GPU choice and Laser Multifunction Printer

English Hardware
#1

Hello! I’ve been using OpenSUSE for many years. My current laptop will be 7 years old soon and it’s asking me for a replacement. I remember that I bought a laptop with nVidia GeForce 820M graphics 7 years ago, I installed OpenSUSE 13.2 x64 with the proprietary drivers and it did strange things when scrolling the web. I had a trial period and I decided to return it. I purchased my current laptop, a Toshiba with an AMD Radeon R7 M260 Graphics GPU (2GB dedicated DDR3 VRAM) + Intel HD Graphics 4400. I first tried OpenSUSE, then I tried other distributions and it was impossible to get it working after compilation. Finally I got it with Ubuntu, but HDMI didn’t work and, with the updates, after a restart it broke and lost the graphical environment, so I had to format and reinstall everything. On the fourth or fifth time, seeing how unstable it was, I decided not to try again. Although my laptop has a dedicated graphics, I have never used it. That makes me angry, just as I have another laptop with integrated Intel graphics to which I had to uninstall OpenSUSE and install Windows 10 because I could no longer play YouTube videos (in Windows it takes advantage of hardware acceleration and it is appreciated).
Now, I’m going to buy another laptop, I don’t want to go through another hell, I want to buy something that works well, without having to do compilations, that takes advantage of all its functions and hardware acceleration. I have seen the market and, in terms of processors, the i5-1135G7, Ryzen 5 5500U and Ryzen 7 5700U fall into the budget. The GPUs are:

  • Intel UHD Graphics
  • Intel Iris Xe
  • AMD Radeon Graphics
  • AMD Radeon Vega 7-10
  • nVidia GeForce MX350
    I use the computer mainly to surf, watch YouTube videos, program Arduino and occasionally run another machine in VirtualBox. I think that in Linux it is more important that the drivers are optimized to raw power.
    Can you tell me about your experience with these models?

By the way, I am also going to buy a wireless laser multifunction printer. I have a Brother MFC-L2710DW sight. Do you know if it works correctly or do you recommend another brand?

#2

This is pretty low end, and, rather than a laptop, it’s in my Dell Precision desktop, but I hope it helps. I have had zero problems with AMD ATI Radeon Pro Wx 3200 and Intel HD Graphics.

#3

Intel HD Graphics 4400 should work nowadays pretty well, the problem with new laptops is often related to new hardware that is not (yet) supported by Linux. On average Intel integrated graphics are pretty good supported.

I would check for a second-hand/refurbished labtop, you can get pretty good ones that seem to originate from companies that did refresh or went out of business. That will be somewhat older so better chance things are supported.

When setting for a laptop do a search for it on the Internet adding “Linux” and check the first 10 links.

#4

Hi and welcome to the Forum :slight_smile:
On your existing system, can you post the output from;


/sbin/lspci -nnk | egrep -A3 "VGA|Display|3D"
xrandr --listproviders
#5

I don’t know much about printers. I had a MFC Canon, which was a disaster that started with no driver for the first 6 months I had it. It probably cost me around US$2/page given how few pages it printed before dying right after warranty expired. All mine are now Brother:

  • HL-5470DW (IP plain mono laser; what I print with)
  • MFC-8910DW (IP multifunction mono laser; what I scan with)
    *]MFC-J480DW (IP multifunction color inkjet; reserved for if I ever need to print in color)
    My investment in the latter two is a combined total of US$40, 100% allocated to the laser. I buy Brother primarily because of DOS/Epson printer language support.
#6

:open_mouth: It seems that OpenSUSE is using the correct drivers. I gave up a long time ago and it seems that at some point the developers have included them out of the box. I don’t know if hardware acceleration will work now. Anyway, I’m going to replace it …

$ /sbin/lspci -nnk | egrep -A3 "VGA|Display|3D"
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0a16] (rev 0b)
        Subsystem: Toshiba Corporation Device [1179:f920]
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915
--
09:00.0  Display controller [0380]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Topaz  XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445 / 530/535 / 620/625  Mobile] 10... (rev ff)
        Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
        Kernel modules: amdgpu

$ xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 2
Provider  0: id: 0x65; cap: 0xf (Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink  Offload); crtcs: 3; outputs: 3; associated providers: 1; name:  modesetting
    output eDP-1
    output HDMI-1
    output DP-1
Provider  1: id: 0x3f; cap: 0xd (Source Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload);  crtcs: 0; outputs: 0; associated providers: 1; name: AMD Radeon R7 M260 @  pci:0000:09:00.0
#7

Hi
So you can use switcherooctl (install and enable the service) or offload to run the GPU…


DRI_PRIME=pci:0000:09:00.0 glxinfo | grep  "OpenGL renderer"


example;
switcherooctl launch -g 1 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Radeon RX550/550 Series (POLARIS12, DRM 3.42.0, 5.14.14-1-default, LLVM 13.0.0)

DRI_PRIME=pci:0000:02:00.0 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Radeon RX550/550 Series (POLARIS12, DRM 3.42.0, 5.14.14-1-default, LLVM 13.0.0)
#8

With TW avoid Nvidia GPUs.
To simplify things and lower cost you may use GPU builtin CPU, without discrete one. Both Intel and AMD iGPUs are OK.
With new Intel you’ll get AV1 hardware acceleration.

#9

I introduce:
sudo switcheroo-control launch -g 1 glxinfo | grep “OpenGL renderer”
And the terminal freezes.

I have tried to enable hardware acceleration in chromium and, despite having the drivers installed, I don’t notice a difference in CPU usage when playing YouTube videos.

Thanks. I get the feeling that Intel graphics have more features implemented.

#10

Hi
What about the offload command DRI_PRIME=?

#11

And 2-3 times lower speed for OpenGL/Vulkan.
But easier OpenCL handling.
More heating, but better power scheme support.
So decide it by yourself.

#12 
$ DRI_PRIME=pci:0000:09:00.0 glxinfo | grep  "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile 

$ DRI_PRIME=pci:0000:02:00.0 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile

I think what I’m going to do is avoid nVidia, and to look that the rest of components are compatible. Finding a laptop for linux is being too difficult. I’ve seen a lenovo and I cross my fingers that it works in linux, I have not found information on internet.

#13

I’ve tried hw acceleration (both old OpenGL and new Webrender) and it works worse than basic (sw acceleration). The same thing happens to me as this case.

#14

Hi
So the xrandr output still shows the AMD gpu present?

You would be better off looking at a bug report for the amd gpu not working…

Can you confirm you started the switcherooctl service, did you also check the status of the service?

For example;


 systemctl status switcheroo-control.service 
● switcheroo-control.service - Switcheroo Control Proxy service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/switcheroo-control.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2021-10-31 09:08:47 CDT; 2 days ago
   Main PID: 992 (switcheroo-cont)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 4915)
        CPU: 64ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/switcheroo-control.service
             └─992 /usr/libexec/switcheroo-control


Oct 31 09:08:47 grover systemd[1]: Starting Switcheroo Control Proxy service...
Oct 31 09:08:47 grover systemd[1]: Started Switcheroo Control Proxy service.
#15

Sorry, I didn’t start the service when the terminal froze.
I’ve entered all the commands again:

$ systemctl start switcheroo-control.service

$ systemctl status switcheroo-control.service
● switcheroo-control.service - Switcheroo Control Proxy service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/switcheroo-control.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-11-03 12:02:48 CET; 26min ago
 Main PID: 4878 (switcheroo-cont)
    Tasks: 3
   CGroup: /system.slice/switcheroo-control.service
           └─4878 /usr/sbin/switcheroo-control

$ DRI_PRIME=pci:0000:09:00.0 glxinfo | grep  "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile

$ DRI_PRIME=pci:0000:02:00.0 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile

$ /sbin/lspci -nnk | egrep -A3 "VGA|Display|3D"
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0a16] (rev 0b)
        Subsystem: Toshiba Corporation Device [1179:f920]
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915
--
09:00.0 Display controller [0380]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445 / 530/535 / 620/625 Mobile] 10... (rev ff)
        Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
        Kernel modules: amdgpu

$ xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 2
Provider 0: id: 0x65; cap: 0xf (Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload); crtcs: 3; outputs: 3; associated providers: 1; name: modesetting
    output eDP-1
    output HDMI-1
    output DP-1
Provider 1: id: 0x3f; cap: 0xd (Source Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload); crtcs: 0; outputs: 0; associated providers: 1; name: AMD Radeon R7 M260 @ pci:0000:09:00.0

$ sudo switcheroo-control list
(return nothing)

$ sudo switcheroo-control help
(return nothing)

$ sudo switcheroo-control launch -g 1 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
(nothing happens)

$ vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 1.3.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_3
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.3 (libva 2.3.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Haswell Mobile - 2.2.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD

$  inxi -G
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: Chicony type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: amdgpu,ati,modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.2
#16

Hi
I would recommend a bug report, IMHO it should be working…

openSUSE:Submitting bug reports - openSUSE

#17

To use FF with OpenGL rendering you need FF ESR 91.x + additional settings (not only layers.acceleration.force-enabled=true).

With OpenGL or Webrender you get acceleration for compositing, not for playing videos.
To get accelerated video user needs installed video drivers (VA-API) + settings to use it:

media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled = true
gfx.x11-egl.force-enabled = true
media.ff*.enabled = true

And check DMABUF parameter.

This is for X11 session.
Wayland session has some differences.

#18

Laptops with preinstalled Linux: Acer, Asus, Dell, System76, Tuxedo. IDK about others.
Another models may work too.