[SOLVED] I have a HP computer that does not work correctly on Debian but it works well on Linux Mint and other Distros.

gregorylock · 05-25-2023, 05:40 AM

I have run into a weird situation. I have an HP computer that should probably be about to run on about any Linux distro out there. It ran fine on PCLinuxOS. It runs fine on the current Linux Mint. I also tested it out on Manjaro, and Arch. All seems to be good there. But when it try it on Debian everything falls apart. I think there is something in the kernel that isn't right. A bad driver for the graphics. But the mystery is why does everyone else seem to have it solved but Debian doesn't. It even seems that higher up I go on the kernel in Debian the worse it gets. In MX Linux, I was able to get it working by down grading the Kernel to a 4.9 Antix Kernel. Yet in Linux Mint I run a 5.15 kernel and all is well. In the Arch stuff I was up to the 6. something and all is well.

I joined the debian forums to simply report my issue and that turned into a 5 page thread of trial and error. The different things we tried the worse things got, and the more the debian system just seemed to fall apart on that machine.

Of course as the user, I started to be blamed for some of this. Like I was doing something weird. When in reality I always tried to stay as close to the simple defaults as I could.

Here is my system specs if your curious what I'm having trouble with.

Code:

inxi -Fxz
System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-22-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 
           Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF v: N/A serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1998 serial: <filter> BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: L01 v02.78 date: 02/20/2020 
Battery:   Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech M215 charge: 55% (should be ignored) status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4790 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 8 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 57464 
           Speed: 3592 MHz min/max: 800/4000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3592 2: 3592 3: 3592 4: 3591 5: 3592 6: 3594 7: 3595 
           8: 3596 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard EliteDesk 800 G1 
           driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard EliteDesk 800 G1 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:03.0 
           Device-2: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard EliteDesk 800 G1 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-22-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Ethernet I217-LM vendor: Hewlett-Packard EliteDesk 800 G1 driver: e1000e v: kernel port: f080 
           bus ID: 00:19.0 
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 4.4 GiB (0.5%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: SD Ultra 3D 1TB size: 931.51 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 914.88 GiB used: 4.4 GiB (0.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 976 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 175 Uptime: 2h 18m Memory: 15.51 GiB used: 813.3 MiB (5.1%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: N/A Packages: 1407 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.4 inxi: 3.3.01

If you would like to see the problem I am having I made these videos. They are just short clips from youtuber switched to linux. I needed something that could show how the audio and video isn't in sync. And it messes up worse then that!

MPV
https://youtu.be/FlNByT71vkE

VLC
https://youtu.be/DwgClrcZuMQ

* Please keep in mind I am not experiencing this problem on Linux Mint. But if I use Linux Mint Debian I do!

Guttorm · 05-25-2023, 06:05 AM

Hi

Standard Debian doesn't include non-free firmware/drivers - unless you add a non-free repository. Or, you can use an "unofficial" live-cd or installer.

You can download an installer with non-free drivers here:

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/u...ding-firmware/

KC1DI · 05-25-2023, 06:27 AM

Guttorm has it right the standard Debian release does not provide any non-free drivers. So you will have to add them yourself.
there is a non-free .iso around
https://cdimage.debian.org/images/un...ding-firmware/ or you can enable non-free repositories see here:https://serverfault.com/questions/24...ages-on-debian
Good news going forward Debian board has voted to include non-free repos in their releases going forward.
If you do not want to enable non-free you may want to give MX-21 a try. Good luck.

beachboy2 · 05-25-2023, 08:46 AM

gregorylock,

Make life easy for yourself and follow KC1DI’s advice to use MX Linux 21.3 which is based on Debian but has the non-free repository included by default:
https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-21-3-wildflower-released/

MX Repos:
https://mxlinux.org/uncategorized/repos-mx-21/

gregorylock · 05-25-2023, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beachboy2

gregorylock,

Make life easy for yourself and follow KC1DI’s advice to use MX Linux 21.3 which is based on Debian but has the non-free repository included by default:
https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-21-3-wildflower-released/

MX Repos:
https://mxlinux.org/uncategorized/repos-mx-21/

I have nothing against MX Linux 21.3. But the last time I tried MX Linux, that was how I first discovered this GPU video problem. I was trying straight Debain to see if the problem persisted all the way up the chain. As far as I can tell it does, as my video links demonstrates. When I was on the Debian forums they wanted me to try Debian 12. That became a huge problem for me. The ISO that one of them recommended me had issues. After installing I couldn't update the system. It threw out errors. I may at some point give you guys a link to my thread so that you can see what the issue was. I was going to try installing the Debian 12 the correct way. That means, install the Stable version first and then upgrade to it. But I got lost trying this...

You are probably curious what ISO I used to install Debian 11. It was this one. firmware-11.6.0-amd64-netinst.iso. I don't have the direct link anymore.

Anyways I am downloading this:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/u...ce+nonfree.iso

beachboy2 · 05-25-2023, 09:47 AM

gregorylock,

If you are able to run Linux Mint and two other distros on your hardware without any problem, why are you bothering with Debian?

Also, if Arch works, give EndeavourOS a try:
https://endeavouros.com/

gregorylock · 05-25-2023, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beachboy2

gregorylock,

If you are able to run Linux Mint and two other distros on your hardware without any problem, why are you bothering with Debian?

Also, if Arch works, give EndeavourOS a try:
https://endeavouros.com/

That is a good question. I could of addressed that in my opening post but I guess I didn't because there are lots and lots of things to say about something like that.
Ubuntu is based on Debian, and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. What happens if Ubuntu gets really bad or goes away. The last time I tried straight Ubuntu I wasn't happy with it. They got it bloated with snappy packages. Some people think that Linux Mint should perhaps abandon the Ubuntu base and spend more time on Linux Mint Debian. I can't run Linux Mint Debian, on this hardware, for the same reason I can't run MX Linux or straight Debian.

For a long time I used PCLinuxOS on my system. I really liked PCLinuxOS, but I don't own a smartphone. I don't want to use a smartphone. So I decided to use yubikeys for 2FA on my online accounts. Yubikeys don't work on PCLinuxOS.

I don't like Arch Linux. Arch is a complicated OS to learn and it tends to break from time to time. The last time I tried EndeavourOS I couldn't get it to update correctly. Later on I started hearing horror stories about how it broke so bad that it wouldn't even boot. Switched to Linux on youtube talked about that several times.

I just wanted Debian to know about the video problem on my hardware in hopes that if they knew about it then maybe they could fix it. That way I could start using MX Linux and Linux Mint Debian on this machine. Of course we are a community of computer users, and there is a good chance that someone else can't run Debian stuff on this hardware either. And if they could get this fixed then other people could benefit as well.

The reason why I took the time to test out, Arch, Manjaro, and Linux Mint etc. Was so that I could see and say that almost all other distros are working and yet Debian wasn't.

LOL I hope my response made sense. Thanks for the question.

boughtonp · 05-25-2023, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregorylock

I just wanted Debian to know about the video problem on my hardware in hopes that if they knew about it then maybe they could fix it.

This is LinuxQuestions, which is entirely unrelated to Debian.

Afaik, there are not even any Debian Developers or Debian Maintainers here, but even if there were a post here is not reporting the issue to Debian.

You probably want debian.org/bugs instead.

michaelk · 05-25-2023, 12:04 PM

https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kerne...Recent_Kernels

I am guessing it is all due to the bug above and all of the distributions you have tried are running kernels 5.11+ which all seem to work but debian 11 is still at 5.10. I have no idea whether or not the developers will drop a 5.15 kernel upgrade for 11.

boughtonp · 05-25-2023, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

I have no idea whether or not the developers will drop a 5.15 kernel upgrade for 11.

Bullseye Backports already has Linux 6.1 LTS.

michaelk · 05-25-2023, 12:18 PM

Thanks, I forgot to look at backports

wpeckham · 05-25-2023, 12:54 PM

A couple of corrections and ideas:
#1 Ubunti is based upon Debian? No, Ubuntu WAS based upon Debian. The Debian connection was burned forever by about Ubuntu release 8.0. Ubuntu now has very little in common with Debian, and has departed significantly from ALL other distributions in multiple ways: some good some terrible. I avoid all Ubuntu based distributions as a matter of principal, but do not recommend against them unless your principals and mine are a close match. (I like Mint but never use it. I do love some MintDE!)

#2 Arch has some rough edges, as is natural for a rolling release cutting edge distribution. I do like Arch, but I never run it other than for testing. I use Manjaro a LOT, as it has all of the advantages of Arch with some protection from those sharp edges. (More fun, less bleeding.) I recommend you give Manjaro Plasma a try. I have used it with both XORG and Wayland and it shines either way. I do recommend using XWayland with wayland if you go that way, to allow applications expecting x.org to run properly on wayland.

#3 The Debian Philosophy was originally stronly supportive of the GNU philosophy. If it was not FREE and supporting Open Source and Freedom (both software and social) then it did not belong in the distribution. The made a few small compromises to allow the USER to choose to include non-free blobs or drivers if they wished to make things work better. I admire that, but it means that some hardware does require you to look up what you need to do to optimize your install for that hardware.

I believe your case reflects #3 above. You need to either use a distribution that includes compromises purposefully, you you need to take the extra steps. If you are not prepared for the extra work, use a distribution that does it for you. (Manjaro would be my recommendation, but if you really want to avoid arch and arch-like you have MANY other options.)

jamison20000e · 05-25-2023, 02:30 PM

Debian isn't meant to hold your hand like those other distros.

What happens in KDE or

Quote:

inxi -Fxz

...in Mint* to see what it's doing to work there?

mrmazda · 05-25-2023, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregorylock

Code:

inxi -Fxz
...
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4790 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 8 MiB 
...
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard EliteDesk 800 G1 
           driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5 direct render: Yes 
...
Info:      Processes: 175 Uptime: 2h 18m Memory: 15.51 GiB used: 813.3 MiB (5.1%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: N/A Packages: 1407 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.4 inxi: 3.3.01

Last things first: 3.3.1 is an antique by inxi standards; -Gx leaves out a lot of what newer provides (e.g. dri), while newer fixes broken stuff. Inxi can be upgraded to current by using its -U switch, if you first edit /etc/inxi.conf to disable its -U disabler. Optionally, purge Debian's antique, and install inxi from upstream.

I too have a Haswell, actually two, but only one with Debian on it. I'm aware of nothing wrong with either 11 or 12 on mine, which has a 2 core Pentium instead of your i7. My other Haswell has an i3 (which I'm typing this from, in KDE3, on openSUSE 15.4). Both my two support 3 displays quite well, thank you.

Code:

# inxi -GSaz --vs --zl --hostname
inxi 3.3.27-00 (2023-05-07)
System:
  Host: ab85m Kernel: 5.10.0-22-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 10.2.1 parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz root=LABEL=<filter> noresume
    ipv6.disable=1 net.ifnames=0 consoleblank=0 mitigations=none preempt=full
  Desktop: Trinity v: R14.1.0 tk: Qt v: 3.5.0 info: kicker wm: Twin v: 3.0
    vt: 7 dm: 1: TDM 2: XDM Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
    vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-7.5 process: Intel 22nm
    built: 2013 ports: active: DP-1,HDMI-A-2,HDMI-A-3 empty: HDMI-A-1,VGA-1
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0402 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.11 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: i965 gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3600x2640 s-dpi: 120 s-size: 761x558mm (29.96x21.97")
    s-diag: 944mm (37.15")
  Monitor-1: DP-1 pos: primary,bottom-l model: Acer K272HUL serial: <filter>
    built: 2018 res: 2560x1440 hz: 60 dpi: 109 gamma: 1.2
    size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 2560x1440 min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI-2 pos: top-right model: Dell P2213
    serial: <filter> built: 2012 res: 1680x1050 hz: 60 dpi: 90 gamma: 1.2
    size: 473x296mm (18.62x11.65") diag: 558mm (22") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1680x1050 min: 720x400
  Monitor-3: HDMI-A-3 mapped: HDMI-3 pos: top-left model: NEC EA243WM
    serial: <filter> built: 2011 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2
    size: 519x324mm (20.43x12.76") diag: 612mm (24.1") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1920x1200 min: 640x480
  API: OpenGL v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5 renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics (HSW
    GT1) compat-v: 3.0 direct-render: Yes
# inxi -GSaz --vs --zl --hostname
inxi 3.3.27-00 (2023-05-07)
System:
  Host: ab85m Kernel: 6.1.0-8-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 12.2.0 parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz root=LABEL=<filter> noresume
    ipv6.disable=1 net.ifnames=0 consoleblank=0 mitigations=none preempt=full
  Desktop: Trinity v: R14.1.0 tk: Qt v: 3.5.0 info: kicker wm: Twin v: 3.0
    vt: 7 dm: 1: TDM 2: XDM Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
    vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-7.5 process: Intel 22nm
    built: 2013 ports: active: DP-1,HDMI-A-2,HDMI-A-3 empty: HDMI-A-1,VGA-1
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0402 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: crocus gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3600x2640 s-dpi: 120 s-size: 762x558mm (30.00x21.97")
    s-diag: 944mm (37.18")
  Monitor-1: DP-1 pos: primary,bottom-l model: Acer K272HUL serial: <filter>
    built: 2018 res: 2560x1440 hz: 60 dpi: 109 gamma: 1.2
    size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 2560x1440 min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI-2 pos: top-right model: Dell P2213
    serial: <filter> built: 2012 res: 1680x1050 hz: 60 dpi: 90 gamma: 1.2
    size: 473x296mm (18.62x11.65") diag: 558mm (22") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1680x1050 min: 720x400
  Monitor-3: HDMI-A-3 mapped: HDMI-3 pos: top-left model: NEC EA243WM
    serial: <filter> built: 2011 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2
    size: 519x324mm (20.43x12.76") diag: 612mm (24.1") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1920x1200 min: 640x480
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics (HSW GT1)
    direct-render: Yes

Could it be that Debian isn't your problem, but instead your DE of choice? I don't know about others, because all my Debians run TDE as primary, and IceWM as backup, rarely needing use of the backup.

If there really is a real difference between default configurations of Mint and Bullseye affecting yours, it could involve the older i965 DRI it uses, instead of the newer crocus provided in Bookworm. If you'd really like to be using Bullseye, you might investigate how much trouble it is to switch it from i965 to crocus. Or, just wait until the final release .iso of Bookworm is available in two weeks or so, and install it instead.

gregorylock · 05-25-2023, 10:24 PM

WoW! You guys gave me a lot of feedback and suggestions. I don't know where to start.

On the Debian Forums, I was told how to backport into Kernel 6.1. I experienced the same problem with the newer Kernel. In fact the problem was worse! For that reason they wanted me to try bookworm. It was suggested to start with the LIVE CD. It also had an installer on it. It didn't take long to figure out that that the Live Environment wasn't going to work for testing the hardware. I needed to be able to get sound from the HDMI. The LIVE Environment wouldn't even allow me to select HDMI. That meant I had to install it. The install process was really easy. All was going well until I wanted to sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade. That was when my goal of following suggestions fell apart.

I got this error and no matter what we tried, I couldn't fix it.

E: linux-image-6.1.0-9-amd64: installed linux-image-6.1.0-9-amd64 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
E: linux-image-amd64: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
E: initramfs-tools: installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1

One person blamed it on raspi-firmware. This person also blamed me for installing it. But I was able to finally prove that I did not install it. It was preinstalled on the ISO file that I had downloaded. So we spent a lot time trying to get rid of it. The whole time I wasn't sure that it was hurting anything or not. Yes it is for ARM. But when I installed that OS inside Virtualbox, and did an upgrade everything went fine. It just won't work on my real hardware.

This is why I was trying to install Debian 11 and then upgrade to Debian 12. The hope was that if I did it that way, then raspi-firmware wouldn't be in the mix. BTW the raspi-firmware has been reported to Debian as a bug by someone else.

I know Debian doesn't hold your hand. But I don't feel like linux mint holds my hand either. Linux Mint just works. I think Debian would just work too, if everything was compatible with my hardware. But I'm not here to argue about anything. I'm only here to see if a suggestion might help me get over my problem.

If your wondering why I am here and not on the Debian forums. It is because I think at least one of the people who were helping me, might be a bit mad at me. Just because I wasn't able to fully understand everything. I have a love/hate relationship with wiki pages. Sometimes I just need a step by step instructions. Some of these wiki pages actually make things more confusing for me.

With that being said, I have been reading the wiki! It just hasn't been helpful for me.