Upgraded to 15.1 Plasma/KDE/KDE Wayland and AMDGPU

English Hardware
1

How do I get my graphics card working/stable with:
KDE Plasma (very buggy)
KDE Plasma Wayland (semi-buggy, virtual desktops does not work)

Graphics card: AMD Radeon R7
Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.20
Opensuse 15.1

Changing from xrenderer to OpenGL 2.0/3.1 causes plasma/KDE to crash.

How do I get this working?

2

Hi
What is the exact model R7, can you post the output from;


/sbin/lspci -nnk | egrep -A3 "VGA|Display|3D"
3

For me, with Leap 15.1, Plasma Wayland is buggy. The virtual desktop pager does not work. But virtual desktops do work. I have shortcut keys defined to switch desktops.

4 
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Carrizo [1002:9874] (rev c8)         
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1931]         
Kernel driver in use: amdgpu         
Kernel modules: amdgpu

I am uncertain which to use:
KDE Plasma: all buggy with: OpenGL 2/3.1 xrenderer
KDE Plasma Wayland: semi-buggy with: OpenGL 2, xrenderer

5

Hi
You could try adding the kernel boot option (YaST -> Bootloader) and add amdgpu.dc=0 and see if that helps. I have the same card here, but opted for Tumbleweed as the gpus worked better with the later kernel.

6

I suppose it is a waiting game till more stability is provided Plasma?

What does amdgpu.dc=0 do exactly? Tell amdgpu not to use a Display Manager?

7

Hi
Display Core is off… More info here: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/gpu/amdgpu.html

Aside from any DE issues, sometimes the newer gpu’s have issues with the older kernel drivers.

8

Is there any way/program to debug/troubleshoot the performance of this card beside dmesg/journalctl ???

9

Try to replace Mesa 3D drivers with an AMD drivers.

10

Hi
That all depends if the OP has a stand alone GPU or it’s integrated (APU), it maynot work. Besides downgrading the graphics stack seems like a kludge.

11

This is a laptop and I don’t know how to find the exact model other than what is already provided from the system.

For the R7, AMD provides many sub-models and don’t know which is the exact one.

With KDE Wayland xrenderer things are stable but semi-buggy…artifacts/noise/etc. in windows.

Waiting till the repos upgrade seems like a good option at this point.

amdgpu works…so-so.

12

Hi
It will be an APU then, part of the processor, can you show what the cpu is,


lscpu | grep "Model name:"

This is my system;


lscpu | grep "Model name:"
Model name:                      AMD A10-9600P RADEON R5, 10 COMPUTE CORES 4C+6G

/sbin/lspci -nnk | egrep -A3 "VGA|Display|3D"

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Wani [Radeon R5/R6/R7 Graphics] [1002:9874] (rev ca)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:81fe]
    Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
    Kernel modules: amdgpu
--
04:00.0 Display controller [0380]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445] [1002:6900] (rev 83)
    DeviceName: AMD Radeon (TM) R7 440M
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:81fe]
    Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
13 

AMD A12-9720P RADEON R7, 12 COMPUTE CORES 4C+8G

Do you think any other Display Manager such as Gnome would work better with amdgpu?

14

Hi
So, only windows support for the APU…
https://www.amd.com/en/support/apu/amd-a-series-processors/amd-a12-series-apu-for-laptops/7th-gen-a12-9720p-apu

Well switch to X11 rather than wayland would be worth a try.

15

Try to update BIOS firmware.

16

Bios is current version.

How do I do that?
KDE regular is unresponsive with amd-gpu. I can’t turn off the compositor either. There is no option to do so. I have some other option and Ice.

17

I have narrowed the problem down to: sddm (display manager) & amdgppu & KDE/Plasma.

Does anyone know if I can use LIGHT-DM with KDE/Plasma as an alternative to sddm?

The PROBLEM: noise in new windows, unresponsive windows/menus

Various errors: XORG:

(EE) AMDGPU(0): failed to set mode: Permission denied

When I edit the GUI> System Setting>Display and Monitor>Compositor settings, the session is terminated and goes to the login screen. This termination of the session happens randomly and at various intervals over the course of a week. Tracking down errors on why the session is terminating is finding to be difficult.

18

We still don’t know for sure if the amdgpu DDX is in use. We only know the amdgpu kernel driver is in use (lspci -nnk doesn’t report DDX). /var/log/Xorg.0.log reports the DDX, as does inxi:

> inxi -GxxSza
System:    Host: big31 Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.20-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.1
           parameters: root=/dev/sda## mitigations=auto radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 video=1440x900@60
           Desktop: Trinity R14.0.6 tk: Qt 3.5.0 wm: Twin dm: TDM Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Oland [Radeon HD 8570 / R7 240/340 OEM] vendor: Dell driver: amdgpu
           v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6611
           Display: server: **X.Org 1.20.3 driver: amdgpu** unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa alternate: ati
           resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon HD 8500 Series (OLAND DRM 3.27.0 4.12.14-lp151.28.20-default LLVM 7.0.1)
           v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.2 direct render: Yes
> inxi -V | head -n1
inxi 3.0.36-00 (2019-08-14)
19

My version of inxi is: inxi 2.3.40-00 (2017-09-21)


inxi -GxxSz
Resuming in non X mode: glxinfo not found. For package install advice run: inxi --recommends
System:    Host: [REDACTED] Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.20-default x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.4.1
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.12.8 (Qt 5.9.7) dm: sddm,sddm Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wani [Radeon R5/R6/R7 Graphics]
           bus-ID: 00:01.0 chip-ID: 1002:9874
           Display Server: wayland (X.org 1.20.3 ) drivers: amdgpu (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 271x70 Advanced Data: N/A for root
20

inxiinxi 3.0.32


For package install advice run: inxi --recommends