Troubleshooting Ubuntu 20 and a fresh install of Amd drivers

John Persichilli
John Persichilli
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Yes, but I was doing some

Yes, but I was doing some more thinking and it just slipped my mind. Sorry...

I'm editing this post to say that KStars draws the constellation stick figures. Although Kstars is a more static sort of display. It doesn't require constant stick figure redraws if that makes any sense.

I've upgraded this ACER Aspire 7730Z to the maximum RAM of 4 GB. My other aging notebooks both a Dell and an HP have 8 GB of RAM.

Of course I can live with the computer as is but it bothers the heck out of myself that I can't resolve this issue.

Regards,

John

mikey
mikey
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John Persichilli wrote: Yes,

John Persichilli wrote:

Yes, but I was doing some more thinking and it just slipped my mind. Sorry...

I'm editing this post to say that KStars draws the constellation stick figures. Although Kstars is a more static sort of display. It doesn't require constant stick figure redraws if that makes any sense.

I've upgraded this ACER Aspire 7730Z to the maximum RAM of 4 GB. My other aging notebooks both a Dell and an HP have 8 GB of RAM.

Of course I can live with the computer as is but it bothers the heck out of myself that I can't resolve this issue.

Regards,

John

There is a whole thread about the screensaver here https://einsteinathome.org/content/new-graphics-build

robl
robl
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mikey wrote:John

mikey wrote:

John Persichilli wrote:

Yes, but I was doing some more thinking and it just slipped my mind. Sorry...

I'm editing this post to say that KStars draws the constellation stick figures. Although Kstars is a more static sort of display. It doesn't require constant stick figure redraws if that makes any sense.

I've upgraded this ACER Aspire 7730Z to the maximum RAM of 4 GB. My other aging notebooks both a Dell and an HP have 8 GB of RAM.

Of course I can live with the computer as is but it bothers the heck out of myself that I can't resolve this issue.

Regards,

John

There is a whole thread about the screensaver here https://einsteinathome.org/content/new-graphics-build

Mikey, thank you for pointing out the obvious:  namely that this thread is for:  "TROUBLESHOOTING UBUNTU 20 AND A FRESH INSTALL OF AMD DRIVERS" and not for screensaver issues.  Screen saver issues belong in another thread.  

Tom M
Tom M
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John Persichilli wrote: Now

John Persichilli wrote:

Now I don't know if this is a clue or not but looking closely at the dots representing the stars on the starsphere they appear to be tiny squares not dots. So, it seems that there is a screen resolution bottleneck? I have the highest possible screen resolution listed. I experimented with reducing the screen resolution to no effect. Nothing changed.

That could be a resolution issue. I wonder. Aren't pixels squares, not dots?

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)

Tom M
Tom M
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Darn. Your right. John is

Darn. Your right. John is fighting, it seems like, with an Intel internal gpu which is not an and driver issue.

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)

Tom M
Tom M
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Note to self.  You STILL have

Note to self.  You STILL have to unplug the system from the Internet to get the 5.4 Kernel to install.  To get the original AMD GPU drivers to install.  Darn it!

I used to be able to tell the installer not to install any upgrade during the install and it would install 5.4

That appears to no longer work.  You have to unplug it from the Internet.

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)

Wedge009
Wedge009
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I've been quite late to this

I've been quite late to this discussion and I want to address a few points:

  • Regarding Windows 10 set-up being 'easier' than Ubuntu - I think this is largely due to the monopoly that Microsoft still holds in the desktop space. As a result the collective community all focus their efforts on Windows installations - other operating systems are an afterthought.
  • I think AMD has just had to make do with limited resources compared with their competition in Intel and Nvidia. Given the aforementioned point about Windows being the dominant OS, it makes sense that they focus their efforts there. Anything else is secondary.
  • While Nvidia on Linux 'works well', it only does so if you're willing to accept closed-source proprietary drivers. For a lot of end-users' perspective this is acceptable: thus the vast majority of what few Linux systems there are are running with Nvidia GPUs (and I assume under proprietary drivers for at least recent GPU generations because who would pay the Nvidia premium only for it to be crippled by the lack of mode-setting in the open-source drivers?) In contrast I feel AMD is a much better example in the open-source driver space, even if it's only due to economic reasons (by allowing the community to contribute they effectively increase their developer resources). Besides, with Nvidia already dominating with their CUDA ecosystem, AMD can't really afford to compete with a proprietary system unless it's already compelling enough to draw existing CUDA users away.
  • Current AMD driver releases for Linux are only designed for Ubuntu kernel 5.4.x. If running a recent point release of Ubuntu 20.04, this may mean getting updated to kernel 5.8.x. Should just be a matter of removing the 'hwe' (hardware enablement kernel meta-packages) and reverting to the original 5.4.x kernel releases that 20.04 originally came with.
  • With assistance from MountKidd a few weeks back, I determined that 20.40 drivers don't work beyond Ubuntu kernel 5.4.0-54. 20.45 drivers do, however, as already mentioned, they replaced PAL-based OpenCL with ROCr (while 'legacy' OpenCL remains available for GPU generations before Vega).

That last point is a sticking point for me. While I can run Fiji with amdgpu-pro 20.45 and legacy OpenCL, Vega with amdgpu-pro 20.45 and ROCr-based OpenCL breaks all GPU processing for me. Not just for Einstein but for any BOINC-related processing. So I'm staying with amdgpu-pro 20.40 (and PAL-based OpenCL) for the time being, which also means I'm stuck on an older kernel. I've reported this to the AMD community and I understand it's been recorded as an issue in the developers' internal system, but I haven't seen any update as yet. My hope is that the next driver release may allow both BOINC GPU processing again even if it's with ROCr-based OpenCL (which I have not had any success with at all to date, even installing separately from amdgpu-pro).

Is anyone actually successfully running BOINC GPU processing under 20.45 drivers with ROCr-based OpenCL?

Soli Deo Gloria

Tom M
Tom M
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Wedge009 wrote: Is anyone

Wedge009 wrote:

Is anyone actually successfully running BOINC GPU processing under 20.45 drivers with ROCr-based OpenCL?

That is a very timely question.  Here is what my system is now reporting.

$ lsb_release -d
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 630 (Desktop 9 Series) (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev ef)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590] (rev ef)
0f:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600 XT / 5700/5700 XT] (rev c4)

uname -mrs
Linux 5.4.0-42-generic x86_64

The gpu driver folder name is: amdgpu-pro-20.45-1188099-ubuntu-20.04

According to my notes I installed the above Amd drivers with this command line: ./amdgpu-pro-install -y --opencl=rocr,legacy --headless

Foot notes.

1) I did install my Ubuntu 20 with the LAN cable unplugged.  I was using a flash drive with a known 5.4 kernel install.  I don't know if the current downloads of Ubuntu 20 still include kernel 5.4

2) I have disabled the update as completely as I can.  It reduces the # of nagging popups.

3) This time I am not getting repeated system error popups.

4) I have installed the Ubuntu repository version of Boinc Manager rather than Tbar's "All-In-One" distribution.

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)

Wedge009
Wedge009
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Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the feedback. That's very interesting that you are successful with Navi 10. I understand Ellesmere would be running on 'legacy' OpenCL, but Navi 10 would be running via ROCr. Have you noticed any significant change in run-times between PAL- and ROCr-based OpenCL? I wonder if you would still be running without apparent issue with only ROCr and Navi 10 installed.

BTW, kernel 5.8 was only introduced with Ubuntu 20.04.2, though you can always switch to kernel 5.4, as I have. I would advise against disabling updates even on Linux - there's a valid place for them.

For me, when I attempt to run ROCr-based OpenCL on Vega 20, I get immediate task errors a few seconds after starting. BOINC can recognise ROCr-based OpenCL, but generates this error for every Einstein GPU task:

Couldn't create OpenCL command queue (error: -6)!

I wonder if there's something odd where ROCr support for Navi 10 is working better than Vega 20.

Soli Deo Gloria

Tom M
Tom M
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And then "it" fell into the

And then "it" fell into the dreaded logon loop while I was migrating Rx 5700 gpus onto the box.

:(

I swapped out the HD for a "test" version of Windows 10 and am up again (finally).

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)

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