AMD Preps For A Big Linux 4.20 Kernel With Vega 20, Picasso, Raven 2, xGMI, Better DC

[pal666]

Please use this kernel cycle to make amdgpu the default kernel driver for sea islands.

It's taken a very long time, need to simplify the ecosystem and reduce fragmentation. Having to manually switch in order to use Vulkan trips up non technical Linux users, and makes gaming on linux with AMD look more complex than windows.

switch disables vdpau, so first they have to implement uvd on amdgpu on si. and maybe i forgot something else

[humbug]

switch disables vdpau, so first they have to implement uvd on amdgpu on si. and maybe i forgot something else

I was talking about gcn 1.1 sea islands (CI)
not gcn 1.0 southern islands (SI)

[agd5f]

Typos:

(I'm not sure but I've only heard of ACPI)

ACP (Audio CoProcessor) is a separate hardware block that is used in some embedded platforms for audio.

[agd5f]

"LVDS support in the DC code"
Wasn't LVDS supposed to vanish on newer chips? And isn't DC dealing only with rather recent chips? But I might have missed something here. According to RadeonFeature Kabini generation still has and iirc. Kabini could have experimental coverage by DAL/DC.
Nice to see that lot of support.

Yes, LVDS support is only for older hardware. I added it to support older hardware with LVDS using DC which enables more display features.

[GreenReaper]

Yes, LVDS support is only for older hardware. I added it to support older hardware with LVDS using DC which enables more display features.

Bless you. Alas, I fear my HD 6310 Palm-based ThinkPad X120 will never be supported, but I'm sure similar-but-newer netbooks will benefit.

[bridgman]

Bless you. Alas, I fear my HD 6310 Palm-based ThinkPad X120 will never be supported, but I'm sure similar-but-newer netbooks will benefit.

Do you mean "supported by amdgpu", "supported by DC" or "supported in general" ?

The HD 6310 (Ontario / Zacate IIRC) should have been supported for a long time with the radeon stack.

[GreenReaper]

Do you mean "supported by amdgpu", "supported by DC" or "supported in general" ?

The HD 6310 (Ontario / Zacate IIRC) should have been supported for a long time with the radeon stack.

I meant "supported by DC" but with the understanding from this article that DC with its "more display features" is tied to amdgpu, and radeon is unlikely to get it - therefore the X120e is unlikely to either. But perhaps this understanding is incorrect?

(New features might not matter much for this system anyway, though netbooks can have an "interesting" display configuration - I run the X120e on Win10 using its LCD, an extra monitor over HDMI, and... a USB 2.0 DisplayLink dongle, which works in Linux on my Gen8 MicroServer, but not well. But I'm looking forward to replacing it with a Picasso/Renoir APU - whichever comes out with a working AV1 codec - for which I'm sure things like FreeSync will be useful. :-)

[bridgman]

I meant "supported by DC" but with the understanding from this article that DC with its "more display features" is tied to amdgpu, and radeon is unlikely to get it - therefore the X120e is unlikely to either. But perhaps this understanding is incorrect?

Ahh, OK... yes, your understanding is correct. That said, my impression was that the display code in radeon pretty much enabled all of the features in your hardware already, although I'm not 100% sure about that. Features like FreeSync were not available in HW until a few generations after your APU.

[chithanh]

New features might not matter much for this system anyway, though netbooks can have an "interesting" display configuration

There are some devices with an "interesting" display configuration, and they are indeed not supported well by radeon/amdgpu, but I think the X120e is not among them.

Example is the 5K Retina iMac from 2017, which uses TONGA and some kind of 8-lane DP. But on Linux (and Windows originally too), 5K mode doesn't work. As the Windows driver gained support for it a while back, maybe DC might help as it is sharing code with the Windows driver.

Another older example are the Kojinsha DZ and the similar Onkyo GX dual-screen laptops. While screens can be whacked into cooperation with xrandr and BIOS options, backlight control is still an issue I think. DC won't help here as they are R600 generation.

[GreenReaper]

It's the irony of premium products: in the commercial world, they get all the attention; on the free software side, they're less likely to be in the hands of the relevant developers (albeit that some are still rich enough to buy them) - moreover, there's a far-smaller audience to raise a fuss about them. So your best bet is probably to buy low-end products, which tend to have relatively few "special" features anyway; and those that do will likely be added due to their importance to performance, e.g. video decode.

On the plus side, "low-end" is insanely capable nowadays. I was updating my laptop's XP install for kicks yesterday and its video driver bugged out, kicking it back to 16-colour mode with cross-hatching - took me back. And I thought dropping to 8-bit colour to get smooth scrolling on a CPU-driven 1280x1024 console was bad enough! (Never mind the BBC Micro's 160×256 16-colour.)