TrueNAS Scale i915 GPU setup guide

truenas-scale-i915-gpu-setup-guide.md

Introduction

Here's how to get Plex hardware transcoding working with an Intel i915 GPU on TrueNAS SCALE 22.12.3 and Linux Kernel 5.15.*. Modified and updated for my setup, originally posted here: https://www.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/13tpw9x/guidetruenas_scale_22122_enable_1213th_gen_intel/

System Information

OS Version: TrueNAS-SCALE-22.12.3.3
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) N5105 @ 2.00GHz
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics (Jasper Lake) i915

Guide

Note: Here there be dragons, none of these steps are guaranteed to not break your TrueNAS install and you probably won't get much in the way of assistance if you do so be careful and don't attempt this if you're not comfortable with your linux-fu.

Re-enable apt and dpkg, and install Git

chmod +x /usr/bin/dpkg*
chmod +x /usr/bin/apt*
sudo apt update
sudo apt install git

Install Build Dependencies

You'll need to install a few dependencies before you can successfully build the driver. Most of these should already be installed, but flex and bison were missing from my installation.

sudo apt install dkms make debhelper devscripts build-essential flex bison mawk

Clone Intel DKMS + Firmware Repo's

Intel provides i915 Driver DKMS back-ports for kernel 5.15, they're specifically targeting Ubuntu but turns out they compile pretty much fine for Debian with little to no modification needed.

git clone https://github.com/intel-gpu/intel-gpu-cse-backports
git clone https://github.com/intel-gpu/intel-gpu-pmt-backports
git clone -b backport/main --single-branch https://github.com/intel-gpu/intel-gpu-i915-backports
git clone https://github.com/intel-gpu/intel-gpu-firmware

Once you've cloned each repo, follow the build and install instructions in the readme.

Build + Install DKMS modules

Once you've cloned each repo, follow the build and install instructions in the readme for each one. For OS_TYPE assume ubuntu_20.04 as it builds against the same kernel as we do but RTFM applies here.

Install Intel Firmware

You'll need to follow the README.md in the intel-gpu-firmware to copy the new firmware onto your system.

Installing the intel-gpu-i915-backports deb will run update-initramfs, producing warnings and errors. They can safely be ignored. Reboot.

They eventually added the relevant drivers, so if you're on TrueNAS Scale 24.x you shouldn't need to do this.

You used to be able to disable the protection using sudo /usr/local/libexec/disable-rootfs-protection but I'm not sure if that's still the recommended way.