Novacustom V54 - SRIOV via i915-sriov-dkms?

User Support General
1

Hi guys,

wanted to ask if anybody has successfully attempted to add virtual iGPU support to Qubes on Novacustom laptops running Meteor Lake processort (like the Novacustom v46) with the mentioned module? Read a lot about this topic but there seems to be no “howto” except what is documented here as a general approach: i915-sriov-dkms/docs/install-manual.md at master · strongtz/i915-sriov-dkms · GitHub. As I have no test machine to play with and don’t want to brick my current one, asking if it is even an option to attempt to use this module successfully for GPU support within qubes.

Thanks!

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2

I don’t know if it works on the v54, but it seems to work on the T14.

https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/lenovo-thinkpad-t14-gen-5/27923/8

The T14 thread has some information on how to get SR-IOV to work.

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Thanks for your response! I have read this thread also, it was the one pushing my idea forward to try it myself :slight_smile: But I would feel more “safe” if there would’ve been somebody already using it successfully, thus my question :slight_smile:

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One general question: it seems that the way via SRIOV is promising to give users what they are asking for since a long time: GPU support in VMs without dedicated hardware. Is this something the QubesOS developers are considering to implement into the core software? Or is this concept causing possible security issues?
The status of generic GPU support seems to be kind of “unknown” at the moment. Would be great to get some information whether we can expect it in the near future or need to search for alternative solutions.
Thanks!

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5

I managed to get it working on this Laptop, see Guide.

6

This guide looks really good, thanks for this!
Assuming that I am not planning to play games, are you facing any issues during “normal” usage like browsing? What about sleep mode? Is the laptop waking up consistently without hangs? I read somewhere that this can be an issue, but most likely depends on the kernel params. Have you seen any negative effect on battery when in sleep mode?
Thanks again, this will surely help a lot of people.

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The only issues that I have are from using HEADS (one of the USB-C ports doesn’t work like it should). Despite that i have no issues.
Also the gaming issues are not only on some games and sometimes. And of course only with the virtualised GPU.

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Thanks again! I will try to follow your guide today, hopefully nothing will break :slight_smile: Is it easy enough to alter the kernel command line during boot to not load the module in case something goes wrong?

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I had older kernels still on the boot partition, that didn’t get the new driver. If thats not the case for you, it’s pretty simple the repo with the patched drivers contains a troubleshooting section for this specific case.