Cannot install AMD Radeon Xorg Driver

[NoWorries]

I now have a HP Spectre x360 15-ch004ng which has an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL video card. When I try to install the dirver, I get the following error.

:~$ sudo apt install xserver-xorg-video-radeon
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies.
xserver-xorg-video-radeon : Depends: xorg-video-abi-23
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I was able to install Kubuntu on this Laptop without any problems, and it is very fast, except when I use Kdenlive to Render a video. I can only use the Intel video and it does not have any GPU which is useable by Kdenlive. So a render which takes 40 minutes on Kubuntu 18.04 now takes over 2 hours on Cosmic!!!

So a suitable driver would be greatly appreciated.

[claydoh]

Use the Driver Manager, and see what that offers. Also running apt update first might clear the error. I can't see any reports of broken dependencies for Radeon driver anywhere

The Radeon driver not be the one you want, but AMDGPU PR0 might be

Also it this hardware is so fresh that linux support is still lacking without fresher kernels, kernel patches, updated mesa and the like. Theoretically the stock AMDGPU on it's own (not the proprietary Pro) is supposed to be pretty good.

Just Google for the GPU and Ubuntu and see the number of articles and posts on it.

Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

[NoWorries]

I did try installing the driver at https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...ase-Notes.aspx. Unfortunately it resulted in my system not booting properly and I had to do a reinstall to recover.

I will patiently wait for progress in drivers and kernel developments. I remember when I purchased my ASUS back in 2012, I had to wait for further develops before I could use all its capabilities. So I will have to do this with the HP that I now have.

[claydoh]

Well, it seems that my lack of modern AMD hardware is showing
AMDGPU-PRO is actually not recommended for common use, but more for CAD and the like - not sure if video rendering is part of this. Gaming and other general usage, the stock, open AMDGPU driver is the best choice, and is the driver recommended by AMD, and I believe this is the one you have already.

https://community.amd.com/thread/228624

There has been no AMDGPU release that supports 18.04 yet, other than pre-release testing versions.

What you want is an updated mesa, which improves things
This PPA is very popular, and has both mesa and AMDGPU updates, but may be a bit more "bleeding edge"
https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archiv...aphics-drivers

This one is also very popular, but has only a newer, but stable version of Mesa, and includes Vulkan support
https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-...e/ubuntu/pkppa

I have no idea which one to choose.

[NoWorries]

What you want is an updated mesa, which improves things
This PPA is very popular, and has both mesa and AMDGPU updates, but may be a bit more "bleeding edge"
https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archiv...aphics-drivers

This one is also very popular, but has only a newer, but stable version of Mesa, and includes Vulkan support
https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-...e/ubuntu/pkppa

I have no idea which one to choose.

Thanks for your suggestions. I found that the first one above had a release for cosmic so I gave it a go. After the installation was complete and I did a reboot, there were packages with unresolved dependencies. I found on another Laptop that I had Cosmic installed on had a number of updates which did not appear on this system. So I did a reinstall as being the fastest solution.

The second one above I installed on my Bionic system and that was successful with no package problems. Unfortunately it still uses the Intel card and Video Rendering is still the same speed.

So I will just have to wait for progress in this area.

My reason for choosing a HP with the AMD video was because they both support Linux. Also, when I was in the UK, I tried a Dell XPS 15 and I had no end of trouble trying to install Kubuntu on it. So I returned it and got my money back.

[claydoh]

I somehow missed that it is hybrid graphics. This is another can of worms. You have to set one to run (Intel is always the default) perhaps in the bios or when running a program edit the command string to use the dedicated GPU.


https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRIME

I have no idea if/how bumblebees works with AMD

Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

[NoWorries]

Sorry I could not get back to you sooner as I have had to travel from Adelaide to Brisbane to attend a funeral which is on today.

What I have found is that the xrandr command gives

$ xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0x48 cap: 0x9, Source Output, Sink Offload crtcs: 3 outputs: 6 associated providers: 0 name:modesetting

Which shows the video cards are not being detected. The glxinfo command gives

$ glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 630 (Kaby Lake GT2)

I can assure you that Windows 10 has the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL working, so there is no hardware problem.