New AMDGPU Details & Looking Forward To Major Radeon Linux Improvements In 2016

[Ansla]

The radeon driver can already drive 144Hz monitors using DisplayPort. Works fine on my Kaveri.

[Fidmille]

Don't work on my Hawai :

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-amd-linux/848965-hawa%C3%AF-radeon-driver-and-144hz

[nanonyme]

AFAIK there's no rule (other than maintainer opinion) which would preclude us from having SI/CI support present, but my understanding is that enabling it by default would break the rule of back-compatibility since a default build of a new kernel would no longer be able to replace a default build of an old kernel.

There may be some wiggle room if we were to update the userspace drivers first to work with either driver on those HW families and wait until "most" users were running distros which included the newer userspace drivers before changing the default - that's one of the directions being explored.

Not to forget the point agd5f and MrCooper made that if the support was enabled on amdgpu, it must be removed from radeon because otherwise kernel module loading would be completely unpredictable as both drivers would support the hardware. I'm not sure if the drivers mutually exclude each other or if they would just both load and try to handle same hardware likely leading into crashes and lockups

[bridgman]

It doesn't actually have to be removed from radeon but it does have to be disabled by default at the same time we enable by default on amdgpu. But yeah, definitely can't have both enabled at the same time for the same hardware generation. There is a patch on dri-devel to add a CIK config option for radeon as well.

[extraymond]

It doesn't actually have to be removed from radeon but it does have to be disabled by default at the same time we enable by default on amdgpu. But yeah, definitely can't have both enabled at the same time. There is a patch on dri-devel to add a CIK config option for radeon as well.

Can't we just blacklist the specific kernel module like catalyst did to radeon?
It woule make things much easiser.

[Ansla]

On your machine, sure, you can blacklist it if you only have GCN cards. bridgman is talking about a solution suitable for distributions, if they blacklist radeon all setups with older Radeon cards will stop working. Also, blacklisting doesn't work for mixed setups with both GCN and pre-GCN cards.

[bridgman]

Sorry, previous post wasn't as clear as it should have been. I added a few words above that should help... what we need is only one driver trying to "own" any particular hardware generation, but the ability to move where the dividing line from one driver to the other is located:

- radeon handles up to NI, amdgpu handles SI and up *or*
- radeon handles up to SI, amdgpu handles CI and up *or*
- radeon handles up to CI, amdgpu handles VI and up (current default)

[vkrastev]

Simple question (I guess): what are the chances to have at least one Catalyst (now Radeon) release supporting the Ubuntu 16.04 lineup (so kernel 4.4, don't know what Xorg version but I guess still 1.17.x) AND GCN 1.0/1.1 AMD cards? I'm asking this because I currently have an R7 m260x (afaik, Opal Pro GCN 1.0 architecture) + intel hd 5500 (Broadwell) system which runs well (for my needs) on Radeon Crimson 15.12 + Xubuntu 14.04.2 (3.19 kernel), but I'd like to upgrade in few months from Xubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 (mainly because of the three-years support which ends in 2017 for 14.04).

Any comment on this is greatly appreciated

Thanks

V.

[whitecat]

but I'd like to upgrade in few months from Xubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 (mainly because of the three-years support which ends in 2017 for 14.04)

As far as I understand, you should then wait ~9 months before moving to the 16.04 release. At that time you will have a fglrx module released which will work on top of amdgpu.

[bridgman]

Simple question (I guess): what are the chances to have at least one Catalyst (now Radeon) release supporting the Ubuntu 16.04 lineup (so kernel 4.4, don't know what Xorg version but I guess still 1.17.x) AND GCN 1.0/1.1 AMD cards? I'm asking this because I currently have an R7 m260x (afaik, Opal Pro GCN 1.0 architecture) + intel hd 5500 (Broadwell) system which runs well (for my needs) on Radeon Crimson 15.12 + Xubuntu 14.04.2 (3.19 kernel), but I'd like to upgrade in few months from Xubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 (mainly because of the three-years support which ends in 2017 for 14.04).

I guess the question is whether it has to be Catalyst rather than amdgpu hybrid ?