Linux 6.3 Will Better Handle Missing AMD Radeon Firmware / Unsupported Hardware

[Vorpal]

Shouldn't mkinitcpio or similar automatically figure out what firmware files you need? At least I was under the impression that is how it works on Arch Linux (which is what I run).

And after initcpio the main system probably has the full linux-firmware (or equivalent) package with everything, so there is no problem there.

So the main remaining issue is with non-rolling release distros and having too new hardware. In which case you probably also need to upgrade at least the kernel and mesa, not just the firmware, so it is going to be a larger operation anyway.

In conclusion, while this is a nice improvement, to me it seems unlikely that you are in a situation where firmware is the only problem. And whatever mechanism your distro provides for the other problems (e.g. HWE packages on Ubuntu, no clue about how that works in Fedora) will probably also deal with the firmware automatically.

[superm1]

Shouldn't mkinitcpio or similar automatically figure out what firmware files you need? At least I was under the impression that is how it works on Arch Linux (which is what I run).

And after initcpio the main system probably has the full linux-firmware (or equivalent) package with everything, so there is no problem there.

So the main remaining issue is with non-rolling release distros and having too new hardware. In which case you probably also need to upgrade at least the kernel and mesa, not just the firmware, so it is going to be a larger operation anyway.

In conclusion, while this is a nice improvement, to me it seems unlikely that you are in a situation where firmware is the only problem. And whatever mechanism your distro provides for the other problems (e.g. HWE packages on Ubuntu, no clue about how that works in Fedora) will probably also deal with the firmware automatically.

The tools like mkinitcpio will have no idea which firmware you actually need. They'll see amdgpu supports these 100 firmware files and pull them all in.

I don't disagree this isn't the only problem, but it will smooth things out so you at least have a framebuffer to interact with while you're going to get a newer mesa, newer kernel or newer set of firmware binaries.

[tambre]

The driver has always printed the name of the firmware that was missing even prior to these changes.

Not with the amdgpu driver unfortunately:

[ 3.741106] [drm:amdgpu_pci_probe [amdgpu]] *ERROR* amdgpu requires firmware installed
[ 3.741232] amdgpu: See [URL]https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware[/URL] for information about missing firmware

Though if you're missing something optional you might get a "ta ucode firmware missing".

[Berniyh]

That's a pretty good idea. I've just submitted a change for review to do just that.
https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/518476/

Thanks, that'll make it much easier.

On the newer GPUs, it's not a big deal, since you just take everything with the right code name (e.g. in my case dimgrey cavefish) and you'll be fine.
But I was using a HD6450 on the same PC before and in that case (with the radeon driver) you don't just need the Caicos ones, but also BTC_rlc and SUMO_uvd, both of which slipped by me, at first.

In general, the kernel doesn't really do a good job at notifying the user about missing firmware, amdgpu here does better than most drivers.
Sometimes you even get messages saying "is possibly missing a firmware". Not confusing at all …

[superm1]

Not with the amdgpu driver unfortunately:

[ 3.741106] [drm:amdgpu_pci_probe [amdgpu]] *ERROR* amdgpu requires firmware installed
[ 3.741232] amdgpu: See [URL]https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware[/URL] for information about missing firmware

Though if you're missing something optional you might get a "ta ucode firmware missing".

This is a distro series that causes those messages. Upstream kernel shows the exact firmwares missing.
debian/patches/bugfix/all/radeon-amdgpu-firmware-is-required-for-drm-and-kms-on-r600-onward.patch · master · Debian kernel team / linux · GitLab
debian/patches/debian/firmware_class-refer-to-debian-wiki-firmware-page.patch · master · Debian kernel team / linux · GitLab

[tambre]

This is a distro series that causes those messages. Upstream kernel shows the exact firmwares missing.
debian/patches/bugfix/all/radeon-amdgpu-firmware-is-required-for-drm-and-kms-on-r600-onward.patch · master · Debian kernel team / linux · GitLab
debian/patches/debian/firmware_class-refer-to-debian-wiki-firmware-page.patch · master · Debian kernel team / linux · GitLab

Ouch, that's quite an old an unfortunate patch. The Debian-specific message ought to have been a giveaway.

[edwaleni]

With the Radeon 680M on the 6900HX:

It will report one of 3 errors depending on the distro, (paraphrasing the errors)

- amdgpu: cant find the firmware
- amdgpu: the revision of the GPU at PCIe ID:xx is version 142 and not supported
- x.org: does not recognize this GPU, please update your software (followed by a system stop)

[LtdJorge]

Michael can you give Mario (@superm1) the AMD/Mesa/Whatever tag?