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I really hope they hire more people to work on the Linux GPU drivers, and have the drivers ready and stable on launch, and not years later. I've experienced th

I really hope they hire more people to work on the Linux GPU drivers, and have the drivers ready and stable on launch, and not years later. I've experienced the following issues on my laptop (Dell G5 SE): * Crashes on suspend/resume. [1] * Kernel warning on boot [2] * It crashes for me without amdgpu.runpm=0 kernel config [3] (fixed?) * Crashes when inserting and removing USB-C monitor (fixed?) * The onboard GPU works, but the dedicated GPU crashes with vsync. (didn't test recently) 1. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1222 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1222 2. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/912 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/912 3. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1304 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1304

Finnucane 6y ago
I have also experienced the crash on resume issue. It is only some of the time--like once every few days. But it is still pretty annoying. (currently using kernel 5.8x) It might not be the highest priority for them, but it would be cool if they could fix it.
nickserv 6y ago
My driver experience has been overwhelmingly positive, but I do tend to run older (cheaper) chipsets. On my work computer with a Ryzen 7 "Renoir" GPU the problem was not the drivers but the fact that the latest Ubuntu LTS ships with an older kernel, so having to run latest mainline. I have a feeling this sort of situation will become more and more problematic, especially when new architectures are released. Somewhere the Linux community may have to step up for more easily having recent kernels.
- pedrocr 6y ago
  Ubuntu LTS already has the hardware enablement stack to solve this very issue. You stay on the LTS but get newer kernel/mesa/etc for hardware support.
- volta83 6y ago
  > I do tend to run older (cheaper) chipsets. The experience of running old hardware on Linux is much better than that of running new hardware. Except for certain products at least (I run latest nvidia compute cards and the drivers just work).
offtop5 6y ago
Most of the money spent here it's probably going to help server side Linux which is a much bigger market. But I'm just as optimistic as you
- boudin 6y ago
  I would think though that an SOC with good drivers in the kernel would be a massive selling point, blobs are a massive pain in the Android world.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    AMD doesn't make Android phones though, I suspect Samsung or maybe Google would need to work on this
  - marcodiego 6y ago
    I'd a fairly modern/powerful blob-free SOC. For now, the closest I to it I got was an rk3399 based SBC. It is a start. RISCV may finally do it, but it is still a few years away if ever.
qbasic_forever 6y ago
I'm on a Ryzen APU too, the Raven Ridge 2500U, and have had an equally disastrous experience on linux. I will say though in the last 6 months I have _finally_ figured out how to make the machine stable and stop randomly crashing. Here's the key, and it might help you to try too: - Upgrade to _the very latest_ kernels. I'm not kidding, you need to start following mainline stable builds. In Ubuntu or ubuntu-based derivatives check out the ubuntu-mainline-kernel script: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds I'm on 5.10.4 right now but probably should uprade. You need a _minimum_ 5.4 kernel to fix some egregious instability issues, but in general keep your kernel bleeding edge updated. - Disable MWAIT instructions. This was the final missing piece of making my machine stable. The TL;DR is that AMD put out errata recently that MWAIT is basically 100% broken on these early Ryzen processors: https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/55449_Fam_17h_M_00h-0Fh_Rev_Guide.pdf https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/55449_Fam_17h_M_00... You can read much more in this enormous kernel bug report: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196683 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196683 The fix is to add a "idle=nomwait" flag to your kernel startup. It's a night and day difference with these fixes in place. I still sometimes get a touchpad lockup on wake from sleep, but it's maybe 1 out of every 50 times and kind of expected for linux. No longer do I have random kernel panic-level lockups every hour. The little laptop just flies and flies with these Ryzen processors.
- eggsome 6y ago
  I had a 2700U (Lenovo E585). Was super painful for the first year or so. Took 2 years for a BIOS update that solved the final problems allowing it to work without custom kernel perimeters. Ubuntu 20.4 was the first version of Linux that was totally stable. 2 weeks after everything was perfect - the fan died :(
- Shorel 6y ago
  Thanks! I might install Linux again in my 2500U laptop.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
I really wish they would write a showcase Linux Desktop that would enable their CPUs to shine and create a market for ARM chips they may release in response to M1, but that's about as likely as a genie lamp actually existing.
account42 6y ago
> I really hope they hire more people to work on the Linux GPU drivers, and have the drivers ready and stable on launch, and not years later. I got a RX 6900 XT in december and have not had any significant issues with the drivers. YMMV on less bleeding edge distros.

Finnucane 6y ago

I have also experienced the crash on resume issue. It is only some of the time--like once every few days. But it is still pretty annoying. (currently using kernel 5.8x) It might not be the highest priority for them, but it would be cool if they could fix it.

nickserv 6y ago

My driver experience has been overwhelmingly positive, but I do tend to run older (cheaper) chipsets. On my work computer with a Ryzen 7 "Renoir" GPU the problem was not the drivers but the fact that the latest Ubuntu LTS ships with an older kernel, so having to run latest mainline. I have a feeling this sort of situation will become more and more problematic, especially when new architectures are released. Somewhere the Linux community may have to step up for more easily having recent kernels.

pedrocr 6y ago
Ubuntu LTS already has the hardware enablement stack to solve this very issue. You stay on the LTS but get newer kernel/mesa/etc for hardware support.
volta83 6y ago
> I do tend to run older (cheaper) chipsets. The experience of running old hardware on Linux is much better than that of running new hardware. Except for certain products at least (I run latest nvidia compute cards and the drivers just work).

offtop5 6y ago

Most of the money spent here it's probably going to help server side Linux which is a much bigger market. But I'm just as optimistic as you

boudin 6y ago
I would think though that an SOC with good drivers in the kernel would be a massive selling point, blobs are a massive pain in the Android world.
- offtop5 6y ago
  AMD doesn't make Android phones though, I suspect Samsung or maybe Google would need to work on this
- marcodiego 6y ago
  I'd a fairly modern/powerful blob-free SOC. For now, the closest I to it I got was an rk3399 based SBC. It is a start. RISCV may finally do it, but it is still a few years away if ever.

qbasic_forever 6y ago

I'm on a Ryzen APU too, the Raven Ridge 2500U, and have had an equally disastrous experience on linux. I will say though in the last 6 months I have _finally_ figured out how to make the machine stable and stop randomly crashing. Here's the key, and it might help you to try too: - Upgrade to _the very latest_ kernels. I'm not kidding, you need to start following mainline stable builds. In Ubuntu or ubuntu-based derivatives check out the ubuntu-mainline-kernel script: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds I'm on 5.10.4 right now but probably should uprade. You need a _minimum_ 5.4 kernel to fix some egregious instability issues, but in general keep your kernel bleeding edge updated. - Disable MWAIT instructions. This was the final missing piece of making my machine stable. The TL;DR is that AMD put out errata recently that MWAIT is basically 100% broken on these early Ryzen processors: https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/55449_Fam_17h_M_00h-0Fh_Rev_Guide.pdf https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/55449_Fam_17h_M_00... You can read much more in this enormous kernel bug report: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196683 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196683 The fix is to add a "idle=nomwait" flag to your kernel startup. It's a night and day difference with these fixes in place. I still sometimes get a touchpad lockup on wake from sleep, but it's maybe 1 out of every 50 times and kind of expected for linux. No longer do I have random kernel panic-level lockups every hour. The little laptop just flies and flies with these Ryzen processors.

eggsome 6y ago
I had a 2700U (Lenovo E585). Was super painful for the first year or so. Took 2 years for a BIOS update that solved the final problems allowing it to work without custom kernel perimeters. Ubuntu 20.4 was the first version of Linux that was totally stable. 2 weeks after everything was perfect - the fan died :(
Shorel 6y ago
Thanks! I might install Linux again in my 2500U laptop.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

I really wish they would write a showcase Linux Desktop that would enable their CPUs to shine and create a market for ARM chips they may release in response to M1, but that's about as likely as a genie lamp actually existing.

account42 6y ago

> I really hope they hire more people to work on the Linux GPU drivers, and have the drivers ready and stable on launch, and not years later. I got a RX 6900 XT in december and have not had any significant issues with the drivers. YMMV on less bleeding edge distros.