Enabling Hardware Acceleration for GNOME on RISCV64 with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Project Discussion Desktop
1

Hello Everyone,

We are currently working on enabling GNOME (Wayland) to run on top of a Imagination GPU hardware accelerator for RISCV64. Initially, we tested this on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, but after receiving suggestions from the GNOME forum, we decided to switch to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Since upgrading, we’ve noticed significant improvements, and GNOME is running more smoothly than expected. However, the graphics configuration still shows “Software Rendering” instead of utilising hardware acceleration. Despite configuring the Imagination GPU, we are unable to enable hardware acceleration for GNOME, which is impacting 3D rendering performance.

Upon discussing on GNOME team suspect that this issue may be resolved with further guidance from the Ubuntu community.

Could you please share any additional suggestions or advice on enabling hardware acceleration for GNOME on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
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Regards,
Sharan

2

You should start with the kernel. Are there any “render” nodes in the /dev/dri/ directory?

No: You may need a kernel module (or new kernel) that supports the GPU.

Yes: It should be using standard Mesa…

Check that the driver works:

sudo apt install mesa-utils
sudo eglinfo -p gbm

Did you see OpenGL information from the above command?

No: You need a different version of Mesa (or custom GL libraries) that supports the GPU.

Yes, but only LLVM information: That’s the same as No.

Yes, with Imagination GPU information: GNOME should be working and you should log a bug by running: ubuntu-bug mutter

3

This issue is probably better tracked as a bug. Please open one by running this command on the machine:

ubuntu-bug mutter
4

@sharan96
For most GPUs Imagination only has open sourced the kernel DRM drivers. For hardware acceleration you will have to license proprietary Mesa drivers and firmware. These drivers are bound to specific kernel versions which typically are not the once supported in Ubuntu.

We have started documentation helping silicon vendors to create Ubuntu image containing proprietary packages: RISC-V Image Cookbook.