|
Size: 5389
Comment: drop sentence fragment that is no longer useful
|
Size: 3579
Comment: Fix broken docs link (accidentally had a horizontal rule merged onto the end of it)
|
| Deletions are marked like this. | Additions are marked like this. |
| Line 4: | Line 4: |
| {{{#!wiki important '''Applies to an unreleased Debian version''' |
|
| Line 7: | Line 5: |
| Panfrost and Lima are only included in Debian 11 and newer, which is currently unreleased. All information here is tentative, and is subject to change as Debian 11 is developed. }}} |
|
| Line 13: | Line 8: |
| This page is dedicated to documenting the new open-source Panfrost and Lima drivers introduced in Debian 11, including any tweaks and issue workarounds. |
This page is dedicated to documenting the new open-source Panfrost and Lima drivers introduced in Debian 11. |
| Line 25: | Line 19: |
| Line 26: | Line 21: |
| Debian 11 comes with Mesa 20.1 which supports the Mali 400 and 450 GPUs via the Lima driver, and Mali Gxx/T6xx/T7xx/T8xx GPUs via the Panfrost driver. This will cover most modern ARM !SoCs, including those found in the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro devices. Mali Gxx devices (also known as "Bifrost" chips) are supported experimentally and require an extra environment variable to be set before they'll use the Panfrost driver, as documented in the Configuration section below. |
|
| Line 33: | Line 22: |
| In terms of specifically supported !SoCs, anything using an RK3288, RK3399, S912, Exynos 7580, MT6735, or MT6753 chip should certainly work without any issues. But as long as your GPU isn't too particularly new or old (Midgard and Bifrost being the most comprehensively supported revisions), you should expect it to function. |
Debian 11 comes with Mesa 20.3 which supports the Mali 400 and 450 GPUs via the Lima driver, and various Mali G-series and T-series GPUs via the Panfrost driver. This will cover most modern ARM !SoCs, including those found in the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro devices. Panfrost supports the Mali T720 (only up to OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0), Mali T760, Mali T820, Mali T860, Mali G72, Mali G31, and Mali G52. |
| Line 39: | Line 30: |
| Line 40: | Line 32: |
| Most of the hardware in question theoretically supports OpenGL ES 3.0, Vulkan 1.1, and OpenGL 4.6. In reality, the drivers have mainly targeted and optimized for OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 so far. |
|
| Line 43: | Line 33: |
| OpenGL ES 3.0 is experimentally available but may have worse performance than OpenGL ES 2.0 and may not support the full specification, leading to strange rendering issues in applications expecting certain features to be available. See the "Configuration" section below for instructions on how to use it. |
Most of the hardware in question theoretically supports OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan 1.1. In the version of Mesa that comes with Debian 11 (Mesa 20.3), Panfrost supports OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 3.0 (2.0 on Bifrost). If additional features are required, OpenGL 3.1 and OpenGL ES 3.1 are available with newer versions of Mesa. See [[https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/panfrost.html|the Panfrost documentation]] for how to build. The Panfrost driver on Mali-G52 is '''conformant''' for OpenGL ES 3.1. However, OpenGL ES on other hardware is '''non-conformant''', as per the official documentation. OpenGL 3.1 support is work-in-progress and non-conformant. |
| Line 48: | Line 40: |
| Line 49: | Line 42: |
| Between the Panfrost/Lima driver and the non-free drivers also packaged and in Debian/non-free, the Panfrost/Lima driver is almost always recommended. However, incomplete support for OpenGL ES 3.0 and nonexistent support for Vulkan may be a concern for some use-cases. |
Between the Panfrost/Lima driver and the non-free drivers, the Panfrost/Lima driver is almost always recommended. However, incomplete support for OpenGL and nonexistent support for Vulkan may be a concern for some use-cases. |
| Line 54: | Line 49: |
| and even demonstrating better performance than the non-free driver in Panfrost/Lima with many workloads. | and even demonstrating better performance than the non-free driver in Panfrost/Lima with many workloads. |
| Line 56: | Line 52: |
| Experimentation is recommended if you're in a performance or compatibility-critical environment, however average desktop users should stick with the Panfrost/Lima drivers to see the best stability. |
Experimentation is recommended if you're in a performance or compatibility-critical environment, however average desktop users should stick with the Panfrost/Lima drivers to see the best stability. Additionally, Panfrost and Lima are included with Debian officially, providing essential security support and integrating with your package manager. As of Debian 11, the non-free drivers are no longer provided in the repository, and you must obtain them from external sources if you wish to use them, accepting all of the associated risks. |
| Line 59: | Line 64: |
| Line 60: | Line 66: |
| Line 64: | Line 71: |
| For OpenCL support, you'll need to also install the DebianPkg:mesa-opencl-icd package. Install the DebianPkg:mesa-va-drivers and DebianPkg:mesa-vdpau-drivers packages for hardware video acceleration. |
OpenCL support is not implemented yet. Hardware video acceleration is not within the scope of the Panfrost or Lima drivers. |
| Line 67: | Line 75: |
| = Configuration = == Enable support for Mali "Bifrost" GPUs == Support for GPUs from the Bifrost series, often the Mali-Gxx chips, is still in-development and requires some extra effort to enable. All major features should be there, and a typical GNOME or KDE Plasma desktop running on Xorg or Wayland should have no issues. OpenGL ES 3.0 support is currently unimplemented however, restricting it to only OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenGL 2.1. |
|
| Line 76: | Line 76: |
| It's best to enable system-wide support by setting the appropriate environment variable in a {{{/etc/environment.d/panfrost-enable-bifrost.conf}}} file. Open the file, and on a new line, add: {{{ PAN_MESA_DEBUG="bifrost" }}} Then reboot your system to activate your GPU. |
= See also = |
| Line 84: | Line 78: |
| == Enable OpenGL ES 3.0 support == In the version of Mesa that comes with Debian 11 (Mesa 20.1), Panfrost supports OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 without any further tweaks necessary. Support for OpenGL ES 3.0 is available albeit unfinished, and does require a tweak to enable. Set the {{{PAN_MESA_DEBUG}}} environment variable to {{{gles3}}}. This can be done temporarily for a given terminal session by running {{{ export PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gles3}}} Or by prefixing a single command with it in order to apply it just for that application, as with: {{{ PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gles3 supertuxkart }}} To set it persistently across your whole system, you can create a {{{/etc/environment.d/panfrost-enable-gles3.conf}}} and add the text then reboot your PC: {{{ PAN_MESA_DEBUG="gles3" }}} ---- = See also = |
|
| Line 107: | Line 81: |
| * The Panfrost project page - https://panfrost.freedesktop.org/ |
* The Panfrost documentation - https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/panfrost.html |
Translation(s): none
Detailed information on Mali GPUs, and instructions on installing the proprietary drivers, can be found on the MaliGraphics page. This page is dedicated to documenting the new open-source Panfrost and Lima drivers introduced in Debian 11.
The free and open-source Panfrost and Lima drivers for Mali GPUs are part of Mesa and are fully free software. Compared to the proprietary drivers, they have much better stability and software compatibility and are recommended for the average user.
The Lima driver provides support for the older "Utgard" Mali GPUs, while Panfrost provides support for the newer Midgard and Bifrost GPUs. Valhall support is pending.
Hardware support
Debian 11 comes with Mesa 20.3 which supports the Mali 400 and 450 GPUs via the Lima driver, and various Mali G-series and T-series GPUs via the Panfrost driver. This will cover most modern ARM SoCs, including those found in the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro devices.
Panfrost supports the Mali T720 (only up to OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0), Mali T760, Mali T820, Mali T860, Mali G72, Mali G31, and Mali G52.
Software support
Most of the hardware in question theoretically supports OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan 1.1. In the version of Mesa that comes with Debian 11 (Mesa 20.3), Panfrost supports OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 3.0 (2.0 on Bifrost). If additional features are required, OpenGL 3.1 and OpenGL ES 3.1 are available with newer versions of Mesa. See the Panfrost documentation for how to build.
The Panfrost driver on Mali-G52 is conformant for OpenGL ES 3.1. However, OpenGL ES on other hardware is non-conformant, as per the official documentation. OpenGL 3.1 support is work-in-progress and non-conformant.
Which driver should I use?
Between the Panfrost/Lima driver and the non-free drivers, the Panfrost/Lima driver is almost always recommended. However, incomplete support for OpenGL and nonexistent support for Vulkan may be a concern for some use-cases. Some workloads may also see better performance with the non-free driver, though successive Mesa versions are closing this gap and even demonstrating better performance than the non-free driver in Panfrost/Lima with many workloads.
Experimentation is recommended if you're in a performance or compatibility-critical environment, however average desktop users should stick with the Panfrost/Lima drivers to see the best stability.
Additionally, Panfrost and Lima are included with Debian officially, providing essential security support and integrating with your package manager. As of Debian 11, the non-free drivers are no longer provided in the repository, and you must obtain them from external sources if you wish to use them, accepting all of the associated risks.
Installation
Both the Panfrost and Lima drivers are included in Mesa and should work out-of-the-box after installing the relevant packages (which are, in practice, libglx-mesa0 and libgl1-mesa-dri).
OpenCL support is not implemented yet. Hardware video acceleration is not within the scope of the Panfrost or Lima drivers.
See also
The Lima project page - https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lima/
The Panfrost documentation - https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/panfrost.html