Looking for help as I'm struggling with upgrading my system (tumbleweed, kde6)

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Apologise in advance for the wall of text, trying to provide as much details. Please do not ignore :frowning:

I installed tumbleweed about 8 months ago. I have always updated without any problem. Upgrading to Plasma 6 was also painless and the few times I had some problems, a rollback saved me problems and headaches.

That was until last week, when I attempted the upgrade to KDE Plasma 6.0.2.
Several attempts and I was never able to upgrade successfully. Each reboot resulted in me having a black screen with a cursor, no login screen, bluetooth mouse not working but works with wired mouse (I guess Wayland was working?)

I have tried about 8 times in the past few weeks and each time the roolback to the latest working snapshot has worked. Until a few days when a combination of the update due to the xz package problem and the opensuse.org servers being unreachable last night dealt the final coup de grace.

During these weeks I blamed the packman repo I used after installing the codecs. In my previous attempts to update, I therefore tried to update while avoiding packman. Reading about the black screen and mouse cursor problem I tried investigating sddm, and again the solutions found online did not work.

In one attempt I also tried installing GNOME and gdm, resulting in a blank screen with a sad computer saying to contact my system administrator (is this a joke?).

To make a long story short, I tried it by myself and now I am very scared and I humbly ask you to help me troubleshooting the current system so that it can can be upgraded.

I have up-to-date backups, but I would like to avoid reinstalling a system that works and especially learn how to fix problems like this so that I can be independent in the future.

Today I managed to get back a very old working version and here the details:

Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20240119
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.10
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.114.0
Qt Version: 5.15.12
Kernel Version: 6.6.11-1-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 24 × AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor
Memory: 31.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Product Name: MS-7C35
System Version: 2.0

These are the snapshot repositories. Packman is missing because I had probably added it after this snapshot.

$ zypper lr -EP  
#  | Alias                            | Name                                                 | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Priority  
---+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------  
1 | ROCm-6.0                         | ROCm6.0                                              | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      |   99  
2 | amdgpu                           | amdgpu                                               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      |   99  
3 | download.opensuse.org-non-oss    | Main Repository (NON-OSS)                            | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99  
4 | download.opensuse.org-oss        | Main Repository (OSS)                                | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99  
5 | download.opensuse.org-tumbleweed | Main Update Repository                               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99  
6 | graphics_darktable_master        | Darktable-Org Master snapshots (openSUSE_Tumbleweed) | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      |   99  
7 | openSUSE-20240119-0              | openSUSE-20240119-0                                  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99  
9 | repo-openh264                    | Open H.264 Codec (openSUSE Tumbleweed)               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99

Before updating I am verifying that everything is ok, but I noticed this:

$ sudo zypper ve  
[sudo] password for root:    
Loading repository data...  
Reading installed packages...  
7 Problems:  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
  
Problem: nothing provides 'libffi.so.7()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Solution 1: deinstallation of openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64  
Solution 2: break openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64 by ignoring some of its dependencies  
  
Choose from above solutions by number or skip, retry or cancel [1/2/s/r/c/d/?] (c):

Some notes:

  1. I had installed ROCm and amdgpu following the instructions on the AMD site; I did this to enable OPENCL to use darktable; darktable-cltest confirms that opencl is available and working.
[opencl_init]           0       'AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing gfx1031'  
    0.3155 [opencl_init] FINALLY: opencl is AVAILABLE and ENABLED.
  1. The problem with libffi.so above and openmp-extras-runtime-17.60.0.60000-sles154.91.x86_64 seems to be related to the GPU drivers.

During my research I read only today — sic :frowning: — that it is not recommended to use the proprietary drivers and to use only the open source amdpro driver for my GPU:

As for AMD, AMDGPU-PRO is not supported for Tumbleweed. Tumbleweed comes with a Radeon driver installed out of the box that is usually the superior choice anyway.

Source

Starting from this situation, how can I proceed to upgrade without breaking the system?

Does it make sense to remove the ROCm-6.0 and amdgpu repos and retry the upgrade?

What else can I do?

2

Two things come to my mind when reading this.

  • I may have missed it in the long post, but do you mention how you (try to) do those updates?
  • A repo list like that is of no use. It does not show the URLs and that is what matters: zypper lr -d (or any other option combination that shows the URLs).
3

Thanks, good question

  • ctrl+alt+F1 and I open TTY1
  • login as root

Then I usually run in order:

$ zypper ref

$ zypper dup --download-only

and again

$ zypper dup

$ sudo zypper lr -d
[sudo] password for root: 
#  | Alias                            | Name                                                 | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Priority | Type   | URI                                                                                         | Service
---+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
 1 | ROCm-6.0                         | ROCm6.0                                              | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      |   99     | rpm-md | https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/zyp/6.0/main                                                   | 
 2 | amdgpu                           | amdgpu                                               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      |   99     | rpm-md | https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/6.0/sle/15.5/main/x86_64/                                    | 
 3 | download.opensuse.org-non-oss    | Main Repository (NON-OSS)                            | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/non-oss/                                       | 
 4 | download.opensuse.org-oss        | Main Repository (OSS)                                | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/                                           | 
 5 | download.opensuse.org-tumbleweed | Main Update Repository                               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/tumbleweed/                                             | 
 6 | graphics_darktable_master        | Darktable-Org Master snapshots (openSUSE_Tumbleweed) | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      |   99     | rpm-md | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/graphics:/darktable:/master/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ | 
 7 | openSUSE-20240119-0              | openSUSE-20240119-0                                  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/                                           | 
 8 | repo-debug                       | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Debug                            | No      | ----      | ----    |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/tumbleweed/repo/oss/                                     | 
 9 | repo-openh264                    | Open H.264 Codec (openSUSE Tumbleweed)               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Tumbleweed                                     | 
10 | repo-source                      | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Source                           | No      | ----      | ----    |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/source/tumbleweed/repo/oss/                                    |
4

Looks correct to me :wink:

1 Like
5

I’m a good linux user :wink:

6

You need help from an experienced AMD user, but the two AMD repos you currently have are for SLE 15.5 and not for Tumbleweed: they are compatible with the 6.0.x kernel apparently, while TW is currently at 6.8.x.
Easy guess that your “black screen” is due to a graphics driver not compatible with the current kernel and those two AMD repos should be disabled.
You may also keep an old working kernel to boot in case of trouble, but that is a workaround and not a long term solution.

7

There are no repos for Tumblewwed. All AMD users which want this driver needs to use the SLE AMD repos.
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMDGPU-PRO

8

… and so they must use LEAP (which inherits the kernel from SLE) and not Tumbleweed…

9

There are some threads in the forum that you can use the AMDGPU-PRO drivers on Tumbleweed. But you need to compile them yourself…

10

You should not have repos 1,2,6 and 7 . Specially 7 can cause issues. My guess is you used Ventoy to install in January

11

Care to explain how the primary Tumbleweed repository can cause issues?

12

My mistake, I did not see the URL and assumed it was the install USB. Sorry

13

@OrsoBruno @hui @knurpht re your questions, I took notes during my first install and I install the amd drivers following instructions here:

and the post install as well.

It worked smoothly until the KDE 6.0.2 update.

I’m happy to downgrade to the OpenSUSE driver one, but I
m wondering if OpenCL will be available or not.
I’m only using the GPU for photography and darktable stuff. No gaming and not other complex things.

Thanks.

14

Thanks for sharing.

According to sudo zypper lr -d I’m using this:

https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/6.0/sle/15.5/main/x86_64/

and there is a latest

https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/latest/sle/15.5/

Do you think that it would be worth trying to update to this versione a try to zypper dup again?

15

According to the instructions provided here:

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMDGPU-PRO

these are the steps I’ll follow in the way I understand the documentation.

You may need to add user to video and render groups.

$ groups  
boredcollie video render

BTW this is a very important step and should be bold or highlighted; because that was my only issue when I’ve installed AMD drivers for the first time.

  1. Search https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/ for repository that suits your hardware and OS.

Currently I’m on:

https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/6.0/sle/15.5/main/x86_64/

but there is a latest:

https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/latest/sle/15.5/proprietary/x86_64/
``
but the proprietary folder is empty.

  1. Add this repo to your OS. For instance: https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/23.20/amdgpu/sle/15.5/proprietary/x86_64/

I’m understanding add as adding in the repo, using zypper:

zypper ar -f https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/latest/sle/15.5/proprietary/x86_64/ amd-proprietary

  1. Install drivers from that repo. You can install amdgpu-pro package = amdgpu Pro driver meta package for that.

I guess I have to:

zypper ref
zypper in amdgpu-pro

You can add needed repositories by installing amdgpu-install package which you can get from appropriate folder in https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu-install/. With installing amdgpu-install package you also get signing key for AMD repos.

zypper ar https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu-install/latest/sle/15.5/ adm-install

zypper ref
zypper in amdgpu-install

Some versions have empty Pro repository. For instance: 5.6. In that case find repository which contains needed packages.

I’m a bit confused. Assuming that the instructions above are correct - but I doubt - what does it mean needed packages? I don’t know which packages I need. Is amdgpu install installing the drivers for my GPU automatically?

After this steps, I’ll reboot and test if system is working.
If it works I’ll zypper ref && zypper dup and see if I’ll be able to update.

Can be this a solution?

16

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