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Help Ubuntu 19.10 + Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz + MSI B450-A PRO MAX + RX 570
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garrop May 11, 2020
Hi there,

This is my first post here, although I have been following your Mastodon account for a while. I am not a gamer myself, but have two teenagers that are getting more and more into it.

For the older one (13 years old as we speak), I am building a PC to play SteamOs games (City builder already purchased but unable to save projects due to gc). I surfed for long hours, so that I created so far this build (plus case and power source already in place):

https://fr.pcpartpicker.com/list/qp4ZWb

Motherboard firmware updated to the latest available one.

The thing is: I selected the graphic card (RX 570) because it seemed AMD had dedicated Linux drivers and that would help me get through just fine. I wanted a minimum 4GB of DDR3 memory on it. So far the project has become a nightmare. I have played around for hours with the motherboard settings for which GC to use (the one embedded in the processor or the RX 570), installed various versions of the AMD drivers to no avail.

A couple of times I have not managed to go back with changes, lost all of the installed Ubuntu and had to start all the way from the start. As of today, I have unplugged the graphic card and am considering to change it if I find an alternative simple, fast and not too expensive.

I have been digging in this forum for some insights, but w/o luck so far.

In a nutshell, a couple of straightforward questions:

- Should I be able to combine and make work my selected hardware, specially the graphic card? Updating to Ubuntu 20.04 coming up.

- What replacement should I consider for the GC if the Rx 570 is not a viable option?

Thanks in advance.
tuxintuxedo May 11, 2020
We don't know what you tried previously, but you should NOT install AMD drivers from their page. The drivers are already present on your system, the most you could do is to add the proper PPA to your system. But let's leave that for later.
What do you want exactly? Change between the integrated and discrete cards? That's easy, you only need to use DRI_PRIME.
Let's clear things first, start from the very beginning.

Last edited by tuxintuxedo on 11 May 2020 at 11:48 am UTC
x_wing May 11, 2020
I agree with tuxintuxedo, installing AMDGPU-PRO was probably your first mistake. My suggestion would be that you install Ubuntu 20.04 from scratch so we start from zero.
garrop May 11, 2020
Hi again,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I just want to use the discrete card. If I install Ubuntu 18.04 and plug the RX570 no display at all. Even when I disable the integrated card from the BIOS. That is why I went with the AMDGPU-PRO trial.

I will install a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 and will post back. So far with black screens all along, I have no clue whatsoever of what goes wrong in the first place.

Really sorry that I did not make myself clear in the first place.
tuxintuxedo May 11, 2020
You can start it up with the integrated one and we can discuss how to change under a running system. Black screen might just be a small issue (like needing nomodeset or a bad setting), so it's easier to solve while being able to see.

Last edited by tuxintuxedo on 11 May 2020 at 5:57 pm UTC
damarrin May 11, 2020
The no display you get with the RX570 is during/after boot or at which point?
garrop May 11, 2020
@tuxintuxedo: once up and running with ubuntu 20.04 and the integrated one, what would you like me to check/report?

@damarrin: I can reach the BIOS w/o issue, I make it all the way to the grub screen and from then on, darkness is my only friend. If I try to switch to a terminal (Ctrl + F1 for instance) I see millions of errors which I tried to write down and search for solutions to no avail. This was about ten days ago and had no records about it. However, I will retry and post back with clear details of my status.

It feels so good to have quick and intense feedback despite my lack of clarity :-)
x_wing May 11, 2020
Quoting: garrop@tuxintuxedo: once up and running with ubuntu 20.04 and the integrated one, what would you like me to check/report?
try:
DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep OpenGL
And share the output.

Last edited by x_wing on 11 May 2020 at 10:50 pm UTC
tuxintuxedo May 12, 2020
What x_wing is saying.
And you can also share the output of
DRI_PRIME=0 glxinfo | grep OpenGL
Just to be sure.
If I remember right, you will have to install the mesa-utils package for glxinfo, but the Terminal will tell you everything.
dvd May 12, 2020
Quoting: garropHi again,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I just want to use the discrete card. If I install Ubuntu 18.04 and plug the RX570 no display at all. Even when I disable the integrated card from the BIOS. That is why I went with the AMDGPU-PRO trial.

I will install a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 and will post back. So far with black screens all along, I have no clue whatsoever of what goes wrong in the first place.

Really sorry that I did not make myself clear in the first place.

The newer AMD cards require the blobs (firmware) installed on Debian to get any output from the device at all, so if you get no output as the OS tries to launch your DE it is likely you do not have those installed. So grab those during installation (or on first boot in a tty). On ubuntu, amdgpu seems to be the package that has them, but better read after that yourself. You won't need the proprietary drivers (the ones you download from vendor site) as any desktop installation should include the necessary free drivers. For steam make sure to enable foreign architecture support for i386.
garrop May 12, 2020
Here we go (100% fresh Ubuntu 20.04):


egoi@MSI-B450:~$ DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep OpenGL

Command 'glxinfo' not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install mesa-utils

egoi@MSI-B450:~$ DRI_PRIME=0 glxinfo | grep OpenGL

Command 'glxinfo' not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install mesa-utils


---------------------------------

Installed mesa-utils and:

egoi@MSI-B450:~$ DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: AMD RAVEN (DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.0-29-generic, LLVM 9.0.1)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 20.0.4
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 20.0.4
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 20.0.4
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
OpenGL ES profile extensions:
egoi@MSI-B450:~$ DRI_PRIME=0 glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: AMD RAVEN (DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.0-29-generic, LLVM 9.0.1)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 20.0.4
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 20.0.4
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 20.0.4
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
OpenGL ES profile extensions:

X.Org X server -- AMDGPU display driver (19.1.0-1)

and

Userspace interface to amdgpu-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime (2.4.101-2)

are both installed by default (all I get in synaptic under amdgpu).

Many thanks
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