Debian vs Ubuntu for Hardware Transcoding

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
21

root@debianplex:/var/log# nvidia-detect
Detected NVIDIA GPUs:
09:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:2507] (rev a1)

Checking card: NVIDIA Corporation Device 2507 (rev a1)
Uh oh. Your card is not supported by any driver version up to 525.60.13.
A newer driver may add support for your card.
Newer driver releases may be available in backports, unstable or experimental.
root@debianplex:/var/log# sudo apt install nvidia-driver
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
nvidia-driver is already the newest version (525.60.13-1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

22

I was going to suggest that next.

That seems to say you need a NEWER (?) driver than 525.60.13 for Linux?

23

Yeah…that’s how I read that as well. Welcome to my confusion.

24

Time to hit the Nvidia forums. Sorry. :person_shrugging:

25

One final question, do you think this might have something to do with me running Debian Server as opposed to Debian Desktop? Or not having a GUI installed?

26

Not having a GUI installed is one thing.
Is there an HDMI plug on the card ? ( VERY common problem on Windows machines )

I know Ubuntu server (what I use) with a P2200 is happy as can be but the P2200 isn’t a new card.

Without having a machine I can load Debian 11 server on and fuss with , I’m guessing at the reason but if the difference is Server vs Desktop distro then it speaks poorly to what they’ve done to the Debian 11 distro.

27

Yes there is an HDMI on the 3050. Server is GUI free, Desktop is GUI included. I just run my sever headless and use SSH about 95% of the time. I do have a monitor hooked up but only for validation of things and to work on the system if it reboots into emergency mode. For the most part, that monitor is displaying a windows server.

This is the basis for my question at the top of this thread. I know that Plex “officially” supports Ubuntu. I had Debian 10 on a previous plex server. Attempted to move to Windows (wanted to test a different config/hardware set up) and when I decided to come back to Linux, went to 11 as it was the current LTS. I’m about ready to wipe the primary OS and run Ubuntu to see if that corrects this whole issue.

28

I truly appreciate you helping with what you can. I’ll hit up the Nvidia forums to see if anyone can help as I can’t figure out why this is an issue. I’ve even got a thread going in the Debian forums.

29

Debian/Ubuntu Server doesn’t build the /dev/dri system, suggest you use the desktop iso and just don’t install desktop/window manager if you want a cli system.

Also do everyone a favor and leave the default mainline kernel in place.

30

@pl_5309

I beg to differ. This is Ubuntu server

Last login: Thu Jan 26 13:40:29 2023 from 192.168.0.13
l[chuck@glockner ~.2001]$ ls -la /dev/dri
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root        120 Jan 11 13:39 ./
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root       5580 Jan 11 13:39 ../
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root        100 Jan 11 13:39 by-path/
crw-rw----  1 root render 226,   0 Jan 24 00:20 card0
crw-rw----  1 root render 226,   1 Jan 24 00:20 card1
crw-rw----  1 root render 226, 128 Jan 24 00:20 renderD128
[chuck@glockner ~.2002]$ cat /etc/os-release 
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="20.04.5 LTS (Focal Fossa)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS"
VERSION_ID="20.04"
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
VERSION_CODENAME=focal
UBUNTU_CODENAME=focal
[chuck@glockner ~.2003]$ uname -a
Linux glockner 5.4.0-136-generic #153-Ubuntu SMP Thu Nov 24 15:56:58 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[chuck@glockner ~.2004]$ nvidia-smi
Thu Jan 26 14:33:38 2023       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 515.86.01    Driver Version: 515.86.01    CUDA Version: 11.7     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  Quadro P2200        On   | 00000000:07:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| 48%   37C    P8     4W /  75W |      4MiB /  5120MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[chuck@glockner ~.2005]$ sudo lspci -v | grep VGA
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP106GL [Quadro P2200] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
0d:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ASPEED Technology, Inc. ASPEED Graphics Family (rev 30) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
[chuck@glockner ~.2006]$
31

Alright Chuck!

Ubuntu 20.04 installed, graphics driver installed. Just installed plexmediaserver:

PlexMediaServer install:
PlexMediaServer install: Now installing based on:
PlexMediaServer install: Installation Type: New
PlexMediaServer install: Process Control: systemd
PlexMediaServer install: Plex User: plex
PlexMediaServer install: Plex Group: plex
PlexMediaServer install: Video Group: render
PlexMediaServer install: Metadata Dir: /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library
/Application Support
PlexMediaServer install: Temp Directory: /tmp
PlexMediaServer install: Lang Encoding: en_US.UTF-8
PlexMediaServer install: Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Process
or
PlexMediaServer install: Intel i915 Hardware: Not found
PlexMediaServer install: Nvidia GPU card: Found
PlexMediaServer install:
PlexMediaServer install: Completing final configuration.
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/plexmediaserver.serv
ice → /lib/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.
PlexMediaServer install: PlexMediaServer-1.30.2.6563-3d4dc0cce - Installation su
ccessful. Errors: 0, Warnings: 0
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) …
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu3) …

32

root@ubuntuplex:/mnt/plex1# nvidia-smi
Sat Jan 28 09:01:17 2023
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 525.78.01 Driver Version: 525.78.01 CUDA Version: 12.0 |
|-------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce … Off | 00000000:09:00.0 On | N/A |
| 0% 43C P8 15W / 130W | 362MiB / 8192MiB | 34% Default |
| | | N/A |
±------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+

±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 1285 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 53MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 1919 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 154MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 2045 G /usr/bin/gnome-shell 37MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 2848 G /usr/lib/firefox/firefox 106MiB |
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
root@ubuntuplex:/mnt/plex1# cd /dev/dri
root@ubuntuplex:/dev/dri# ll
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 100 Jan 28 08:07 ./
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 5080 Jan 28 09:01 …/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 80 Jan 28 08:07 by-path/
crw-rw----+ 1 root render 226, 0 Jan 28 08:20 card0
crw-rw----+ 1 root render 226, 128 Jan 28 08:20 renderD128

Now to get the plex user into that render group and I should be golden!

33

image

Ok, now I’m confused. It can see the GPU, the plex user is in the correct group…still no HW transcoding?

34

image
Ignore me please. New server, forgot to turn on “use hardware acceleration when possible”

1 Like
35

Do you have subtitles in the file? PMS always suppresses HW when there’s subtitles.

36

I think so. But I’m fine with the CPU taking the audio transcode, it’s the video transcode I was more concerned with. Glad this is up and running! Thank you so very much @ChuckPa!

37

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