[SOLVED] Software rendering problem on Dell XPS 9365

rusty nail · Post by **rusty nail** » Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:25 am

Hi,

I've just installed Mint 19 on a new dual boot Dell XPS 13 9365, having set SATA to AHCI, turned off secureboot and fastboot and used Update Manager to load all current updates. All seems to be working OK, except I get the "Running in software rendering mode". I've read some other threads that were resolved with proprietary drivers, so used used Driver Manager but it did not offer any options. System details below, thanks.

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System:    Host: XPS-13-9365 Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.9 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1) Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: un-determined System: Dell product: XPS 13 9365 serial: N/A
           Mobo: Dell model: 0F7CDK v: A00 serial: N/A UEFI: Dell v: 2.0.1 date: 08/11/2018
Battery    BAT0: charge: 43.7 Wh 100.0% condition: 43.7/46.0 Wh (95%) model: SMP DELL HMPFH62 status: Full
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i7-8500Y (-MT-MCP-) arch: Kaby Lake rev.9 cache: 4096 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 6432
           clock speeds: max: 4200 MHz 1: 2788 MHz 2: 2651 MHz 3: 2812 MHz 4: 2279 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Device 591c bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 3200x1800@59.98hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bits) version: 3.3 Mesa 18.0.5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-36-generic
Network:   Card: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 3c:00.0
           IF: wlp60s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 512.1GB (3.1% used)
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: SSDPEKKF512G8_NVMe_INTEL_512GB size: 512.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 96G used: 15G (17%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p7
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 76.0C mobo: 29.8C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 187 Uptime: 17 min Memory: 2071.4/15912.2MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56

smurphos · Post by **smurphos** » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:06 am

Your cutting edge Amber Lake processor's integrated graphics are not supported by the kernel. I think you might be a pioneer as i can't find any hits for i7-8500Y either here or on the ubuntu forums.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... Amber-Lake suggests it might need a 4.18 or a 4.19 kernel. 4.19 is still at release candidate stage upstream.

I think you will need to experiment with a mainline kernel - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds

Ukuu can make this a bit easier - https://github.com/teejee2008/ukuu

smurphos · Post by **smurphos** » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:23 am

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/bioni ... ug/1789924

Looks like the patches required might have been backported to the 4.15 ubuntu kernel but there are pending fixes for mesa.

rusty nail · Post by **rusty nail** » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:39 am

Thanks smurphos. So am I best to wait until if/when Mesa is fixed and the updated 4.15 becomes available, or should I have a go at Ukuu and 4.19 (which would be very uncharted territory for me!)?

smurphos · Post by **smurphos** » Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:43 am

I would hold fire - looking more closely at the bug report your current kernel is already patched, there is an xorg update in testing and mesa still needs to be patched.

rusty nail · Post by **rusty nail** » Thu Oct 18, 2018 3:33 am

OK, will report back when the patch comes through. Thanks for your help smurphos.

rusty nail · Post by **rusty nail** » Sun Nov 04, 2018 6:39 am

According to the bug listing on Launchpad this was fixed in xorg-server - 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.1 on October 25, and update history is showing that my system was updated with xorg-server - 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.2 on 28 October but the problem remains. Not sure if I need to do something manually to make it stick?

smurphos · Post by **smurphos** » Mon Nov 05, 2018 1:13 am

The mesa bug report appears to be unresolved.

You give updating Mesa via PPA a try. Make sure your personal data is backed-up and/or you can timeshift back in case anything goes wrong.

Two candidate PPAs -

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+a ... tu/updates - will give latest stable mesa
https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/u ... cs-drivers - cutting edge daily build.

If that's no difference then try the 4.19 kernel via UKUU

A few other things to check first just in case they are relevant

cat /etc/default/grub - are you booting with any special kernel parameters?
echo $DESKTOP_SESSION - just to double check the software rendering session hasn't become the default.

rusty nail · Post by **rusty nail** » Thu Nov 08, 2018 6:35 am

Checked grub and nothing special there, and desktop session was still cinnamon.

I added the ppa for the latest stable release to update manager, refreshed, let it install libdrm, mesa and wayland and restarted. No message about software rendering (whoohoo!) and inxi -Fxz looks better

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System:    Host: XPS-13-9365 Kernel: 4.15.0-38-generic x86_64
           bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.9 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1)
           Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: un-determined System: Dell product: XPS 13 9365 serial: N/A
           Mobo: Dell model: 0F7CDK v: A00 serial: N/A
           UEFI: Dell v: 2.2.0 date: 10/17/2018
Battery    BAT0: charge: 43.3 Wh 99.0% condition: 43.7/46.0 Wh (95%)
           model: SMP DELL HMPFH62 status: Discharging
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i7-8500Y (-MT-MCP-) 
           arch: Kaby Lake rev.9 cache: 4096 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 6432
           clock speeds: max: 4200 MHz 1: 700 MHz 2: 700 MHz 3: 700 MHz
           4: 700 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Device 591c bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 3200x1800@59.98hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Kaby Lake GT2
           version: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.2 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-38-generic
Network:   Card: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 3c:00.0
           IF: wlp60s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 512.1GB (3.7% used)
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: SSDPEKKF512G8_NVMe_INTEL_512GB size: 512.1GB
           
Partition: ID-1: / size: 96G used: 18G (20%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p7
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0C mobo: 29.8C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 201 Uptime: 3 min Memory: 681.3/15912.2MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56

So thank you again smurphos, very sound advice!

Having never played with ppa before, is there anything I need to do in the future to revert to the main releases? Do I keep allowing update manager to install whatever from the ppa, or disable it now and let everything come from the main repository again?

smurphos · Post by **smurphos** » Fri Nov 09, 2018 1:22 am

Your welcome - you probably could have tried that earlier - but I'm always wary of advising users to go off-piste with PPAs for such crucial system components, particularly when i haven't tested myself.

If you ever want to return to 'stock' you can simple disable or remove the PPA via the Software Sources app and in the maintenance section of Software Sources choose to 'Downgrade Foreign Packages'.

If the mesa bug doesn't get fixed in the current Mint 19 default mesa, you will eventually have the option to join the HWE (Hardware Enablement) stack which is an officially supported update channel for newer hardware - I'm pretty sure it will include mesa as-well as xorg and kernel updates - - see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack - instructions for 18.04/Mint 19.x should be published here when it is ready

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