AMDGPU driver, Ubuntu 16.04 and kernels

[ubunter]

I believe many people experiencing my GPU problem or something pretty much same. I have updated my Ubuntu to 16.04 version and noticed my RadeonHD is inactive.
I have a Dell Vostro 3550 with an Intel onboard gpu and ATI RadeonHD 6650m:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Whistler [Radeon HD 6630M/6650M/6750M/7670M/7690M] (rev ff)

The active VGA is Intel. Making a simple research on the net I found out that this version of Ubuntu no longer supports fglrx. And Canonical recommends open source AMDGPU driver. I've seen on here on Phoronix an article which have been tested the official AMD driver with kernel 4.6. This driver is version 16.20.3 and can be downloaded here.
I've been tested the driver with kernel 4.4.12, 4.5.7, 4.6.7 and 4.7.0 versions. In all but 4.4.12 the driver installation says:

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.5.7-040507-generic (x86_64)

In this case the kernel header version is 4.5. The same message appears in later kernel versions.

In the successfull installation with kernel 4.4.12, after I made a login, Unity cannot start and my CPU usage becomes high. I can see only background image and mouse pointer.

In this case, I uninstall the driver and my AMDGPU remains stopped. What driver do I need to install? The open source version has many limitations.

[subroutine]

Your video card is not supported by AMDGPU driver. AMDGPU driver supports only GCN architecture cards, you need to use radeon driver.

[ubunter]

Ubuntu 16.04 doesn't support fglrx. In this case, the solution is downgrade ubuntu version? AMD site radeon drivers reaches only ubuntu 15.10? Latest version of Ubuntu doesn't support radeon HD 600 series?

[bridgman]

I smell some confusion about drivers here...

And Canonical recommends open source AMDGPU driver

Not for your hardware... you should be using the "radeon" driver... which should already be present in the 16.04 distro

I've seen on here on Phoronix an article which have been tested the official AMD driver with kernel 4.6. This driver is version 16.20.3 and can be downloaded here.

This is not the open source driver - it's a "hybrid" driver (replacing fglrx) using a slightly different version of the open source kernel / X / Mesa drivers plus closed-source OpenGL, OpenCL and Vulkan drivers. The driver is currently in beta, and only QA'ed on VI hardware so far but generally works on CI as well. It does not, however, support your dGPU (neither did fglrx near the end).

What are you trying to do with the open source driver where you see limitations ? You should be able to run pretty much all games out there via GL over-ride for games requiring up to GL 4.1, and performance has been approaching the older fglrx driver recently.

[Hasse]

I thought only fglrx support hybrid graphics switching? Or is my understanding woefully out of date? Last time I looked for my Vaio (Intel & 6470M) the opensource driver could not switch gpu's.

[jstefanop]

Out of curiosity what will be AMD's stance for 380/480 based cards once the 480's come out next week? Will there even be linux support initially? Currently only fglrx runs 300/200 based cards relatively bug free in Ubuntunu 15/14. Since fglrx is no more, I'm assuming well need a non beta, feature complete AMDGPU Pro driver out for 16.04 by next week, which I find highly unlikely.

[puleglot]

Amdgpu-pro dkms driver is a almost similar copy of the mesa amdgpu kernel driver

What is the "mesa amdgpu kernel driver"?

[jstefanop]

Many polaris cards are already supported in kernel 4.7.0-rc4 (download from kernel.org) when you look the amdgpu_drv.c file. More recent work is here that you can download with the command git clone.
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/...m-next-4.8-wip

Amdgpu-pro dkms driver is a almost similar copy of the mesa amdgpu kernel driver, so Amd can quickly copy the code to amdgpu-pro. OpenGL and Vulkan are closed source code in amdgpu-pro.

Well I'm running in a production environment under ubuntu 16.04, which obviously runs on 4.4 kernel and wont be running anything newer. AMD drivers for Linux are so all over the place I can't keep track of whats going on anymore. Are you saying we will be forced to run the 4.7 kernel for AMD 400 series linux support?

I guess to put it more simply....what drivers (and when) will be listed here: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/linux for 400 series cards?

[bridgman]

Well I'm running in a production environment under ubuntu 16.04, which obviously runs on 4.4 kernel and wont be running anything newer. AMD drivers for Linux are so all over the place I can't keep track of whats going on anymore. Are you saying we will be forced to run the 4.7 kernel for AMD 400 series linux support?

I guess to put it more simply....what drivers (and when) will be listed here: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/linux for 400 series cards?

There will be no kernel requirement for the Pro driver other than what is already in 16.04.

If you want to use the all-open stack then you will need a newer kernel, but that won't give you the OpenCL support you're looking for.

[Kano]

I don't think that 4.4 is slow, it works fine on my systems (i don't remember any complains of other Kanotix users, but usually none of em runs be benchmarks). Amdgpu can be updated via dkms, it is not depending on a new kernel. 4.6+ might be a smarter choice in case of very new hardware, but usually not needed for common desktop systems. Up to Ivy Bridge even 3.16 would be enough - if you think a kernel is too slow with Intel systems you can disable p-state power management, funnly Intel did that with their own Linux variant. I can not compare new AMD hardware but if you think of all FX desktop systems the used chipset are old as hell - the latest APU chipset A88X is over 2 years old, so maybe for some mobile chips there might be a difference.