Looking for a Open-Source AMD experienced Linux mentor

[zava]

Hi,

I recently said "fuck off" to windows forever and since I've been spending almost every waking moment trying to figure out how Linux works. Especially when it comes to my switchable graphics and gaming performance.

Only did I realize that I spent 2 weeks getting nowhere in total because I easily get sidetracked. "Oh let's search for this function" "Oh this looks like a nice tweak too".

So I'm looking for someone who would be willing to point me in the right directions.

Yours sincerely,

Lukas

[brosis]

Didnt you do exactly same in windows? Fixing, improving etc.

Also, the question "Looking for mentor" and "guide me in right direction" sounds like you either want someone to do work for you. First, ask concrete questions. If you question is not concrete and you simply want a working distribution, then you selected the wrong distribution - find a distribution that you like and join the development making things work in the way you and other devs share.

Your post sounds like: Switched from Zune and now I am fiddling with my new ipad every morning. Looking for mentor to make my ipad work in a way I see correct.
Blurred questions bring blurred answers. If you dont search for answer, but for the way - then join the group that too seeks and shares same vision.

[zava]

Didnt you do exactly same in windows? Fixing, improving etc.

Also, the question "Looking for mentor" and "guide me in right direction" sounds like you either want someone to do work for you. First, ask concrete questions. If you question is not concrete and you simply want a working distribution, then you selected the wrong distribution - find a distribution that you like and join the development making things work in the way you and other devs share.

Your post sounds like: Switched from Zune and now I am fiddling with my new ipad every morning. Looking for mentor to make my ipad work in a way I see correct.
Blurred questions bring blurred answers. If you dont search for answer, but for the way - then join the group that too seeks and shares same vision.

Ok ok I think I get it slowly.

I don't like the fact that people get so religious about linux that they won't help and if they do they let you feel the hate.

Maybe if the community would set up some guidelines more people would use open-source and thus take money and influence from the industry and make the world a better place.

But if you need to identify yourself completely with an OS like an atheist with his disbelieve or black-metal fan with his blackness or a banker with his job-success or a woman with her figure then I'd like to know how you are different from them. If your group that shares the same vision is in no way different from the people they are judged by then you are hypocrites.

What I dislike the most is the instant judging. You don't know shit about who I am and yet you deduce that I'm a rich mama's boy who sits on his bed with his donuts and just found this homepage. It's making me sick. Even if I was you still have no right to treat a person like that.

Except in some extreme cases the world is not black and white. I interprete that you just have trouble adapting and that's understandable in this corrupted form of society nowadays.

Since I started the help I got was condescending and for a lot of solutions I spent weeks myself. It's not fun anymore after day 4. And when I wrote a summary of 3 weeks of research on a forum all that people did was, again, misinterprete everything they could so they could critizice harshly and vent their self-hate.

You ruined my day.

[Guest]

...Especially when it comes to my switchable graphics and gaming performance.

With the open-source driver; I've had very mixed results with my switchable graphics laptop. Most of the time, my dGPU is useless; particularly when fullscreening anything.

What distro are you using, and what hardware do you have?

[tarceri]

Hi,

I recently said "fuck off" to windows forever and since I've been spending almost every waking moment trying to figure out how Linux works. Especially when it comes to my switchable graphics and gaming performance.

Only did I realize that I spent 2 weeks getting nowhere in total because I easily get sidetracked. "Oh let's search for this function" "Oh this looks like a nice tweak too".

So I'm looking for someone who would be willing to point me in the right directions.

Yours sincerely,

Lukas

No need to get so upset. It could have been said in a nicer way but you really didn't specify what you wanted help with. Are you just trying to configure the drivers to get the most out of them? Or are you trying to do development work on them?

[Wildfire]

Only did I realize that I spent 2 weeks getting nowhere in total because I easily get sidetracked. "Oh let's search for this function" "Oh this looks like a nice tweak too".

This is what happens if you don't have a concrete, measurable, goal in mind. As others have pointed out already, the first thing you need to do is to define what exactly you want to do. "Figuring out how Linux works" and "improving performance" are very, very broad topics. It'll be very hard to determine when, if ever, you have reached those goals.

You see, to get you "figuring out how Linux works" I could recommend you start looking into kernel development. As a kernel developer you'll have a good idea of what makes Linux tick. Or I could point you in the direction of Arch, since it'll have you set up your own system basically from scratch, which means you'll have a fairly decent idea of how a Linux distribution works. Both of these recommendation probably won't help you at all, since neither is suited towards a beginner, and neither will get you gaming any time soon.

For example: I have set up Ubuntu, installed Steam (from Ubuntu's repos), the proprietary Linux drivers from AMD (from Ubuntu's repos) and I'm happily playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. It's as easy as doing the same thing on Windows. If you want to install the latest AMD drivers from their website it'll get a bit more complicated but there's tons of tutorials out there. Once you're at that stage you can then start fiddling with your settings to try to get more performance out of the machine or try and decide if you want to try a different distribution with more recent software if you think that'll help solve your performance issues.

Also, when it comes to performance, it never hurts to tell people your specs and your expected performance. But don't expect miracles. At the most performance will be as good as it is on Windows but in most cases you won't get there. Linux can't magically make a game run with 100 fps if it's barely playable on Windows on the same hardware. And AMD's drivers have a bad reputation when it comes to Linux, e.g they're not even officially supported for Borderlands.

So I'm looking for someone who would be willing to point me in the right directions.

Problem is: We don't know what "the right direction" is, since you haven't set a clear direction for yourself to begin with. Set a goal for yourself ("I want to be able to play game xyz on my machine, it should run with at least 30 fps."). Then try to get there. If you get stuck on a particular problem, then ask a particular question so people know what it is you need instead of letting them guess what you might be needinghelp with.

Maybe if the community would set up some guidelines more people would use open-source and thus take money and influence from the industry and make the world a better place.

Guidelines for what exactly? There's tons of documentation out there for tons of topics. The Linux community is huge and the things people do with their installations are very diverse. If you have a specific question I'm sure people can point you towards a tutorial or two, but there's simply no Cover-Every-Possible-Topic-FAQ out there. Or to turn things around: What would a general guideline for Windows look like?

[zava]

Yeah the variety of things to do is overwhelming.

With the open-source driver; I've had very mixed results with my switchable graphics laptop. Most of the time, my dGPU is useless; particularly when fullscreening anything.

What distro are you using, and what hardware do you have?

Kernel Linux 3.17.0-031700-generic (x86_64)
Distribution Ubuntu 14.10
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 1789,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2636,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2283,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2316,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2663,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2761,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2231,00MHz
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 1989,00MHz
Total Memory 6057724 kB
Free Memory 2474576 kB
Host bridge Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
PCI bridge Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
VGA compatible controller Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Communication controller Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
PCI bridge Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
PCI bridge Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b5) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
PCI bridge Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev b5) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
PCI bridge Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b5) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
ISA bridge Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 05)
SMBus Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
VGA compatible controller Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Whistler [Radeon HD 6730M/6770M/7690M XT] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)
OpenGL
Vendor Intel Open Source Technology Center
Renderer Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile
Version 3.0 Mesa 10.4.0-devel (git-1386281 2014-10-25 utopic-oibaf-ppa)
Direct Rendering Yes
ATA Samsung SSD 840 hp CDDVDW SN-208BB
Oibaf PPA

BIOS
Date 01/23/2013
Vendor Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com)
Version F.1C
Board
Name 17FA
Vendor Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com)

You see, to get you "figuring out how Linux works" I could recommend you start looking into kernel development. As a kernel developer you'll have a good idea of what makes Linux tick. Or I could point you in the direction of Arch, since it'll have you set up your own system basically from scratch, which means you'll have a fairly decent idea of how a Linux distribution works. Both of these recommendation probably won't help you at all, since neither is suited towards a beginner, and neither will get you gaming any time soon.

You got my attention with Arch Linux and Kernels. I also feel less and less like gaming and more and more like spending hours optimizing my System.

I want to use linux for:
- Getting into coding | creative outlet
- Creating my own interface | creative outlet
- organizing myself
- Mixing with Mixxx and/or Traktor through Qjackctl jack2 playonlinux wineasio. Right now I feel more like Mixxx since one day it's going to surpass Traktor anyway
- gaming

so far I have

export vblank_mode=0
export R600_DEBUG=hyperz,nollvm
xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink 0x45 0x6d

DRI_PRIME=1 %command$ in dota 2 launch options
And I switched the graphics settings in my Insyde F19 F1C Bios to dynamic mode (other option is fixed mode). Which one of these two would you recommend? Dynamic makes sense but when I set that just before the window manager starts while booting I can see:

kvm: disabled by bios

My current projects are:
- recompiling everpad for 14.10
- compiling tomighty for linux (I compiled the .jar already but I can't seem to figure out how to actually use it) | yesterday I had the ironic problem of feeling like I should go out and take a break but I couldn't because tomighty didn't work yet
- looking out for new distros
- rooting my android phone so I can use it with QTADB
- configuring the open source driver for DOTA 2
- finding a way to sync orage my phone will be using
- possibly flashing my bios with a custom rom
- deleting a cdfs partition from a usb stick I got from my university

[OneTimeShot]

Maybe if the community would set up some guidelines more people would use open-source and thus take money and influence from the industry and make the world a better place.

Here's some good reading that I give to everyone starting UNIX/Linux (if you spoke to me in person, I'd just let you borrow them)

General commandline UNIX:

UNIX in a Nutshell: http://www.amazon.com/Unix-Nutshell-...+in+a+Nutshell


Figuring out how the Linux kernel works:

Understanding the Linux Kernel: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-...+in+a+nutshell


3D Graphics in Linux:

OpenGL Superbible: http://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-SuperBi...ngl+superbible


These books are reasonably cheap (second hand or earlier versions). They aren't trivial - I am assuming that you have a Computer Science degree, or work with computers at that kind of level...

You will need to be *very* specific about what you are asking, as many people on this site could write for hours about something you are not interested in (for example, the various devs who write device drivers at AMD and Intel).

It is still unusual for someone who isn't a professional computer sysadmin/programmer to suddenly want to run Linux. TBH - the Linux community isn't really set up to deal with that kind of user. So with regards to answers to postings on forums: I note that most people who get uppity have *very little* Linux knowledge (or anything technical for that matter). They really don't like to admit that they can't even answer newb questions. People who could answer you questions tend to be employed full time, and don't hang around on forums much. You can tell them as professionals know better than to troll people.


Good luck! Which Linux distro have you chosen BTW?

[Dukenukemx]

Hi,

I recently said "fuck off" to windows forever and since I've been spending almost every waking moment trying to figure out how Linux works. Especially when it comes to my switchable graphics and gaming performance.

Only did I realize that I spent 2 weeks getting nowhere in total because I easily get sidetracked. "Oh let's search for this function" "Oh this looks like a nice tweak too".

So I'm looking for someone who would be willing to point me in the right directions.

Yours sincerely,

Lukas

Firstly, it would help to know what distro you ran and what hardware you have. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel are a bit different when it comes to switchable graphics. I've used hybrid GPUs in the past and you probably want to stick with Nvidia and AMD's graphic drivers instead of the open source.

Secondly it also has a lot to do with the UI. Some are friendly like XFCE and Mate, and some are not like Cinnamon from Mint guys. Don't know what your using but I would recommend Mint or Ubuntu. Especially if you're coming from Windows then those are the distros I would use.

Keep in mind that open source drivers do work and I think it's automatic now, but I would only use it if you have an AMD/Intel setup. Nvidia is a pain right now with open source, so use their drivers.

[asdfblah]

No need to get so upset. It could have been said in a nicer way but you really didn't specify what you wanted help with. Are you just trying to configure the drivers to get the most out of them? Or are you trying to do development work on them?

I think you still haven't replied to this.

Looks like you want help configuring the driver/Linux in general. IMO, you don't really need more help (you already configured the env vars to necessary to run games with your radeon card), just follow what the guides/wikis say and, if you want to learn more about other distros, install them in virtual machines to learn/test things.

Linux is basically the same thing independently of the distro, except for package management and the versions of those packages. Things are changing all the time, relatively fast, so you also have to take that into account.

That's how I see Linux, other people may disagree...