Better Fan Control Support Coming To The Open-Source Radeon Driver

[Jai01]

I did run a new beta of elementary os with a later date kernel and looked in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

[    25.675] X.Org X Server 1.15.1
Release Date: 2014-04-13
[    25.675] X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[    25.675] Build Operating System: Linux 3.2.0-37-generic x86_64 Ubuntu
[    25.675] Current Operating System: Linux elementary 3.13.0-32-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 15 03:51:08 UTC 2014 x86_64
[    25.675] Kernel command line: initrd=/casper/initrd.lz boot=casper  quiet splash -- persistent BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz 
[    25.675] Build Date: 16 April 2014  01:36:29PM
[    25.675] xorg-server 2:1.15.1-0ubuntu2 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) 
[    25.675] Current version of pixman: 0.30.2

It is running on Radeon open source driver and enabling of DPM has made my battery last longer. However, the battery life is still nowhere as good as the proprietary driver. Grep for EE returned some error like

Failed to load module "fglrx" (module does not exist, 0)

. I don't think its bad though.

You have been extremely helpful Adarion. The knowledge that I've gained from reading on the topic and the insights gained from this forum have indeed strengthened my resolve to use linux as my primary OS. Thank you !!

[Adarion]

It is running on Radeon open source driver and enabling of DPM has made my battery last longer. However, the battery life is still nowhere as good as the proprietary driver.

Did you set
pcie_aspm=force in the kernel command line?

Also see here

http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature/

and check the section
"KMS Power Management Options" and "Linux kernel parameters".

Just in case. Also how sure are you the radeon free driver stack is loaded?

You could also try the older profiles method, it helped me back in the days, and set the profile to "low" (I used a small init script that would echo "low" to the appropriate place in /sys or /proc structure). It even worked as a hardware cheat for getting through the hardest opponent in Hotline Mimami.
But normally the automatic adaption of frequencies etc. should be okay now.

Grep for EE returned some error like

Failed to load module "fglrx" (module does not exist, 0)

. I don't think its bad though.

Not bad if you still get a screen, yes, but it seems that it still tried to load fglrx. I still do have a xorg.conf file. Maybe you do have, too? Normally it is located in /etc/X11/xorg.conf (though it can also stay iirc. in /etc only, or some of the X11-subdirectories). There would likely be a "device" section having a "driver" section/option where fglrx is mentioned. That should be commented out or the driver name be changed to
Driver "radeon"
It also has some options which are described in the manpage (man radeon). Be careful, some options are still for UMS (userland mode setting, but this is noted in the appropriate places), not the modern KMS. Normally the configuration-less defaults should be fine, though.

[plasmasnake]

I see Alex had got fan support working on CI in 3.19 hope SI quickly follows.

Good news - SI fan control support for 3.20: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73338#c75

I hope that's in time for Ubuntu 15.04?

[plasmasnake]

more updates, SI fan control enabled.

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/linux/log/?h=drm-next-3.20-wip

time to compile.

Great news! Does anybody know if there's a release date in sight for linux 3.20 (or 4.0, whatever it will be called)?

[plasmasnake]

yay silence. or at least as quiet as windows now.

Was compiling and installing the kernel the only thing you had to do? I'm using Ubuntu 14.04, so I wonder if I would need to upgrade any user-space packages as well?

[SXX⁣]

Does anybody know if there's a release date in sight for linux 3.20 (or 4.0, whatever it will be called)?

Some guessed date may be found there:

http://phb-crystal-ball.org/

[plasmasnake]

Some guessed date may be found there:
http://phb-crystal-ball.org/

Cool, thanks for the link! I wanted to see if it would make it in time for Ubuntu 15.04... Looks like it could go either way.