enable compositing; it is enabled by default in XFCE (if it was disabled for some reason, re-enabling it is done in “Window Manager Tweaks”; restarting xfwm isn’t necessary). i3wm, AwesomeWM or DWM window managers don’t provide compositing so their users would have to install a standalone compositing manager (the old faq mentions using compton but picom is a more recent fork. Both are packaged in Fedora 32 and can be installed easily with qubes-dom0-update).
or switch to the intel driver. Note: for some users the intel driver is unstable, triggering crashes/reboots ! - either reproducible (eg. moving a floating window to another monitor when using i3wm) to random and infrequent (eg. 1-3x a day with XFCE). In that case using the “UXA” acceleration method instead of the default “SNA” method seems to fix some crashes but may introduce other crashes.

Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf with the following content:
```
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "Intel"
    # UXA is more stable than the default SNA for some users
    Option "AccelMethod" "UXA"
EndSection
```
A logout/login is then required.

Intel’s PSR (Panel Self Refresh) may also cause tearing issues; it can be disabled globally in GRUB2/EFI with the i915.enable_psr=0 boot option. If this does fix tearing, a bad panel firmware is likely the cause.

Finding out which of `intel` or `fbdev` driver is in use:

grep -E 'LoadModule.*(fbdev|intel)"' /var/log/Xorg.0.log; eg. for intel:
```
(II) LoadModule: "intel"
```

or, sudo lsof +D /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/ ; eg. for fbdev:

Xorg    [...] /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so

IOMMU-related issues

Dom0 Kernels currently included in Qubes have issues related to VT-d (IOMMU) and some versions of the integrated Intel Graphics Chip. Depending on the specific hardware / software combination the issues are quite wide ranging, from apparently harmless log errors, to VM window refresh issues, to complete screen corruption and crashes rendering the machine unusable with Qubes.

Such issues have been reported on at least the following machines:

HP Elitebook 2540p
Lenovo x201
Lenovo x220
Thinkpad T410
Thinkpad T450s

Log errors only on :

Librem 13v1
Librem 15v2

The installer for Qubes 4.0 final has been updated to disable IOMMU for the integrated intel graphics by default. However, users of 3.2 may experience issues on install or on kernel upgrades to versions higher than 3.18.x.

Disabling IOMMU for the integrated graphics chip is not a security issue, as the device currently lives in dom0 and is not passed to a VM. This behaviour is planned to be changed as of Qubes 4.1, when passthrough capabilities will be required for the GUI domain.

Workaround for existing systems with VT-d enabled (grub / legacy mode)

Edit the startup parameters for Xen:

Open a terminal in dom0
Edit /etc/default/grub (e.g. sudo nano /etc/default/grub)
Add to the line GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT the setting iommu=no-igfx, save and quit
Commit the change withsudo grub2-mkconfig --output /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Workaround for existing systems with VT-d enabled (UEFI)