Alma linux do not work on DELL Precision 3571

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1

Hi Alma Linux maintainers,

I spent a couple of days to identify a problem with alma linux and DELL Precision 3571 laptop.
This laptop has an Nvidia T600 graphic board ans an intel alder lake-p graphic chipset.
Installing Nvidia drivers broke alma linux (black screen after nvidia drivers installation). The interesting message is:

kernel: i915 0000:00:02.0: Your graphics device 46a6 is not properly supported by the driver in this kernel version. To force driver probe anyway, use i915.force_probe=46a6 module parameter or CONFIG_DRM_I915_FORCE_PROBE=46a6 configuration option, or (recommended) check for kernel updates.

So I understand that the system was previously using “nouveau” with the Nvidia T600. Blacklisting nouveau while installing nvidia drivers try to use use the intel chipset for launching gdm screen and it fails. I have added the “i915.force_probe=46a6” but it do not provide many improvements (the external screen is now detected but I ends with two black screens).
This seams to be a kernel problem (see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/6956041 ). So what could be the strategy now ?

  • is there a more recent kernel available in 8.x (i am running 4.18.0-372.26.1.el8_6.x86_64 of almalinux 8.6)
  • should I move to Alma linux 9 ?
    Thanks for your advices.

Patrick

2

No and yes.

  • No, the 4.18.0-372.26.1.el8_6 is the latest that Red Hat has released for RHEL 8 and hence the latest for Alma 8. For RH to add a fix to their kernel practically requires that RH’s bugzilla gets bug report about the issue.
  • Yes, there are “third-party kernels”, like the “kernel-ml” packaged by ELRepo. Since it is built from upstream kernel sources, neither Red Hat nor Alma can “support” that content.

I have seen some “guides” on how to configure X11 when you have both Intel IGP and discrete GPU, but nothing about Wayland. (EL8 has both X11 and Wayland as options.)

3

i’d go with alma9, i had problems getting a decent display on 11th gen intel with even 5.10 kernel on debian, you’ve a lot better chance with 5.14 that’s in alma9

4

Hi jlethone,
when deploying Nvidia drivers it is requested by DELL to disable wayland in /etc/gdm/custom.conf. So I’m running Xorg only. So I’m interested in your guides. I’m more famillar with server than laptop management !
I’m going to test the “lt” end “ml” kernels. It is quite easy for me to break all and reinstall quickly as it is an automatic PXE+Kickstart deployment for the basic setup.
Then, if it does not work, I will switch to Alma Linux 9 but I’ve to build a new local repo and check my Kickstart file compatibility.

Thanks jlethone and sej7278. I will provide feedback soon.

5

So am I. I like laptops as much as Grouchy Smurf.
The “guides” … I have no recollection where I saw them. :flushed:

This is the Way! :sunglasses:

6

i just diff’ed a very basic 8 vs 9 kickstart and the only difference was the way timezones are configured:

< timezone Europe/London --isUtc --ntpservers=uk.pool.ntp.org
---
> timezone Europe/London --utc
> timesource --ntp-server uk.pool.ntp.org

obviously package and repo names are different.

7

I’m back with a first setup using Alma Linux 8.6 and working. The process is to install a kernel 6.x (not working with 5.x), then the Nvidia drivers and finaly the nvidia sdk. GPU can be used for calculation and glxgears show direct rendering.
Following is my kickstart part for this setup with Alma Linux 8.6:

#---------------------------
# Install  requierements for Nvidia ?
#---------------------------
%post
exec </dev/tty3 > /dev/tty3
chvt 3
dnf -y install vulkan-loader mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-headers vulkan-loader-devel vulkan-tools mesa-vulkan-devel libvdpau-devel libvdpau
dnf -y install libglvnd libglvnd-devel
rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
dnf -y install https://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-8.el8.elrepo.noarch.rpm
dnf config-manager --set-disabled elrepo
sed -i -e "s/\#WaylandEnable=false/WaylandEnable=false/g" /etc/gdm/custom.conf
dnf -y --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-ml kernel-ml-core kernel-ml-devel kernel-ml-modules-extra
dnf config-manager --add-repo http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/rhel8/x86_64/cuda-rhel8.repo
dnf -y module install nvidia-driver:latest-dkms
dnf config-manager --add-repo https://developer.download.nvidia.com/hpc-sdk/rhel/nvhpc.repo
dnf install -y nvhpc-22.7
sed -i -e "s/Option \"PrimaryGPU\" \"yes\"/Option \"PrimaryGPU\" \"no\"/g" /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia.conf
sed -i -e "/MatchDriver \"i915\"/a \ \ \ \ Option \"PrimaryGPU\" \"yes\"" /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia.conf
%end

Of course, as you mention it, it is an unsupported solution in Alma Linux.
I will try Alma Linux 9 soon.

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8

AlmaLinux 8 does have package elrepo-release in extras repo, so if you add extras to repos in kickstart, then you can include elrepo-release (and vulkan-loader … libglvnd-devel) to %packages section and need only the: dnf config-manager --set-disabled elrepo in %post (before the sed).

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