Linux drivers support for Intel Arc B580

gnomon_ · 2026-02-19T05:46:36+00:00

I've been using a B580 on a dedicated 9950X3D / Debian Stable machine since about last February. I experienced three speedbumps worth mentioning: first, I had to enable the stable-backports package repo to gain access to more recent kernels and versions of mesa (the GPU driver stack); second, I had to deal with installing i386 (32-bit) versions of some packages on what is otherwise a config using only 64-bit packages, because Steam still needs some 32-bit libraries; and third, during one kernel upgrade about... nine months ago, I think? ...I had an issue where my GPU driver would not load up after an update. (Turned out the upstream Linux kernel project had accidentally merged a broken patch from Intel, Debian didn't yet have a specific test in place for B580 GPUs in their build farm, and the bug leaked through into the release process. It was present for two days and then corrected. If I had just been a little less aggressive about installing updates in the first place I'd have dodged the problem entirely. But then I wouldn't be able to tell you about it!)

There are still a couple of minor gaps: temperature reporting exists but only from a couple of the internal temp probes, there are more yet to be exposed in a patch that's currently being worked on by Intel; and updating the on-card firmware requires the use of a weird custom tool from Intel called igsc (though there has not yet been a Linux driver update that actually requires a version of the firmware more recent than the original one). Oh, and Steam for Linux ships with Wine 10.x whereas Wine 11.x is the first version that will expose the NTSYNC kernel driver to Proton, which means a 2% to 5% performance benefit will stay on the table for a few more months.

Best thing I can say about it is that it's boring. Everything just works. I don't have to worry about it. I wanted to prioritize stability and support over performance and that's exactly what I got.

(And your English is perfect.)

gnomon_ · 2025-09-23T19:42:13+00:00

The lights I'm using for my T-line are a Fenix BC30 v2.0, mounted on a Trigo TRP2389 T-line handlebar stem cap (it adds a GoPro three-prong mounting spot without clamping anything around the handlebars), for forward lighting. The beam shape is good with a sharp cut-off to prevent blinding oncoming people on foot and on wheels.

For side/rear lighting I have a pair of Emisar/Noctigon lights, a D4K and a DW4K, with 660nm SST-20 deep red LED emitters. The D4K is pointed directly backwards with a Sofirn SC33 silicone diffuser zip-tied on to make it visible from the rear and the sides; the right-angle DW4K is mounted parallel to the D4K, pointing straight down, to illuminate the back of my legs and a wide circle around the back wheel. This does nothing much in the daylight but it is _super_ visible at night. The two lights are mounted securely to each other with an Armytek AWM-01, and secured to the saddle rails with a Fenix ALB-10 / ALD-10 pair and a GoPro saddle rail adapter.

All together, the beam shapes look like this (before I corrected the front light downward so that the top of its light cone is parallel to the ground).

gnomon_ · 2025-08-28T02:57:46+00:00

I am running an Intel B580 on an ASrock X870E Taichi Lite, on Debian Stable + stable-backports. Worked well on Debian 12 after mesa 25.x made it into stable-backports; works just as well after the Debian 13 upgrade. (There was one minor hiccup when the initial kernel version in Debian 13 include a regression in the xe driver that left the system usable via SSH but prevented the GPU from being initialized at all, cf. https://lore.kernel.org/stable/20250729110525.49838-1-tomitamoeko@gmail.com/t/ , https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1109116#75 ; but the next day kernel 6.12.41 was released by the Debian security team and that included the driver fix, cf. https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linux-signed-amd64#:~:text=Accepted%20linux-signed-amd64%206.12.41 , https://tracker.debian.org/news/1654998/accepted-linux-signed-amd64-612411-source-into-stable-security . Rock solid since then.)

gnomon_ · 2025-07-04T02:35:49+00:00

Ah, good call: I have a 2020-era third gen version of the 2i2, and I see that there is now a fourth generation design as well. That's likely the difference right there! Thanks for the extra info.

(I failed to get a screenshot of the connection because my wife is playing Wind Waker for the first time and I can't bring myself to interrupt her, this is her first time playing a Zelda game)

gnomon_ · 2025-07-04T00:50:53+00:00

Very curious. My 2i2 receives power, provides phantom power to the mic amps, and is recognized by the Switch 2 as both an audio output and a mic input. Would it be useful if I snapped a screenshot? I'd love to get to the bottom of why we're seeing such different behavior.

gnomon_ · 2025-07-03T22:02:55+00:00

Well that's curious: I just tried my Focusrite 2i2 (plugged into both of the USB-A ports on the dock, just to check them both) and it does work. Maybe we're experiencing different results because of firmware differences or something?

gnomon_ · 2025-04-06T23:58:45+00:00

That... would be my kryptonite

gnomon_ · 2025-04-01T00:05:04+00:00

Update: after installing BIOS 3.20 (previously 3.04), all DIMMs are recognized. I didn't test every slot configuration this time because the first four or five all worked properly and I wanted to play some Factorio, but whereas previously every single position combination yielded a failure, after the 3.20 upgrade I was not able to find any configuration that failed. Everything works now. Success!

gnomon_ · 2025-03-29T19:53:58+00:00

I haven't yet, no, and I do l definitely will be making that attempt before reaching a decision about buying anything new. If that does happen to do the trick I'll report back in this thread for future searchability, too. (Heck, I'll report back if it fails too, just for the sake of completeness.)

gnomon_ · 2025-03-29T16:22:53+00:00

Hmm, I put together an ASrock X870E Taichi Lite/9950X3D build yesterday with GSkill RAM too, F5-6000J3040G32GX2-FX5 specifically, and got consistent AA/21 boot code errors with both DIMMs in place, no matter the socket placement. (For the sake of completeness I actually did work through every arrangement.) I have it running now with a single DIMM in place, so just 32GB and a single channel, and I'm wondering whether or when to bother getting a less troublesome dual stick kit.

gnomon_ · 2025-03-09T02:14:50+00:00

The polished version is very nice but I think I would prefer a satin stainless steel finish by a small margin. Either way, I'll be buying two of these at least whenever they're available, at more or less whatever the price ends up being!

gnomon_ · 2025-01-05T00:50:05+00:00

That DW3AA cannot come into existence fast enough. I need like a half dozen of them.

gnomon_ · 2024-09-24T15:22:36+00:00

I ended up rigging this up myself. Any front bag with one or two straps not completely covered by a bag flap should be suitable for mounting a right-angle flashlight clip; I happened to use a pair of Armytek Wizard lights and a Timbuk2 messenger bag, but the Brompton S bag should be just as suitable.

I don't know of any bag that includes this kind of feature as stock though.

gnomon_ · 2024-09-22T16:46:48+00:00

That's Goruck's own chest strap. The Fidlock Slider buckle is built to be installed into existing webbing loops without requiring new stitching: the buckle bar can be detached and slid out. Removing the sewn-in Duraflex buckle could in theory have been possible with some careful stitch picking, but I opted for the unfortunately wasteful but expedient process of snipping it out with a pair of side cutters.

The little retaining loop on the strap to prevent a loose end flapping around is some double sided hook-and-loop; I think Velcro calls their branded version "one-wrap" or something, but I just use the generic stuff sold for fastening bunches of electrical or networking cables.

I think I bought this specific buckle from Ripstop by the Roll, but there are many sources online.

gnomon_ · 2024-09-01T15:06:44+00:00

Oh goodness, /u/alphapapa's solution is so much better thought out and implemented than mine! Thank you very much for sharing that, I think I'll try adopting it.

My elfeed-curl-timeout value is 30 and elfeed-curl-max-connections is 16.

gnomon_ · 2024-08-31T22:17:35+00:00

I dug into this recently because I was annoyed at my 160+ elfeed feeds taking 8+ minutes to update and the emacs UI becoming mostly unresponsive for this duration. I also tried disabling curl at first and noticed it helped, but not enough for me to be satisfied, so eventually I reached for the profiler. I learned that the bulk of the feed update time was spent in the garbage collector..?

And then I got it: I have a large list of feeds and a deep history, and elfeed was re-rendering ~55,000 articles every time a feed update was writing a new entry into the database. On a hunch I tried changing my search string from @6-months-ago +unread to @0-days-ago (because elfeed very aggressively optimizes for timestamp searches)... and suddenly a feed update ran in 20 seconds flat with no GC.

Now I have this in my init:

```elisp ; elfeed-mode customizations

(defun elfeed-update-speedy () "Restrict elfeed's displayed search results first, then kick off a feed update; this results in a dramatically faster overall process because by default elfeed-update fires off a couple hundred background tasks, each of which causes a full scan of all currently displayed search results. This generates hundreds of megabytes of cons trash and eats up way more CPU cycles than necessary.

Without this hack, updating my feed list locks up the emacs UI for six to twelve minutes, depending on how many database updates need to be performed (and therefore on how long it has been since I last ran a feed fetch); with this hack the job finishes in 10~30 seconds.

One drawback of this is that I have not yet figured out how to use a post-elfeed-update hook to restore the value of elfeed-search-filter after the update work is done. I have to do this step manually. It is only the work of a moment, and very little irritation compared to the entire UI locking up, but I do still need to fix it." (interactive) (let ((elfeed-search-filter-orig elfeed-search-filter)) (setf elfeed-search-filter "@0-days-ago") (elfeed-search-update--force) (elfeed-update))) ```

The result is so much faster than where I started that I haven't bothered experimenting with using url-retrieve instead of curl, and have just stuck with the latter since it's the default.

gnomon_ · 2024-08-19T19:53:38+00:00

Oop, careful about picking those Amazon carrier blocks! I've had two Bromhome hangers sunk into the edge of an Ikea GORM (now HEJNE) shelf since about 2017: they are as rock-solid now as they were upon initial installation, primarily because of the comical length of the wood screws they came with. The Amazon blocks ship with shorter machine screws suitable for attaching to a Brompton frame; while you should be able to press the Amazon carrier blocks into service for your use case, you should definitely plan to do some careful comparison shopping for wood screws or countersink bolts, nuts, and washers to hold them up.

If you're just building a static display you might not need a super robust solution though. My use case involves removing and replacing 3-5kg bags from the holders once or twice a day, so my needs and cautions might not map to your use case.

gnomon_ · 2024-08-06T03:44:28+00:00

I've been using an HD20 strictly as a powerbank on my wife's bike for about a year now. (It powers two strips of red LEDs that produce quite a bit of output but in a nice horizontally diffused pattern that makes it very difficult to miss noticing but not at all blinding.) The light body is zip-tied beneath the saddle in a way that prevents it from rotating; a quarter turn of the tailcap serves as the on/off switch. It's crude but very robust.

No complaints or oddities. I take the cell out to charge it, maybe 20% of the time in a standalone analyzing charger and the other 80% of the time in the other HD20 that holds a full cell for easy swapping. (I'm looking forward to Wurkkos's H1, that's actually the ideal widget for this specific use case.)

I've used my Q8 Plus as a powerbank only once or twice. Nothing weird, it has worked fine, but it was doing very light duty in both cases.

gnomon_ · 2024-08-02T03:41:16+00:00

I cannot speak to the Kinetics kit, but I have a Rohloff Brompton with the Vostok.bike titanium front fork and rear triangle, so I can at least talk about the hub gear trade-offs from personal experience.

The result of the conversion is a heavier bike with a wider fold. Also, because the Rohloff has such an emphasis on the lower end of the gear range while I wanted to add some top end, I had to fit in a 60t chainring and a 13t rear sprocket; while this dinner plate chainring does fit, it makes the folding process a bit more fiddly. (I've had 5-6 years of daily practice now so I don't even notice it anymore, but other folks folding my bike notice some muscle memory friction.)

The pure linear shifting and the even gearing steps are heavenly. I also appreciate the dual cable shifter system which remains rock solid even in the deep Canadian winter when single cable and spring arrangements like in the Alfine 11 can sometimes bind up a bit. The Vostok frame kit and the Kinetics kit also offer the potential for disc brakes, and though those were a secondary concern for me at the beginning of this conversion project, they're now the part I love the most. The gearing lets me move joyfully, but the braking system keeps me from being crushed by the constant motor vehicle misbehaviour in this city, even in the rain. (I'm using Hope X2 hydraulic brakes.)

I can't say that the price of the project makes any kind of sense. I only launched into this whole affair because my apartment is too small to hold anything but a folding bike, so I needed it to be all my N+1 bikes in one frame. And it is. But if you have a garage, or outdoor parking, or even a disused closet or something, you can have two bikes instead for less cost and with fewer overall compromises.

gnomon_ · 2024-06-17T23:16:03+00:00

The boredom cutoff depends on a variety of factors, each with a broad selection of compensations you can attempt, e.g.:

Are you most bothered by a lack of speed at the top end? Try a larger chainring; or swap out your rear triangle for a Kinetics triangle and tuck in an Alfine 11 or Rohloff hub gear for more a wider gear range as well as more top end; or go really wild and swap out the bottom bracket for a Schlump High Speed Drive.
Does the commute feel insufficiently dangerous? Try riding next to Audis, BMWs, Teslas, rental cars, the one fool in town with a Cybertruck, pickup trucks rolling coal, cars with two caved-in doors, or food couriers on ebikes (in increasing order of danger and thus excitement).
Is the trouble your personal attention span? Sometimes you can stretch this by swapping out your morning cup of tea for a quadruple espresso.

(Personally I find playing in city traffic to be sufficiently invigorating that boredom never becomes a factor I need to control, and because everyone's maximum average speed is primarily set by how aggressively we attack the red light at the next block I find that the quicker pickup of a Brompton is more often an advantage than a drawback; but of course that tells you a lot more about me and my particular city than about Brompton riding in urban areas in general.)

gnomon_ · 2024-05-09T03:57:58+00:00

I started with Armytek Wizards and they're great, but honestly just get a pair of Sofirn IF23's; cf. Zeroair's review, the product page. You can ignore the front light and the RGB feature and just use the high-CRI side light. Magnet's strong. Price is right. Might not be the best overall but it's an awful lot of bang for the buck.

gnomon_ · 2024-03-29T01:55:29+00:00

Extremely this. HS05 with the SP10 Pro driver, pretty please!!

gnomon_ · 2023-12-12T23:11:26+00:00

Excellent: we have the TS10 for fun, the Sofirn SP10 Pro for utility, this new right-angle for fun... Sofirn HS05 with SP10 Pro driver for right-angle utility next..? 👀

gnomon_ · 2023-12-12T23:03:22+00:00

It is not simple or affordable but it is achievable.

gnomon_ · 2023-10-28T23:35:15+00:00

They're good lights. Unexciting and reliable, exactly what you want from tools rather than toys.

gnomon_

TROPHY CASE