diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem.c
index d5aad0bc71f7b..f0e4c5609adb0 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_gem.c
@@ -1973,7 +1973,19 @@ i915_gem_object_get_pages_gtt(struct drm_i915_gem_object *obj)
 		page_cache_release(sg_page_iter_page(&sg_iter));
 	sg_free_table(st);
 	kfree(st);
-	return PTR_ERR(page);
+
+	/* shmemfs first checks if there is enough memory to allocate the page
+	 * and reports ENOSPC should there be insufficient, along with the usual
+	 * ENOMEM for a genuine allocation failure.
+	 *
+	 * We use ENOSPC in our driver to mean that we have run out of aperture
+	 * space and so want to translate the error from shmemfs back to our
+	 * usual understanding of ENOMEM.
+	 */
+	if (PTR_ERR(page) == -ENOSPC)
+		return -ENOMEM;
+	else
+		return PTR_ERR(page);
 }
 
 /* Ensure that the associated pages are gathered from the backing storage