Linux Desktop, How good is Vega / Polaris

[lichtenstein]

The x470 prime will (most probably) be my mobo. As for GPU, the choice is huge, I'm still checking.

[clapbr]

Most of those bugs are kernel related so beginners do reports to wrong place. See Kernel bugzilla. Bug descriptions are bad when there is no system description and bug traces. Beginners use old drivers too, no wonder that developers have no interest.

1. You should tell that to devs in #radeon, because they're the ones who usually ask for those bugs to be reported in dri-devel bugzilla.
2. Many of those reports have more than enough information on how to reproduce, some are even bisected.
3. Also many of those WERE tested under both stable and bleeding edge stacks.
4. Unless you have actual commits to any part of the graphics stack don't refer to others as "begineers". Compiling mesa and drm-next kernels from git doesn't turn you into an enlightened being.
5. Don't assume people doesnt have problems because you dont.
6. If you look at the Kernel bugzilla and search for amdgpu you'll notice it's even more abandoned than freedesktops's.

[clapbr]

Now on-topic, you should expect a few problems with defaults atm. The most annoying is flickering in higher frequencies unless you lock memory clock manually and terrible performance with HW cursor and vsync, which affects most compositors and also some games. Both can be dealt with to a certain extent but there's always a tradeoff (amdgpu.dc=0 for instance fallback to old display code and avoid some bugs, but disables some features like DP audio and brings other bugs with it. Locking mclk will reset when resolution changes or monitor sleeps starting flickering again).

[lichtenstein]

Thanks. I was hoping I didn't have to tinker (much), my tinkering days are somewhat far back (which is why I use (x)ubuntu and not say, arch or gentoo). If I go with vega, I'll have to use dc, right? I can try how it goes without on polaris. I don't care about DP audio, all I want is 1440p@60Hz on a single monitor (not even FreeSync).

When you say higher frequencies, do you mean GPU MhZ or monitor refresh rates? If the latter, my monitor does 60Hz "only", I never felt the need for more.

Regarding "locking the memory clock manually", what do you mean? Would I need to tinker with the GPU's memory speed?

And given these issues, would you say polaris would be "more stable/reliable" as in, it would have less issues? If so that (and 1/2 the price) could tip the scale in its favor.

[mercurio]

Hi, I got my new Ryzen build just recently, below are the specs.

MB: GIGABYTE AORUS X470 Ultra Gaming, CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 2700X, AIO: NZXT Kraken X62, MEM: 2x G.SKILL 16GB KIT DDR4 3200MHz CL14 Flare X for AMD, GPU: GIGABYTE RX VEGA 64 GAMING OC 8G, NVMe: Samsung 970 EVO 500GB, SSD: 2x Samsung 860 EVO 500GB, HDD: 2x Seagate BarraCuda 2TB ST2000DM008, CASE: NZXT H500, PSU: Seasonic Prime Ultra 850W Titanium, LCD: 28" iiyama G-Master Gold Phoenix GB2888UHSU-B1, KEYBOARD: HyperX Alloy FPS Pro, Cherry MX Red, US HX-KB4RD1-US/R2, MOUSE: A4tech Bloody V7 V-Track Core 2 - 3200cpi, SOUND: Logitech Speaker System Z333 + Logitech G231 Prodigy, OS: Xubuntu LTS

From my experience, Xubuntu 18.04.1 LTS runs very well on this machine, I did not recompile the kernel myself.

1) install the Xubuntu as usual.
2) Xubuntu LTS 18.04.1. comes with Linux kernel 4.15.XX, which is little bit old compared to https://www.kernel.org/.
3) Install Ubuntu Kernel Update Utility
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
sudo apt-get install ukuu

4) Update the AMD Vega firmware to latest available, get the FW from linux-firmware.git.
unpack to /var/tmp for instance
copy the *.bin files to /lib/firmware/amdgpu
sudo cp -pv vega*.bin /lib/firmware/amdgpu

Check the file owner and permissions are correct (root:root, -rw-r--r--)
ls -al /lib/firmware/amdgpu/vega*.bin
Hint: to get back to distribution firmware (in case need it)
sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-firmware

5) Install latest stable Linux kernel via ukuu-gtk
Iam running 4.19.2 kernel at the moment.
$inxi -F
System: Host: zen Kernel: 4.19.2-041902-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3
Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Machine: Device: desktop System: Gigabyte product: X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING serial: N/A
Mobo: Gigabyte model: X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING-CF v: x.x serial: N/A
UEFI: American Megatrends v: F3 date: 08/08/2018
CPU: 8 core AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight-Core (-MT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB
clock speeds: max: 3700 MHz 1: 2105 MHz 2: 2148 MHz 3: 2139 MHz 4: 2167 MHz 5: 2181 MHz 6: 2339 MHz
7: 2173 MHz 8: 2116 MHz 9: 2086 MHz 10: 2225 MHz 11: 2361 MHz 12: 3465 MHz 13: 2243 MHz 14: 2252 MHz
15: 2132 MHz 16: 2100 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Vega [Radeon RX Vega]
Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: ati,amdgpu (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa,radeon)
Resolution: [email protected]
OpenGL: renderer: Radeon RX Vega (VEGA10, DRM 3.27.0, 4.19.2-041902-generic, LLVM 8.0.0)
version: 4.5 Mesa 19.0.0-devel - padoka PPA
...

6) Enable AMDGPU driver specific - edit the GRUB2
sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Edit the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=
append the
amdgpu.dc=1 amdgpu.gpu_recovery=1

7) Install the latest opensource drivers - PADOKA PPA - UNSTABLE, STABLE.
You can go also with Oibaf PPA. I am using PADOKA PPA - UNSTABLE.
There is also Ubuntu-X-Swat, which is obsoleted in my opinion.
sudo add-apt-repository ppaaulo-miguel-dias/mesa
sudo apt-get-upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

8) Enable the DRI 3.
sudo vi /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-amdgpu.conf
Append the
Option "DRI" "3"

9) Update the GRUB & initramfs
sudo update-grub2
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

10) Reboot and enjoy

[lichtenstein]

Super, thanks for all of your advice! The steps outlined above seem pretty straightforward. I did try ukuu (which basically downloads and installs the debs) but the newest kernel 4.19.2 broke my docker, that was yesterday, and I haven't found a way to tinker this away yet (I'm guessing some binary needs to be recompiled...).

Since I need docker for dev and they actually expect me to do productive shit every day (the audacity :P), I had to drop the effort and return to 4.15 stock kernel. I do use the HWE one so I should get the 4.18 (from 18.10 STS) soon, those are made available to the LTS about a month or two after an STS gets released (the first S meaning "short")).

[lichtenstein]

Hmm, I was actually planning on transplanting my existing ssd which will save me from having to reinstall. So I'll keep the 18.04 xubuntu I use atm (as I said, I don't have too much time to tinker). BUT, next year I might get a 3d xpoint M.2 NVME PCIe (damn those acronyms) as the main drive and then I might end up re-trying debian (it was my first distro many years ago, way before canonical came into existence...).

[mercurio]

No need to do that with the latest hardware. Check the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file for DRI3:

[ 5.204] (==) AMDGPU(0): DRI3 enabled

Hi, actually no, I had to put to use DRI3.

[clapbr]

Software development makes you a very enlightened being. It triggers your brain very much. That is one reason why my AMD only system is stable and is working fine.

xfce@ryzenpc:~$ inxi -bM
System:
Host: ryzenpc Kernel: 4.19.0 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.4
Distro: Debian GNU/Linux buster/sid
Machine:
Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B350M-K v: Rev X.0x
serial: <root required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 4023 date: 08/20/2018
CPU:
6-Core: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 type: MT MCP speed: 2803 MHz
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480] driver: amdgpu v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: amdgpu,ati
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL:
renderer: Radeon RX 570 Series (POLARIS10 DRM 3.27.0 4.19.0 LLVM 7.0.1)
v: 4.5 Mesa 19.0.0-devel (git-5526420 2018-11-11 bionic-oibaf-ppa)

I take back what I said, you don't even compile them, you use PPAs. Your posts are a joke, sorry for not realizing it earlier.

[clapbr]

Most of those bugs are kernel related so beginners do reports to wrong place. See Kernel bugzilla. Bug descriptions are bad when there is no system description and bug traces. Beginners use old drivers too, no wonder that developers have no interest.

[12:44] --> Você (~bruno@unaffiliated/diwr) entrou no canal #radeon.
[12:44] *** O tópico do canal é "[logged] Support and development for open-source radeon/amdgpu drivers - for fglrx use #ati - http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonBuildHowTo".
[12:44] *** O tópico foi definido por MrCooper!~MrCooper@2a02:120b:2c74:3510:3a63:bbff:f eca:3701 em 29/09/2017 04:17.
[12:44] *** Modos do canal: nenhuma cor permitida, não receber mensagens externas, privativo, proteção de tópico
[12:44] *** Este canal foi criado em 23/11/2007 19:15.
[12:45] <diwr> What's the right place for amdgpu reports, freedesktop or kernel bugzilla?
[12:46] <-- jrmuizel ([email protected]) deixou este servidor (Remote host closed the connection).
[12:50] <MrCooper> diwr: freedesktop
[12:52] <diwr> thanks

shouldn't even have bothered but please stop spreading misinfo everywhere.