antiX & i915 – how to achieve better performance

[anti-apXosMember]

The compositor that comes with antix, xcompmgr, doesn’t fix screen tearing. You’d have to use picom or compton with the vsync option for that.

Also, the modesetting X driver doesn’t have a “TearFree” option. That’s for the Intel driver, but as I mentioned in that other discussion, some applications don’t support it well.

If you want to try the Intel X driver:

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-video-intel

and then as root create a file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf with:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "DRI" "crocus"
    Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

and reboot.

If it doesn’t help or causes other issues, you can just delete the xorg.conf.d file to return to using the modesetting driver.

"--"

[c0pAMember]

Yes, doing that got rid of the screen tearing. “xserver-xorg-video-intel” was already installed so I just created “20-intel.conf” file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ folder.

I’m right to assume this setup is similar to config E?!

[abc-nixMember]

c0pA wrote:

I’m right to assume this setup is similar to config E?!

If you use firefox to play videos, it is config D. If you use mpv to play youtube videos, it is config E.

Corruption has two hands: the Right and the Left. Don't let them squeeze you.

[c0pAMember]

One last thing.

Now that everything is installed, what’s the proper way to undo the local repo? Should I just delete the deb folder and the other files?

[abc-nixMember]

Yes. Remove the local deb repo folder, then remove the local.list sources file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d, then you can also remove the update script (if you moved it to the bin folder, it will be in /usr/bin/update-debs.sh) and finally a sudo apt update will refresh the package list.

There should no longer be any local repo output for apt update, and also inxi -r should no longer display any local.list sources list.

Corruption has two hands: the Right and the Left. Don't let them squeeze you.

[c0pAMember]

7 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.

$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  libegl-mesa0 libgbm1 libgl1-mesa-dri libglx-mesa0 libxatracker2
  mesa-va-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.

[abc-nixMember]

If you want to return to the previous default mesa drivers from Debian, you can remove mesa amber with.
sudo apt purge libegl-amber0 libglx-amber0
It should tell you that it will install the previous mesa packages (you can simulate it as explained previously to see what the apt package manager wants to do).

Alternatively, you can force the removal of those packages automatically if you force an upgrade with:
sudo apt full-upgrade
(again, you can use the -s option to simulate the operation before it takes place).

If you want to keep the amber mesa packages, you can ignore the apt warning.

Corruption has two hands: the Right and the Left. Don't let them squeeze you.

[c0pAMember]

Thanks a lot @abc-nix

I’m very grateful for your assistance and the time and effort you invested in helping me.

[anti-apXosMember]

About GPU accelerated video decoding, I think you may have to specifically tell mpv to use it, which you can do by having a file called $HOME/.config/mpv/mpv.conf that contains the line

hwdec=vaapi

Celluloid and other apps that depend on mpv will also use this.

Firefox won’t use the GPU at all if you’re using the Intel X driver instead of modesetting, so if it feels worse that’s why. Chromium browsers may still use the GPU for some things, like rendering, but the last time I tried to get GPU video decoding to work in ungoogled chromium, there didn’t seem to be any way with either of the X drivers.

"--"

[c0pAMember]

abc-nix wrote:

If you want to return to the previous default mesa drivers from Debian, you can remove mesa amber with.
sudo apt purge libegl-amber0 libglx-amber0
It should tell you that it will install the previous mesa packages (you can simulate it as explained previously to see what the apt package manager wants to do).

Alternatively, you can force the removal of those packages automatically if you force an upgrade with:
sudo apt full-upgrade
(again, you can use the -s option to simulate the operation before it takes place).

If you want to keep the amber mesa packages, you can ignore the apt warning.

I did this today, but when I run ‘apt update’, I see the same message: “7 packages can be upgraded. Run ‘apt list –upgradable’ to see them.”

apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
libegl-mesa0/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]
libgbm1/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]
libgl1-mesa-dri/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]
libglx-mesa0/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]
libxatracker2/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]
mesa-va-drivers/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]
mesa-vulkan-drivers/oldstable-backports 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 22.3.6-1+deb12u1+fnx1]

sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libspdlog1.10
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.
The following packages have been kept back:
  libegl-mesa0 libgbm1 libgl1-mesa-dri libglx-mesa0 libxatracker2
  mesa-va-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.

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