Intel Skylake Multi-Screen Issues On Linux Still Happening

[Sloth]

And that firmware thing might make Kernel 4.8 a no-go for Skylake laptop owners. There isn't even a fix for this in drm-intel-nightly yet, although the patch would be trivial...

The 1.23 firmware landed in linux-firmware. Once that gets picked up downstream, the issue is fixed. Seems *very* unlikely to me that they really want everyone on the 1.23 version of the firmware, but they would know better than I... And they never did answer the direct question about which firmware version was correct.

[chjordan]

For work, I built a machine with an i7-6700K, which is driving 3x 1080p monitors. I'm using a startech 1x DP to 3x DP multiplexer, then 3x DP to HDMI cables. It didn't work late last year, but more recent kernels have finally made it possible. Using Arch. I still get trace messages in the dmesg, but things seem to work fine. The biggest issue is that if I want to reboot, I need to unplug and replug the multiplexer, as the BIOS won't boot.

[torsionbar28]

It is really telling and sad....even scandalous.....that a company as MASSIVE and RICH beyond dreams like Intel can't devote enough time, talent and money to keep this from ever becoming an issue on day 1 for any architecture they produce. The fact remains....Intel doesn't care. They have the time. They have the talent. And they DEFINITELY have the money. But they don't have the will. Pure and simple. And the simple reason is.....in order to produce good GPU's with GOOD day one Linux support, you have to BE a GPU company. And a company that cares about Linux. And Intel never was and never will be. That's not their focus.

I don't think it's a matter of "caring" so much as it's about market demand. Intel x86-64 CPU's running Linux are widely deployed in the server world, and even in the supercomputer world. Intel's bottom line depends on Linux working really really well on their chips, because such a large percentage of the server market is on Linux. So of course they've been very good about ensuring that Linux runs flawlessly on every Xeon processor on launch day. All of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, etc. the biggest of the big all powered by Linux on intel CPU's.

GPUs are another story. The market share for Intel GPUs is almost entirely Windows and Mac. Unlike in the CPU world, Linux is a minuscule percentage of this market. Disappointing as it is for desktop Linux users, it makes financial sense that intel doesn't invest a lot here. It sucks, I don't like it either, but the only way intel is going to devote serious engineering resources to Linux GPU support, is if there's a large enough market for it. The only place that Linux has desktop market share, is in the CAD/CAM world, where high powered Quadro and Fire Pro GPU's are always preferred over low powered integrated graphics.

Only AMD can be both a good CPU and good GPU company even for Linux. But will they? They're trying it seems. But I don't know.

AMD was king of the hill in the early 2000's, remember it was AMD that invented x86-64, and intel later copied them. The new Polaris GPUs and upcoming Zen CPUs is looking like the dawn of a new era for AMD. Here's hoping they see success with these new product lines, and along with that success, some serious Linux support.

[boltronics]

Skylake graphics and fast RAM apparently don't mix - Skylake graphics flicker and display all manner of graphics corruption. If I clock my 3200MHz RAM down to SPD speeds, the Skylake graphics become usable... but I probably would have just went with an X99 if I knew that would have been the case. Wasted a lot of time trying to figure that one out. Completely useless! Haven't even bothered to try a multi-monitor setup.

Sounds like I'm not the only one burned by Skylake graphcs though, although TFA talks about an issue specific to the OS at least (by the sound of it).

[Thaodan]

I'm running arch on a Dell Precision 7510 (i7 6920HQ).
The only issue so far is that the screen doesn't go on after some time of idle (in this time it should suspend).
So that I have to force of my notebook. On my Haswell notebook I never had the issue.
Multi Monitor works fine with hdmi, except some kscreen/plasma related issues.

[buzzrobot]

Ubuntu 16.04, stock Ubuntu kernel, on an i5 Intel NUC here has been doing well, altho I don't use multiple monitors. NO GPU freezes, no kernel boot incantations, no power weirdness, etc. Anyone using a NUC should be sure to upgrade the BIOS to the latest version. Intel has released several BIOS updates that seem to patch a number of the earlier faults. Probably ditto on any Skylake with an Intel BIOS, especially a mobile Skylake.

As for Intel's response to Windows issues vs Linux issues: Windows issues will always get priority until Linux vendors start contracting with Intel to buy Intel chips in comparable numbers.

[duby229]

Ubuntu 16.04, stock Ubuntu kernel, on an i5 Intel NUC here has been doing well, altho I don't use multiple monitors. NO GPU freezes, no kernel boot incantations, no power weirdness, etc. Anyone using a NUC should be sure to upgrade the BIOS to the latest version. Intel has released several BIOS updates that seem to patch a number of the earlier faults. Probably ditto on any Skylake with an Intel BIOS, especially a mobile Skylake.

As for Intel's response to Windows issues vs Linux issues: Windows issues will always get priority until Linux vendors start contracting with Intel to buy Intel chips in comparable numbers.

So if that's really how they feel then Linux enthusiasts -need- to choose AMD.

[Guest]

I've never had problems with the Intel Linux GPU drivers - on every single Intel system they always work correctly for me. I've only ever had problems with the Intel Pstate driver (and could disable it with a kernel flag).

[Guest]

I'm confused about why Phoronix readers think Intel doesn't care about the Intel Linux GPU drivers. Have they just been ignoring the hundreds of articles about Intel GPU driver work? Intel's open source Linux GPU driver is the best one ever IMO - nothing comes close (among open source drivers). Nothing. They offered video encoding years before NVIDIA.

[Hi-Angel]

I'm confused about why Phoronix readers think Intel doesn't care about the Intel Linux GPU drivers. Have they just been ignoring the hundreds of articles about Intel GPU driver work? Intel's open source Linux GPU driver is the best one ever IMO - nothing comes close (among open source drivers). Nothing. They offered video encoding years before NVIDIA.

For whatever reason their GPU support is somewhat sporadic. I.e. look up for keywords "intel powervr linux" or this article about baytrail devices. Long-standing bugs, FTR.