HW upgrade is coming; so updated the kernel to 4.2 = no more Catalyst for you gecko!

English Hardware
1

Hello, and first let me vent some steam: why are we always (yes always) the last ones to support and to fix things in the Linux world? Done.

Some background: I don’t need a rolling distro to keep myself up to date. That’s why I am here, like others, I am into stability when it comes to my main machine. I do pull my hair on my notebook with Fedora 22, just to keep hating Gnome 3, and I think it is enough. I don’t need on my most important system software that needs to be fixed every two weeks; well… if you can find some info about the breakage, and sorry but the openSUSE wiki it’s not the Arch wiki.

Ok, so tomorrow something dramatic (it really is :smiley: ) will happen: after 13 years of using only AMD, I will get for exactly that many reasons as it costs, an Intel CPU, the i7 6700k Skylake (and Asus z170 Pro Gaming mobo, 16GB DDR4 Kingston Predator, Intel 730 480GB SSD). So figured “got to upgrade to the 4.2 kernel, dude, else you’ll miss something, something, skylake!”.

fakemoth@linux-hpbh:~> uname -aLinux linux-hpbh 4.2.0-7.g2d05727-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 16 14:40:13 UTC 2015 (2d05727) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

And yes, my plan is just swap the AMD CPU, mobo, and the ddr3 RAMs, with these new ones. Because Linux will survive this. It has to - if it doesn’t it means that openSUSE has a problem.

But the components will arrive tomorrow, and the update was done on my old trusty AMD 13.1 system. And you know what, just broke the AMD driver, for my two (CF) R9 290. And that’s because… why? Dudes, it’s your own kernel, on your own OS, with your own fglrx package.

I know that AMD is ****, I mean really **** nowadays. And that they don’t have a driver for anything above the 3.19 kernel. But all the other distros have patches/fixes for higher kernels: Arch has one, Ubuntu has one, Fedora has one and so on… where is openSUSE in the list? Ah wait, in the yoda-something ****** repo, we have a 15.2 Catalyst; when AMD is now on 15.9. Because they really keep up with the drivers lol.

It is my opinion that this is not “stability” this is just an ancient opensuse history.

So did anyone make it work, is someone here at openSUSE into this, Catalyst with 4.2 kernel?

2

On Fri 18 Sep 2015 05:26:01 PM CDT, fakemoth wrote:

Hello, and first let me vent some steam: why are we always (yes always)
the last ones to support and to fix things in the Linux world? Done.

Some background: I don’t need a rolling distro to keep myself up to
date. That’s why I am here, like others, I am into stability when it
comes to my main machine. I do pull my hair on my notebook with Fedora
22, just to keep hating Gnome 3, and I think it is enough. I don’t need
on my most important system software that needs to be fixed every two
weeks; well… if you can find some info about the breakage, and sorry
but the openSUSE wiki it’s not the Arch wiki.

Ok, so tomorrow something dramatic (it really is :smiley: ) will happen: after
13 years of using only AMD, I will get for exactly that many reasons as
it costs, an Intel CPU, the i7 6700k Skylake (and Asus z170 Pro Gaming
mobo, 16GB DDR4 Kingston Predator, Intel 730 480GB SSD). So figured “got
to upgrade to the 4.2 kernel, dude, else you’ll miss something,
something, skylake!”.

Code:

fakemoth@linux-hpbh:~> uname -aLinux linux-hpbh
4.2.0-7.g2d05727-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 16 14:40:13 UTC 2015
(2d05727) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux --------------------

And yes, my plan is just swap the AMD CPU, mobo, and the ddr3 RAMs, with
these new ones. Because Linux will survive this. It has to - if it
doesn’t it means that openSUSE has a problem.

But the components will arrive tomorrow, and the update was done on my
old trusty AMD 13.1 system. And you know what, just broke the AMD
driver, for my two (CF) R9 290. And that’s because… why? Dudes, it’s
your own kernel, on your own OS, with your own fglrx package.

I know that AMD is ****, I mean really **** nowadays. And that they
don’t have a driver for anything above the 3.19 kernel. But all the
other distros have patches/fixes for higher kernels: Arch has one,
Ubuntu has one, Fedora has one and so on… where is openSUSE in the
list? Ah wait, in the yoda-something ****** repo, we have a 15.2
Catalyst; when AMD is now on 15.9. Because they really keep up with the
drivers lol.

So did anyone make it work, is someone here at openSUSE into this,
Catalyst with 4.2 kernel?

Hi
Maybe you should vent with AMD?

Anyway Sebastian is working on his build script for 4.2, if you send
him an email (check his build script) I’m sure he world appreciate a
tester;
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 | GNOME 3.10.1 | 3.12.44-52.10-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

3

Nonsense.
The repo contains version 15.200, which is Catalyst 15.7.

So did anyone make it work, is someone here at openSUSE into this, Catalyst with 4.2 kernel?

You can use Sebastian Siebert’s script to install Catalyst 15.7, it contains a patch for Kernel 4.2.0 sine a few days:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

I’m sure the packages in the repo will eventually get this patch as well, but I cannot tell you when.

4

Already did vent, for years; but of course, they don’t listen to their customers, buying two high end video cards. Not even if you buy tens of CPUs and videocards, along the time the customer was an “AMD fanboy”. So I will leave them to their bankruptcy :smiley: and buy something else.

I found that page but can’t understand a word, so I was reluctant to try anything via Google translate. And this kind of info should be on opensuse.org, well documented; I mean, of course I landed first on SDB:AMD fglrx - openSUSE Wiki but can anyone make sense of that section of the post? And I know how to build a rpm. And I did, of course it doesn’t work.

But in that page what “features” are you talking about, to what kernel this applies to, so on? What are you talking about there? It doesn’t even have some heads or tails ie:
-this is about “BLA-BLA”
-this will solve “BLA-BLA” in case of “BLA-BLA”
-this is how you solve the “BLA-BLA”
-in case “BLA-BLA” doesn’t work go there.

Because I don’t see anywhere any mention about kernels higher than 4.

As for my “nonsense”. Yeah, got wrong the version, sorry; but you should also mention that it still is outdated, and always was/is. The fact remains: openSUSE doesn’t pay attention to proprietary video drivers, 'cause those are a lot, like… two :slight_smile: This is not about some “incompatibility”, “unsupported kernel”, “breaking the Evergeen philosophy”, “fakemoth saying nonsense things”. This is just you guys, not working with/for and not interested in your community. How can you just ignore the ATI driver? Can I at least once update a kernel (the “stable one”, from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/) without breaking stuff? How can anyone/everyone in the team not notice that none of the 4.x versions don’t work with the ATI drivers? And more so, if they did: why not taking any action about it (at least mention it somewhere)? Ah, that can be solved. Than solve it; or at least inform you users how they can manage this by themselves…

It happens every time for me: last time I tried an updated kernel (like 3 versions in fact), it broke my Xonar D2X. Didn’t bother to even post, as you are always “defending openSUSE” here.

Thanks for the answer, anyway.

5

On Sat 19 Sep 2015 06:26:01 AM CDT, fakemoth wrote:

malcolmlewis;2728842 Wrote:
> Hi
> Maybe you should vent with AMD?
>
> Anyway Sebastian is working on his build script for 4.2, if you send
> him an email (check his build script) I’m sure he world appreciate a
> tester;
> SDB:AMD fglrx - openSUSE Wiki
>
> –
> Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter
> #276890)
> SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 | GNOME 3.10.1 |
> 3.12.44-52.10-default If you find this post helpful and are logged
> into the web interface, please show your appreciation and click on
> the star below… Thanks!

Already did vent, for years; but of course, they don’t listen to their
customers, buying two high end video cards. Not even if you buy tens of
CPUs and videocards, along the time the customer was an “AMD fanboy”. So
I will leave them to their bankruptcy :smiley: and buy something else.

I found that page but can’t understand a word, so I was reluctant to try
anything via Google translate. And this kind of info should be on
opensuse.org, well documented; I mean, of course I landed first on
SDB:AMD fglrx - openSUSE Wiki but can
anyone make sense of that section of the post? And I know how to build a
rpm. And I did, of course it doesn’t work.

But in that page what “features” are you talking about, to what kernel
this applies to, so on? What are you talking about there? It doesn’t
even have some heads or tails ie:
-this is about “BLA-BLA”
-this will solve “BLA-BLA” in case of “BLA-BLA”
-this is how you solve the “BLA-BLA”
-in case “BLA-BLA” doesn’t work go there.

Because I don’t see anywhere any mention about kernels higher than 4.

As for my “nonsense”. Yeah, got wrong the version, sorry; but you should
also mention that it still is outdated, and always was/is. The fact
remains: openSUSE doesn’t pay attention to proprietary video drivers,
'cause those are a lot, like… two :slight_smile: This is not about some
“incompatibility”, “unsupported kernel”, “breaking the Evergeen
philosophy”, “fakemoth saying nonsense things”. This is just you guys,
not working with/for and not interested in your community. How can you
just ignore the ATI driver? Can I at least once update a kernel (the
“stable one”, from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/)
without breaking stuff? How can anyone/everyone in the team not notice
that none of the 4.x versions don’t work with the ATI drivers? And more
so, if they did: why not taking any action about it (at least mention it
somewhere)? Ah, that can be solved. Than solve it; or at least inform
you users how they can manage this by themselves…

It happens every time for me: last time I tried an updated kernel (like
3 versions in fact), it broke my Xonar D2X. Didn’t bother to even post,
as you are always “defending openSUSE” here.

Thanks for the answer, anyway.

Hi
But this has always been the case with proprietary drivers (codecs
etc), that’s why it’s called 'open’SUSE…

I run AMD on one laptop, having fun with Leap and the catalyst driver,
one reason I was running it with the older kernel was getting the boost
states to work, but seems the radeon driver handles this now (maybe
installing the catylast driver updated something) so in my case having
the catylast driver working is not a priority for me.

So since it seems on the top of your grumble list, I suggest you do
send off an email to Sebastian and become a helper to test things.

All you have to do is run a script and change a few permissions etc, if
this isn’t clear for you on the fglrx landing page, maybe some input to
that may help you as well as other users.

Else the only other suggestion is to be patient and wait for the
prebuild rpms to arrive. I know Sebastian like all of us as
contributors has other stuff to do and sometimes openSUSE isn’t one of
them…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 | GNOME 3.10.1 | 3.12.44-52.10-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

6

Just follow the instructions step-by-step.
I don’t see what’s so hard to understand there.

And I know how to build a rpm.

You don’t have to know that to install the fglrx driver. The script does everything automatically.

And I did, of course it doesn’t work.

What did not work?
Building the RPM packages? Installing the driver?
Or did the isntalled fglrx driver not work afterwards?

But in that page what “features” are you talking about, to what kernel this applies to, so on? What are you talking about there?

I’m not talking about anything there, because I didn’t write it.
But as I told you, the latest makerpm-amd-15.7.sh script does contain a patch for Kernel 4.2, so it should work with Kernel 4.2.

Because I don’t see anywhere any mention about kernels higher than 4.

This is mentioned in Sebastian Siebert’s (german) blog. A patch for Kernel 4.0 and 4.1 is part of the script (and the RPM packages in the repo),

As for my “nonsense”. Yeah, got wrong the version, sorry; but you should also mention that it still is outdated, and always was/is.

15.9 was only released recently, last week I think. And it doesn’t support Kernel 4.2 either.
15.7 is the previous version and is 2 months old, I wouldn’t really call that “outdated”.

15.2 would be more outdated of course.

The fact remains: openSUSE doesn’t pay attention to proprietary video drivers, 'cause those are a lot, like… two :slight_smile:

As malcolmlewis wrote, openSUSE is “open” and doesn’t contain proprietary drivers at all. And the Kernel developers wouldn’t like it if we ship them anyway because of the license.
But the open source radeon driver is a viable alternative for most cards nowadays. Have you ever gave it a try?
Although the version in 13.1 is of course not the latest one…
Should be enough for a day though.

7

I did follow the instructions - it seems to work as it completes the installation, aticonfig --initial, than the system drops me to the command line and have to remove the packages, exactly like the standard fglrx package from yoda. I also downloaded and installed the script from AMD, the same. That blog is in German, so I don’t understand it; and it seems reasonable to me that this kind of info should reside somewhere, here, on the opensuse.org domain. And that wiki page of yours really is a nonsense, c’mon… this is how you deal with such a big thing like a video driver?

Right now I am using the open source drivers - weird journey that is:messed:

Of course the nVidia and ATI drivers are not part of openSUSE, never said that; this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the effort to make them work on your distro, or at least properly inform people. As I recall all the aforementioned distros are at least as free as you are, isn’t it? Well maybe not (everything in) Ubuntu :smiley:

I found Sebastian’s email and now I am writing to him. Thanks, I will post back if somehow I am making some progress.

PS: the hardware upgrade worked fine, switched from AMD to Intel, no fuss, just a regular boot :smiley:

8

“aticonfig --initial” shouldn’t be needed. And without an xorg.conf the system should boot ot graphical mode even when the fglrx driver is not working correctly.

Well, personally I’m not using the fglrx driver with Kernel 4.2 (don’t have any supported card), so I don’t know whether it is working or not.
But without an Xorg.0.log at least it’s hard to say anything.

The standard packages from “ioda” don’t include that patch for Kernel 4.2 yet, so it’s to be expected that they don’t work.
I hope you downloaded the latest version of the script, i.e. what is currently available via the link on SDB:AMD fglrx - openSUSE Wiki.
The patch only has been added recently…

I also downloaded and installed the script from AMD, the same.

Of course.
As you stated yourself, the driver only supports kernels up to 3.19.
But that’s unrelated to openSUSE.

That blog is in German, so I don’t understand it; and it seems reasonable to me that this kind of info should reside somewhere, here, on the opensuse.org domain.

You shouldn’t have to understand that blog. It’s Sebastian Siebert’s private blog, used for announcements about his script and other things.
I don’t see a point in hosting this at openSUSE.org.

And that wiki page of yours really is a nonsense, c’mon… this is how you deal with such a big thing like a video driver?

What are you talking about?
Again, this is not my wiki page.
And please be more specific, what’s so nonsense about it?

Of course the nVidia and ATI drivers are not part of openSUSE, never said that; this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the effort to make them work on your distro, or at least properly inform people.

Feel free to help.
openSUSE is a community distribution.

But if you stayed with the kernel included in openSUSE (in the released versions at least), you shouldn’t have any problem with the proprietary drivers.

9

Sebastian Siebert was kind to reply to my emails. He is sure the script works for kernel 4.2 fine just not with the very latest drivers, of course; he told me he will update the script shortly. This is not a problem (the version of the driver).

But. It doesn’t work. I get dropped to the command line and X doesn’t want to start. In the terminal if I try to start it manually it borks and refers me to some permissions file - fine but I shouldn’t “startx”.

So thought it was a problem with zorg.conf. Restored on of my ancient (previously) working xorg.conf files. It complains about no device detected in the log.

And no - I can’t just use an older kernel - I am on very new hardware as stated previously, and with the standard older kernel I get all kind of weird stuff - usually buffer overflows, for example Amarok taking 16GB of RAM like in seconds, and so on. Don’t ask me why, I am not a kernel developer, else I would build everything by myself and never bothered you here :slight_smile:

PS: when I rant about the Wiki - it is not about “you” someone in particular - it is about the “you”, the Wiki team.

10

Please excuse my occasional mambo-joomla (get it ;)?) like zorg.conf and yoda repo…

11

Again, please post the /var/log/Xorg.0.log of a failed start.

In the terminal if I try to start it manually it borks and refers me to some permissions file - fine but I shouldn’t “startx”.

startx doesn’t work when run as user. You need to run it as root, or change the permissions as the message tells you.
That’s nothing new btw, and not at all specific to fglrx either.

So thought it was a problem with zorg.conf. Restored on of my ancient (previously) working xorg.conf files. It complains about no device detected in the log.

Try to remove the xorg.conf completely.
fglrx should be loaded automatically when installed.

PS: when I rant about the Wiki - it is not about “you” someone in particular - it is about the “you”, the Wiki team.

It’s a community Wiki. You are part of the “Wiki team” as well.
At least tell what should be improved.
Just stating that the page is “nonsense” and “not understandable” doesn’t help.
Actually, with that you’re just insulting the people that wrote it in the first place IMHO.

12

Hi
What about the xorg logs, check ~/.local/share/xorgor /var/log

Did you try creating a new xorg file with aticonfig?

Maybe the libs in 13.1 are just old?

13

Something happened to the forum - couldn’t post, login, etc. I also created some new files with aticonfig - no luck.

    (WW) fglrx    No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@1:0:0) found
    (WW) fglrx    No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@2:0:0) found
        (EE)
    Fatal server error    
        (EE) no screens found(EE)
        (EE)
        Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
         at http    //wiki.x.org
        for help.
        (EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.
        (EE)
    VGA Arbitration    Cannot restore default device.
        (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.
    xinit    giving up
    xinit    unable to connect to X server: Cannot assign requested address
    xinit    server error
        -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        xinit failed. /usr/bin/Xorg is not setuid, maybe that's the reason?
        If so either use a display manager (strongly recommended) or adjust /etc/permissions.local

PS - was logged in as root… c’mon now. It was not about permissions as I was not logged in, it’s about some CVE, running X as root and altering permisions in some file; it should be start by some desktop manager in fact, like sddm. For the last time, this is not a wiki this is how you run a script made by some guy (scroll down, I already wrote what is missing…, why, what, so on…):

Building the rpm yourselfDue to a frequent lack of features, it’s recommended to use Sebastian Siebert’s script makerpm-amd-$VERS$.sh available on his blog].

  1. Start a terminal or console of your choice and become root:# su

  2. Download the script, on the time of writing:# wget https://www.sebastian-siebert.de/downloads/makerpm-amd-15.7.sh

Check on this pageif this is still the most recent script and use the most recent one.

  1. Download the checksum file:# wget https://www.sebastian-siebert.de/downloads/makerpm-amd-15.7.sh.sha1

Check on this pageif there is an updated script and find the according checksum file if there is one.

  1. Let’s validate against the script:# sha1sum -c makerpm-amd-15.7.sh.sha1
    The output should be:# makerpm-amd-15.7.sh: OK

  2. Change the permission of the script:# chown root:root makerpm-amd-15.7.sh && chmod 744 makerpm-amd-15.7.sh

  3. Run the script with the parameter -i. The script generate the RPM package and install/update automatically it.# ./makerpm-amd-15.7.sh -i

Important: Reboot the computer after the installation.

  • If something goes wrong, remove the driver with the parameter -u.

  1. Go into the console and log in as super user root

  2. Execute the script:# ./makerpm-amd-15.7.sh -u

14

Doesn’t look like a kernel or installation problem then.

Again, try without an xorg.conf.
Somebody else had a similar problem recently, removing xorg.conf fixed it for him.

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/503045-GUI-not-loading-after-installation?p=2729436#post2729436

c’mon now. It was not about permissions as I was not logged in, it’s about some CVE, running X as root and altering permisions in some file; it should be start by some desktop manager in fact, like sddm.

Yes, it should.
But if you login to text mode and start X manually, you have to run startx as root.

For the last time, this is not a wiki this is how you run a script made by some guy (scroll down, I already wrote what is missing…, why, what, so on…):

It is still a Wiki.
And still I don’t see what’s so nonsense about the content.
It explains step-by-step how to create and install (or uninstall) the RPM packages.

You only wrote that it doesn’t state for which kernel version it applies IIRC, but it should apply to all.

15

I was root wolfie323. As I was right now.

Tried everything again right now. Without and xorg.conf. It installs fine, but after the reboot it drops me to the terminal with the same provided error. Have to uninstall and reboot again to get some funky looking desktop, because that’s why I have 2 high-end GCs.

Done for today - I will also go distro hunting to see if this is the case with others. Tomorrow it will be the Arch day.

16

Ok, then startx just prints this additional message everytime when Xorg fails to start, regardless of the actual reason.
As Xorg fails to start during boot via a display manager, it is to be expected that it fails when starting it manually as well.
In your case it doesn’t start because fglrx doesn’t work.

But this seems not to be a problem with the kernel, the script, or the openSUSE packages, but rather a problem in the configuration or the driver itself.
I would expect the same problem on any other distribution, at least if using the same fglrx version.

Maybe it would help to create an xorg.conf and add/modify the “BusID” line with the correct parameters…
In your case it should probably be:

 BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"

(find the correct numbers with “lspci”
And it should be in the “Device” section.

OTOH, as you still didn’t post the whole Xorg.0.log, I can only guess. There might be another error message before that, which then leads to this one.