AMD-GPU on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I have AMD A10-7870K CPU with R7 GPU. I have setup the system to use amdgpu instead of radeon. The kernel module is loaded properly. I blacklisted radeon module by putting 'blacklist radeon' into /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-radeon.conf and added 'amdgpu' into /etc/initramfs-tools/modules. Then ran sudo update-initramfs -u

Yet, the radeon module keeps getting loaded and I don't know why...

root@ubuntu:~# lsmod |grep -e radeon -e amdgpu
amdgpu                987136  0
radeon               1515520  3
i2c_algo_bit           16384  2 amdgpu,radeon
ttm                    94208  2 amdgpu,radeon
drm_kms_helper        155648  2 amdgpu,radeon
drm                   364544  7 ttm,drm_kms_helper,amdgpu,radeon
root@ubuntu:~#

At /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amdgpu.conf I have

Section "Device"
    Identifier "AMD"
    Driver "amdgpu"
EndSection

However at Xorg.0.log I see:

[    17.774] (II) [KMS] Kernel modesetting enabled.
[    17.774] (EE) AMDGPU(0): amdgpu_device_initialize failed
[    17.774] (II) [KMS] Kernel modesetting enabled.
[    17.774] (EE) AMDGPU(G0): amdgpu_device_initialize failed
[    17.774] (II) [KMS] Kernel modesetting enabled.
[    17.774] (EE) AMDGPU(1): amdgpu_device_initialize failed
[    17.774] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[    17.775] (II) UnloadModule: "amdgpu"
[    17.775] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[    17.775] (II) UnloadModule: "amdgpu"
[    17.775] (EE) Device(s) detected, but none match those in the config file.

So the questions are:

1. Isn't this suppose to work on this processor? I read the AMDGPU driver supports Sea Islands GCN GPU.

2. The system is working seemingly fine. X is starting and working. How can I check which graphics driver X is using?

3. How do I fix the amdpgu_device_initialize failed messages?

Thanks!

UPDATE:

According to user experiences A10-7870K should work fine with AMDGPU-PRO https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/amd-linux/873464-amdgpu-pro-beta-2-driver-is-playing-nicely-on-ubuntu-16-04-with-the-r9-fury?p=874788#post874788 Not that I could install it, it gives some dependency errors. I think it may help if I can install amdgpu-pro but it seems impossible! The error below is from amdgpu-pro-16.60-379184

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 amdgpu-pro : Depends: libvdpau-amdgpu-pro but it is not going to be installed
              Depends: clinfo-amdgpu-pro but it is not going to be installed
 amdgpu-pro-dkms : Depends: dkms (>= 1.95) but it is not going to be installed
 amdgpu-pro-lib32 : Depends: libdrm-amdgpu-pro-amdgpu1:i386
                    Depends: libgbm1-amdgpu-pro:i386
                    Depends: libgl1-amdgpu-pro-glx:i386
                    Depends: libgl1-amdgpu-pro-dri:i386
                    Depends: libgles2-amdgpu-pro:i386
                    Depends: vulkan-amdgpu-pro:i386
                    Depends: libvdpau-amdgpu-pro:i386
                    Depends: libopencl1-amdgpu-pro:i386
                    Depends: opencl-amdgpu-pro-icd:i386
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Now I have also made a question at AMD forums for this driver installation failure: https://community.amd.com/message/2784212

Solution

I had the same problem with fresh install. Try adding the i386 architecture:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Then try the setup again.

Comments

[You'reAGitForNotUsingGit]

Just keep in mind that AMD graphics drivers are a mess in 16.04+.

[dobey]

@AndroidDev No they aren't. You just can't use fglrx in newer kernel and Xorg versions.

[dobey]

I don't think amdgpu supports integrated graphics in the APUs, but only discrete cards, for the time being, at least, based on support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/…

[yurtesen]

That is for amdgpu-pro but I already found some forum entries where people said they got amdgpu-pro working with my processor (updated my post). I would like to install amdgpu-pro drivers but I am getting dependency erros. I don't understand how other people are installing them!

[You'reAGitForNotUsingGit]

@dobey If they weren't a mess, then they'd work just fine OOTB like Nouveau does...

[yurtesen]

@AndroidDev, I think that radeon/amdgpu works as good as nouveau. I am now using the machine with kodi just fine even with things like vdpau support. To be fair, the problems as mostly fault of Linux. In the past, I had same problems with both nvidia and amd cards almost every time when there was a Linux kernel update. But I never had problems with Windows updates. Anyway, the problem is that I want to use AMDGPU or PRO version and be able to confirm that they work. I think I am missing something simple somewhere... :(

[dobey]

@AndroidDev They work fine OOTB for most cases, just like Nouveau does. None of these three drivers supports all features of every card, or even every card, by the respective manufacturers.

[yurtesen]

@AndroidDev also nouveau does not support a bunch of features or support badly on different cards. Maybe I misunderstood your reply. Nouveau does not support things like SLI or CUDA on any card for example -> nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix

[yurtesen]

Thanks for the responses. I solved the issue with the AMDGPU-PRO driver installation (problem was Ubuntu after all). I am guessing the open source AMDGPU does not support my GPU. In either case, it looks like AMD did a great job with this new driver. Once I fixed the problem in Ubuntu, it installed easily and was working right away. Thank you all for your responses!

[ankit7540]

Thinking whether your answer would be relevant to 16.04 fresh installation. Even fresh installation of 16.04 also have this problem.

[yurtesen]

What problem exactly? Did you make a question? Post it's link please.

[ankit7540]

Here is the question : askubuntu.com/questions/880011/… The issue is there whether I overclock or not.

[yurtesen]

Your issue seems to be totally unrelated :)

[yurtesen]

I did that of course, it was implied. I just forgot to write that I did that...

[Leder]

OK, just for reference

[Leder]

the fps you mention of 300 seems to be with vsync turned on. Try again with command: vblank_mode=0 glxgears

[yurtesen]

That is not the problem, my display is 60hz anyway, not 300hz. I could see in glxinfo that software rendering was used.

[Mike]

This was my issue, very used to x86... tripped me up back on a pentium

[devinbost]

This worked like a charm on my clean installation of Ubuntu Server 18.04.2 amd64!

[Jordan]

This worked for me. Thanks!