Switch GPU driver

Products equipped with RK3588 (excluding RK3582) series SOCs use Panthor GPU driver by default when using Debian 12 (Bookworm) version system, you can follow the tutorial below to switch GPU driver according to your needs.

warning

This document applies only to products equipped with the RK3588 (excluding RK3582) series SOC.

Driver	OpenGL	OpenGL ES	OpenCL	8K HDMI
Mali	❌	✔	✔	✔
Panthor	✔	✔	❌	❌

Mali

Use Rockchip's proprietary xorg-xserver version

1. Add /etc/apt/preferences.d/mali file with the following contents:

Package: *xserver*
Pin: release a=rk3588-bookworm
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *xserver*
Pin: release a=rk3588s2-bookworm
Pin-Priority: 1001

2. Then refer to System Upgrade Using rsetup to reinstall the Rockchip proprietary software packages (if you don't do this step the desktop will crash or flip the colors)

Installing the Mali User Level Driver

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libmali-valhall-g610-g13p0-x11-gbm

Enable Mali GPU Overlay

Refer to Overlay opening tutorial，enable Enable Arm Mali GPU driver Overlay.

Panthor

Revert to using Debian's officially packaged version of mainline xorg-xserver

1. Remove /etc/apt/preferences.d/mali file:

sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences.d/mali

2. Then refer to System Upgrade Using rsetup to reinstall the Debian's officially packages (if you don't do this step the desktop will crash or flip the colors)

Uninstall the Mali user level driver and install the upstream Mesa driver

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove libmali-valhall-g610-g13p0-x11-gbm
sudo apt-get install mesa-utils mesa-utils-extra libglx-mesa0 libgl1-mesa-dri

Disable Mali GPU Overlay

Refer to Overlay opening tutorial，disable Enable Arm Mali GPU driver Overlay.

Reboot system

sudo reboot

Verify GPU drivers

Verify the kernel driver

Check if the corresponding GPU driver is loaded:

# mali
rock@radxa-cm5-io:~$ lsmod | grep bifrost_kbase
bifrost_kbase        1015808  3

# Panthor
rock@radxa-cm5-io:~$ lsmod | grep panthor
panthor                98304  1
drm_gpuvm              24576  1 panthor
drm_exec               16384  2 drm_gpuvm,panthor
drm_shmem_helper       20480  1 panthor
gpu_sched              36864  1 panthor

Verify the xorg-xserver version

Run the following command to see the current xorg-xserver source for [installed,automatic]. This is rk3588*-bookworm when using the mali driver, or stable when using the Panthor driver.

rock@radxa-cm5-io:~$ sudo apt list -a xserver-common xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-legacy
Listing... Done
xserver-common/stable-security,stable 2:21.1.7-3+deb12u7 all
xserver-common/rk3588s2-bookworm,rk3588s2-bookworm,now 2:21.1.7-3+deb12u2 all [installed,automatic]

xserver-xorg-core/stable-security,stable 2:21.1.7-3+deb12u7 arm64
xserver-xorg-core/rk3588s2-bookworm,now 2:21.1.7-3+deb12u2 arm64 [installed,automatic]

xserver-xorg-legacy/stable-security,stable 2:21.1.7-3+deb12u7 arm64
xserver-xorg-legacy/rk3588s2-bookworm,now 2:21.1.7-3+deb12u2 arm64 [installed,automatic]

Verify the user level driver

Run the following command with the word [installed] for mali drivers and without the word [installed] for Panthor:

rock@radxa-cm5-io:~$ sudo apt list libmali-valhall-g610-g13p0-x11-gbm
Listing... Done
libmali-valhall-g610-g13p0-x11-gbm/rk3588s2-bookworm,now 1.9-1 arm64 [installed]
rock@radxa-cm5-io:~$