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Feedback on planned server upgrade - Debian & Intel Quick Sync


Mister Steve

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Mister Steve


I'm presently running Emby on Debian Linux "Buster" & Open Media Vault, powered by a circa 2011 AMD Phenom II X4, no GPU.  The hardware has had a great 10-year run and is ready for retirement.

Upgrade plan:

  • CPU:  Intel Quick Sync, likely Core i5-11600K 11th Gen Rocket Lake 6-Core 3.9 GHz UHD Graphics 750.
  • Motherboard (may not matter much for Emby): quality build, multiple M.2 slots, plenty of SATA connections, 1gb/2.5gb ethernet.
  • Working storage:  fast M.2 SSD for transcoding space and other intensive tasks
  • Memory: 16gb with 2 open slots for expansion
  • Discreet GPU: none.  If Quick Sync performance falls short and GPU prices become reasonable again, will consider an NVIDIA GPU.  

Are there any known problems using Intel 11th gen Quick Sync under Linux with Emby?   Performance varies by scenario of course, but our use cases are basic and I am more concerned with reliability and breadth of support for the GPU.   Graphics drivers and Linux have not always gotten along so well.

I could spend less on a system and still have a great Emby experience,  but I'd like this system to last. 

I appreciate any suggestions.

@cayars

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Are there any known problems using Intel 11th gen Quick Sync under Linux with Emby?

Hi, not that we know of, and our Linux packages support QuickSync.

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I don't see any issues involved as long as your are comfortable working in a Linux environment or willing to learn it.

I have a 10th gen CPU for QuickSync testing and Nvidia RTX 2070 to use and have tried a couple different Linux builds playing around to get a bit more comfortable with them but had no issues so I'd expect similar from 11th gen CPUs with hardware transcoding.

In general just make sure the components you use are known to work with the Linux version you choose to use. That of course is Linux 101. :)

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Mister Steve

Hardware transcoding using Quicksync on Linux is not working out of the box.     Are the steps listed below still required?  They seem to be outdated and I'm not keen on maintaining a patched kernel.   I'm using Emby 4.6.4.0 on Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) - 5.10.0-7-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.40-1 (2021-05-28) x86_64.  The GPU is recognized by the kernel (lspci -nn -s 0:02.0:  00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:4c8a] (rev 04)).

Required Setup Steps https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001160207-hardware-acceleration-on-linux  

The steps for installing the Intel Media SDK may vary depending on your actual system. Please follow the instructions appropriate for your actual setup which you can find here:

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Mister Steve

Found a clue in dmesg, added a boot parameter and that did the trick.

[   14.515959] i915 0000:00:02.0: Your graphics device 4c8a is not properly supported by the driver in this
               kernel version. To force driver probe anyway, use i915.force_probe=4c8a
               module parameter or CONFIG_DRM_I915_FORCE_PROBE=4c8a configuration option,
               or (recommended) check for kernel updates.
 

image.png.5513db1d8247eb69a08dd29308569981.png

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Hi, would you mind showing us exactly how you fixed this?
That would be helpful as I could add this to that KB article along with any other changes warranted to help the next person following it!

Thanks,
Carlo

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Mister Steve

I'm running Debian 11 "Bullseye" using grub as a bootloader.    Adding a kernel boot parameter may be slightly different in other flavors of Linux, though here's what I did:

Edited the grub config:

# vi /etc/default/grub

Modified GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to include force_probe=4c8a, it ended up as:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet i915.force_probe=4c8a"

Then made the config active:

# update-grub

And rebooted.

An internet search for "i915.force_probe=4c8a" returns a lot of woes about lagging Linux kernel support for Intel graphics.   There may be a kernel patch available, though I am running OpenMediaVault and want to keep the OS as stock as possible.

 

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Mister Steve

The latest OpenMediaVault (v6 beta) included kernel Debian 5.14.9-2~bpo11+1 (2021-10-10) x86_64 GNU/Linux.  Intel graphics are now detected without the i915.force_probe parameter.

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