Debian 8.5 vs. Debian Testing Benchmarks - July 2016

[Amarildo]

'debianxfce' didn't get banned for suggesting debian testing (which he annoinly does), but for offensive posting towards other members. I remember, because I'm the one who reported him.

[dungeon]

The weird thing is that many prefer Ubuntu LTS over Debian stable, but LTS is only for the very few packages from the main section. But there are PPA for Ubuntu with updated mesa packages - good for AMD OSS users.

There is no 2 goods it seems, on Debian stable as i see there are fglrx 15.9 and 15.12 drivers... so HD5xxx/HD6xxx and all GCNs beside very recent are covered So i guess one can fire up steam using Debian stable and enjoy full speed gaming

While on Ubuntu LTS, HD5xxx/HD6xxx only option is to use opensource drivers and yeah GCN 1.0 is in limbo there (those are most unstable with mesa) are also not supported with amdgpu-pro

[Amarildo]

Stable, testing or unstable - your choice. First is release, second and third are development branches.

Testing is not modern distribution, it is development branch of Debian possibly more stable then unstable but sometims isn't . Once Freeze period happen it is not so modern isn't it, for about 6 month of that period it does not roll. It is not fixed period, but sort of about 18 month development branches rolling and then you have 6 months of Freeze there.

In that Freeze period, 'unstable' start to serve to the 'next stable' process so from rolling became semi rolling and 'testing' does not roll at all So who like to roll should use 'unstable' really, and alpha/beta testers who like to try next debian stable early, should use 'testing' and specialy in that Freeze period

Last time Debian froze, not even Unstable was rolling :P One of the only true-rolling distros is Arch.

[duby229]

There is no 2 goods it seems, on Debian stable as i see there are fglrx 15.9 and 15.12 drivers... so HD5xxx/HD6xxx and all GCNs beside very recent are covered So i guess one can fire up steam and enjoy full speed gaming

While on Ubuntu LTS, HD5xxx/HD6xxx only option is to use opensource drivers and yeah also GCN 1.0 (those are most unstable with mesa) are also not supported with amdgpu-pro

I don't use Ubuntu, so perhaps it's distro specific, but I use a 280x which is GCN1.0 and it's solid as steel. I haven't seen any artifacts or glitches in some time. Although there are still a few games I bought that still don't even start, but I suspect mesa 12 or one of its point releases will allow those remaining games to function.

[Amarildo]

I don't use Ubuntu, so perhaps it's distro specific, but I use a 280x which is GCN1.0 and it's solid as steel. I haven't seen any artifacts or glitches in some time. Although there are still a few games I bought that still don't even start, but I suspect mesa 12 or one of its point releases will allow those remaining games to function.

No, it won't. At least not for Team Fortress 2, which is probably the game that crashes the most for me. Linux 4.7-git + linux-firmware-git here, Mesa 12.1.0_devel + lib32-mesa 12.1.0_devel +llvm-svn-3.9 = The same crashes.

For most games it's not a Mesa or LLVM problem, it's a Radeon driver problem. You can use Debian Jessie with linux-3.16 with the lastest firmware-linux and mesa/lib32mesa/libc6 packages from Backports, and you won't have any issues.

[duby229]

No, it won't. At least not for Team Fortress 2, which is probably the game that crashes the most for me. Linux 4.7-git + linux-firmware-git here, Mesa 12.1.0_devel + lib32-mesa 12.1.0_devel +llvm-svn-3.9 = The same crashes.

For most games it's not a Mesa or LLVM problem, it's a Radeon driver problem. You can use Debian Jessie with linux-3.16 with the lastest firmware-linux and mesa/lib32mesa/libc6 packages from Backports, and you won't have any issues.

Well, that's interesting. If you have a known good configuration, shouldn't it be possible to bisect back to that configuration?

[Kano]

I use fglrx 15.12 from experimental for Kanotix and not 15.9. You can of course use OpenGL 4 games with it. My AMD cards are slower than my GTX 650 Ti - therefore I only tested some games if they work, but not all the time. For Killing Floor you can use AMD OSS, fglrx and Intel without rendering issues, Nvidia and nouveau look weird. The rest of my games work fine with Nvidia and that's why I use it most of the time.

[Amarildo]

Well, that's interesting. If you have a known good configuration, shouldn't it be possible to bisect back to that configuration?

Possible? Maybe. But you go on and bisect every bad commit if you have that kind of free time hehehehe. I'll be waiting for the patches!

[dungeon]

So, that is why amdgpu-pro does not support Debian stable , if it have amdgpu-pro together with avalibility of fglrx, Debian will have more cards supported then Ubuntu and even SteamOS

[Amarildo]

I'm actually on Windows 10 right now. I tried reverting several commits; one worked fine, but the rest didn't. It's too much work to go through all the patches and verify why they're not working.

I'm going to install Ubuntu 16.04 and use the drm-next Kernel to see if my problems are gone with AMDGPU, though I'm not counting on that.

If everything fails, I might just go to Debian Testing, or stay on Windows until Linux 4.8 rc1 is out.