[amdgpu] [Fiji] Fedora 32 Linux kernel 5.7.x crashes

[MauryG5]

I doubt you will have the drivers available in a short time to be able to use big ships on Power ... For Navi 10/14 we had to wait a long time ...

[pocock]

Which drivers?

Something in the kernel or something in Xorg?

For some things, like OBS Studio, the code was there but nobody had created a package.  If it is a problem like that then it is very easy for me to make a package and put it in a repository.

If you can provide specific links to mailing list discussions or changelog entries that can help me understand the actual issues involved.

[pocock]

I found a Phoronix article about RX 6000 support on GNU/Linux

It looks like the issues are the same for every architecture, not only POWER9

Some things are already done, for example, the kernel 5.9 is in Fedora 33.  Debian stable-backports has 5.8 but sooner or later it will get 5.9.

The other things mentioned in the article (LLVM, GFX, Mesa) appear to be available in Debian unstable so it may be possible to simply run unstable or backport them to buster.

People can actually upgrade to Fedora 33, upgrade to Debian unstable or start running the newer kernel and/or preparing backports of these things before getting the RX 6000 series cards.  So you can see if everything else on your computer works normally with the new kernel and libraries before spending money on hardware.

Once you have all that software installed/upgraded, you may simply be able to insert the card and it works immediately, whether you are on x86 or POWER9

[MauryG5]

I hope that's how I tell you.  Before using Navi 10 we had to wait months and among other things they had to compile a custom kernel before it became usable in the official one.  In any case to date the Navi 10 problems on new kernels continue and they told me that it must be one of you Power developers who must find the problem because AMD doesn't even consider us ...

[pocock]

There are many bugs that are not so hard to fix.

Sometimes a bug that is only visible on one platform today reveals a quality issue that might cause future problems on other platforms.  Experienced developers usually know this and will be keen to resolve it if they have some hints from the people impacted by the bug.

It is related to the thread I started about having a critical mass of developers.  It is also a chicken-and-egg problem: the more developers tinkering with things on the platform, the more attractive it is for additional developers to join.

[MauryG5]

I also tried to write to Daniel Kolesa, he is one of the developers who deal with any Kernel fixes on Power, I hope he can tell me something about it ...

[ClassicHasClass]

He's here (q66).

[MPC7500]

He is mostly on IRC

[pocock]

I'm thinking about exchanging my Talos II for two of the Talos II Lite motherboards.  Then I could use one as my regular workstation and the other as both a test system and a spare.

If I do that then it will be much easier for me to test new GPUs and drivers and anything else that requires reboots, X server restarts and potential crashes.

[MauryG5]

Great, do you think that by doing this you would also be able to find this damn bug that has been haunting us for months now?

[ClassicHasClass]

I'm thinking about exchanging my Talos II for two of the Talos II Lite motherboards.  Then I could use one as my regular workstation and the other as both a test system and a spare.

If I do that then it will be much easier for me to test new GPUs and drivers and anything else that requires reboots, X server restarts and potential crashes.

I recommend something like this (or at least a test and a production system). My Blackbird serves as test so that I don't whack my daily driver.

[MauryG5]

Guys any news on Kernel 5.9.X on Fedora for Navi 10?  Will we ever get this damn bug fixed ?!

[pocock]

The best place to ask about the Fedora kernel is on the Fedora developer or kernel mailing list.

It is also a good idea to ask about the page size, I feel workstation users will have better results using the 4K page size.  That is what I use for everything I do now so it is harder for me to assist people using the 64k page size.  Maybe they can offer different permutations of the kernel package so each user can choose, just like Debian.

[MauryG5]

Pocock do you think there will be full support for Navi 10 in the next Debian 11?  Do you know anything about it?  What kind of Kernel will it use?

[pocock]

Interesting question, I was looking at that myself the other day.  I notice people just started working on packaging the 5.10 kernel so maybe that will be in Debian 11 by default.

llvm-11 and llvm-12 have both been packaged.

Mesa 20.2 is in unstable and 20.3-rc1 is in experimental.  I was able to build 20.3-rc1 on buster so I suspect it has a good chance of coming through to stable for Debian 11.