Intel Corporation TigerLake GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] not configured well in LEAP 15.2 (kernel 5.3.18)

My graphics card Intel TigerLake GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] seems not to be configured well in LEAP 15.2 with kernel 5.3.18 on a Dell Latitude 7420.
I noticed it as I cannot change the screen brightness and by some other issues. The directory /sys/class/backlight is empty.

journalctl -b0 -p4 shows these lines on backlight:

mei 17 21:39:59 ea08c209 org_kde_powerdevil[2620]: powerdevil: No outputs have backlight property
mei 17 21:39:59 ea08c209 backlighthelper[2754]: powerdevil: no kernel backlight interface found
mei 17 21:39:59 ea08c209 org_kde_powerdevil[2620]: powerdevil: org.kde.powerdevil.backlighthelper.brightness failed

lspci -nnk | grep A3 VGA gives:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation TigerLake GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] [8086:9a49] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0a36]
        Kernel modules: i915
00:04.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation TigerLake-LP Dynamic Tuning Processor Participant [8086:9a03] (rev 01)

inxi -G gives:

Graphics:  Device-1: Intel TigerLake GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: N/A 
           Device-2: Sunplus Innovation type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: N/A note: display driver n/a 
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~77Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 9.0.1 256 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 

I also installed kernel 5.12.4 and booting with that kernel doesn’t give problems with the graphics card (but there are other problems with that kernel, so I want to stick to 5.3.18). Changing the screen brightness etc. work fine then.
These are the outputs of lspci and inxi when I boot with kernel 5.12.4:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation TigerLake GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] [8086:9a49] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0a36]
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel TigerLake GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: Sunplus Innovation type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 19.3.4 

In this case the drivers seem to be loaded properly, while with kernel 5.3.18, e.g., the line “Kernel driver in use: i915” is missing.

lsmod | grep i915 gives this (with kernel 5.3.18):

i915                 2379776  0
i2c_algo_bit           16384  1 i915
drm_kms_helper        229376  1 i915
drm                   544768  2 drm_kms_helper,i915
video                  53248  3 dell_wmi,dell_laptop,i915

Also the Xorg.0.log files show some differences between kernel 5.3.18 and 5.12.4.
For kernel 5.3.18, I see the following errors:

     9.295] xf86EnableIOPorts: failed to set IOPL for I/O (Operation not permitted)
     9.295] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory

For kernel 5.12.4 I see some lines which are not present in case of kernel 5.3.18, e.g.:

(II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card0)

There seems to be a problem with kernel driver i915 in kernel 5.3.18 (as far as I can interpret the output of lspci, inxi and the Xorg.0.log file), but I have no idea how to solve this. Any ideas? All help is appreciated!

15.2’s ancient inxi is broken WRT -G. Before using it next, upgrade it to the latest upstream release by running

inxi -U

Please do

susepaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log

while booted to the 5.3.18 kernel and post the resulting URL here so we can have a look.

I updated inxi, but the output of inxi -G is still the same.

Here is the link to my /var/log/Xorg.0.log

https://susepaste.org/29247174

(EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory is a serious error that missing firmware or too new to be supported are typical causes for.

The Dell Latitude 7420 seems to be rather new so I am not surprised it is not fully supported.

Once bought also a new laptop but the NVM SSD was some kind of new Intel design with bad documentation and that the Linux maintainers did not like. I did return it and got myself a second hand “corporate” Lenovo laptop that worked out of the box.

I think you best try a Tumbleweed boot image and check if it there works. Tumbleweed is rather up-to-date so the chance is that support has been added.

It works fine when I boot at kernel 5.12.4, so the graphics card seems to be supported by that kernel. The solution would be to simply switch to that kernel. However there are some other problems with 5.12.4, namely with VirtualBox, which are not present in 5.3.18.
So, I hoped that I could fix the problem in 5.3.18 such that I can continue to use VirtualBox. I can try Tumbleweed or LEAP 15.3 (with a more recent kernel than 5.3.18) but I’m afraid that the VirtualBox problem will not be solved by that.
Is there a way of “transferring” the support of the graphics card in 5.12.4 to 5.3.18, or is that simply impossible? Or would there be a kernel version between 5.3 and 5.12 that would solve both the graphics card problem (in 5.3.18) and the VirtualBox problem (in 5.12.4)?
By the way, is there a repository where I can find the intermediate kernel versions between 5.3.18 (which I find in http://download.opensuse.org/update/leap/15.2/oss) and the newest kernel 5.12.4 (which I find in https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/ or https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/HEAD/standard)?

15.3 release was originally due to be released in about 14 days. A delay of at least 2 days was announced today. Its current release candidate is far enough along you should be able to trust it. You could either upgrade to it, after which it would soon automatically via normal updates become the released version, or you could install only its kernel, thus:

sudo zypper in http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/leap/15.3/repo/oss/x86_64/kernel-default-5.3.18-57.3.x86_64.rpm

Even though the version is “5.3.18”, it’s loaded with backports from newer kernels exactly for situations like yours.

Thanks a lot for the information on 15.3. Indeed, in the meantime I read somewhere that the kernel in 15.3 is (still) 5.3.18 - thus I thought that an upgrade to 15.3 (RC) was no solution to my problem - but I didn’t know about the backports from newer kernels included in it.
I will try the solutions you suggest (installing 15.3 RC or only its kernel) as soon as possible and will post my findings afterwards.

Booting to the kernel 5.3.18-57 (from LEAP 15.3RC) indeed solves the problem with the graphics card. Now I can control the screen brightness again and protect my eyes :slight_smile:
(Unfortunately the problem with VirtualBox is not solved, but that’s another issue.)
@mrmazda Thanks for the solution!

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/552725-Tumbleweed-and-Rocket-Lake-UHD-750/page2

1 & 2: done.
3. Update Mesa 3D from Experimental repo
4. Possibly you may need to add “i915.force_probe=4c8a” as kernel parameter.

Show:


uname -a

The problem has been solved by a kernel upgrade (5.3.18-57 from LEAP 15.3RC). Also an upgrade to kernel 5.12.x from kernel:stable (under LEAP 15.2) worked. So, i performed more or less steps 1&2.
(I tried i915.force_probe=… before but then the display didn’t work at all.)

I am running Virtualbox 6.1.22_SUSE with the 5.3.18-lp152.75-default kernel with no issue.
I install the Virtualbox additions extensions and on linux guest I block kernel-preempt virtualbox-kmp-default virtualbox-kmp-preempt from updating as they break OpenSUSE guest that are 15.2
I do not install the Oracle Guest Additions to any Linux guest as the builtin works fine - I do install them on Windows guests.

Please:
New problem, new thread in the subforum for Virtualization.
https://forums.opensuse.org/forumdisplay.php/934-Virtualization