radeon

Resources

radeon is a family of open source graphics drivers for older AMD/ATI Radeon graphics cards. Cards based on Graphics Core Next (GCN) 2.0 "Sea Islands" are also fully supported by the newer AMDGPU driver, which also features experimental support for GCN1.1 (Southern Islands). Neither this nor the AMDGPU article cover installation and configuration of the closed source drivers (see the next paragraph).

Be aware AMD has dropped the support for closed source fglrx drivers (called Catalyst on Windows). The fglrx drivers only work with certain versions of the X server. This is contrary to the open source drivers, which are now compiled against the system's currently installed kernel and X server.

Those interested in the new closed source AMDGPU-PRO drivers (called Crimson on Windows) should head over to the AMDGPU-PRO article.

Installation

Prerequisites

Hardware detection

To choose the right driver, first detect the graphics card. Use lspci for this task:

root #lspci | grep -i VGA

Feature support

Family	Chipset name	Product name	OpenGL	OpenGL ES	`VIDEO_CARDS`
R100⁶	R100, RV100, RV200, RS100, RS200	7xxx, 320-345	1.3	No	`radeon r100`
R200⁶	R200, RV250, RV280, RS300	8xxx-9250	1.4	No	`radeon r200`
R300	R300, R350, RV350, RV370, RV380, RS400, RS480	9500-9800, X300-X600, X1050-X1150, 200M	2.1	2.0	`radeon r300`
R400	R420, R423, RV410, RS600, RS690, RS740	X700-X850, X12xx, 2100	2.1	2.0	`radeon r300`
R500	RV515, R520, RV530, RV560, RV570, R580	X1300-X2300, HD2300	2.1	2.0	`radeon r300`
R600	R600, RV610, RV630, RV620, RV635, RV670, RS780, RS880	HD2400-HD4290	3.3	2.0	`radeon r600`
R700	RV770, RV730, RV710, RV740	HD4330-HD5165, HD5xxV	3.3	2.0	`radeon r600`
Evergreen	CEDAR, REDWOOD, JUNIPER, CYPRESS, PALM (Wrestler/Ontario), SUMO, SUMO2 (Llano), SUMO2 (Llano)	HD5430-HD5970, all HD6xxx not listed under Northern Islands, HD7350	3.3/4.2¹	2.0/3.2	`radeon r600`
Northern Islands	ARUBA, BARTS, TURKS, CAICOS, CAYMAN	HD6450, HD6570, HD6670, HD6790-HD6990, HD64xxM, HD67xxM, HD69xxM, HD7450-HD7670, HD8450, R5 230	3.3/4.5^1,2	2.0/3.2	`radeon r600`
Southern Islands³	CAPE VERDE, PITCAIRN, TAHITI, OLAND, HAINAN	HD7750-HD7970, HD8550M-HD8790M, R9 270, R9 280, R9 370X, R7 240, R7 250	4.6⁴	3.2	`radeon radeonsi`
Sea Islands⁵	BONAIRE, KABINI, MULLINS, KAVERI, HAWAII	HD7790, HD8180-HD8400, R7 260, R9 290	4.6⁴	3.2	`radeon radeonsi`

¹ OpenGL 4.2+ is currently only supported on CYPRESS, CAYMAN and ARUBA (non-mobile HD6xxx or better). Other chips are limited to OpenGL 3.3 due to lacking 64-bit arithmetic.

² OpenGL 4.5 requires sys-kernel/gentoo-sources 4.7 or higher.

³ There is experimental support for GCN1.1+ i.e. "Southern Islands" in the AMDGPU driver.

⁴ OpenGL 4.6 requires media-libs/mesa 20.0.0 or higher^[1]

⁵ The newer AMDGPU driver has full support for GCN2.0 "Sea Islands" and newer.

⁶ Mesa 22.0 and higher have dropped support for R100 and R200

If the card is not available in the above list the X.org wiki is a good place to look for the latest hardware.

Kernel

Depending on the card or the features desired, set the following kernel options.

General

KERNEL General support

Device Drivers  --->
    Graphics support  ---> 
        <*/M> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) --->
        <*/M> ATI Radeon
        [*] Enable modesetting on radeon by default

        -*- Support for frame buffer devices  --->
            < >   ATI Radeon display support

AMD "Zen" CPUs

If you have a recent AMD CPU with Secure Memory Encryption (SME), it should not be activated by default (Linux 4.14+). This feature is indicated by sme in flags of /proc/cpuinfo.

KERNEL General support

Processor type and features  --->
    [*/ ] AMD Secure Memory Encryption (SME) support
    [ ]     Activate AMD Secure Memory Encryption (SME) by default

AGP

For cards that sit in an AGP slot, enable the AGP driver:

KERNEL AGP cards

Processor type and features  --->
    [*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support
Device Drivers  --->
    Graphics support  --->        
        <*/M> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)  --->
            <*/M> AMD Opteron/Athlon64 on-CPU GART support

Audio

Some cards have the ability to output audio over the HDMI or DisplayPort connection. Set the following options for audio support:

KERNEL Audio support

Device drivers  --->
    <*/M> Sound card support  --->
        <*/M>   Advanced Linux Sound Architecture  --->
            [*]   PCI sound devices --->
                  HD-Audio  --->
                      <*> HD Audio PCI
                      (2048) Pre-allocated buffer size for HD-audio driver
                      [*] Support initialization patch loading for HD-audio
                      <*> whatever audio codec your soundcard needs
                      <*> Build HDMI/DisplayPort HD-audio codec support

Note
On kernels >= 3.9, Enable modesetting on radeon by default is implied by default.

The options from the Sound card support menu need only to be set if the card supports HDMI or DisplayPort audio and you want to use it. Other options there might be needed as well, e.g. don't set the number of soundcards too low, because even with one Radeon card alsa may detect more than one HDA ATI HDMI device, e.g.

root #aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC888 Analog [ALC888 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: ALC888 Digital [ALC888 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 10: HDMI 4 [HDMI 4]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 11: HDMI 5 [HDMI 5]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Firmware

Microcode (firmware) is required for R500 and newer GPUs. Install sys-kernel/linux-firmware (which also contains other firmware).

linux-firmware

USE flags

USE flags for sys-kernel/linux-firmware Linux firmware files

`+initramfs`	Create and install initramfs for early microcode loading in /boot (only AMD for now)
`+redistributable`	Install also non-free (but redistributable) firmware files
`bindist`	Flag to enable or disable options for prebuilt (GRP) packages (eg. due to licensing issues)
`compress-xz`	Compress firmware using xz (app-arch/xz-utils) before installation
`compress-zstd`	Compress firmware using zstd (app-arch/zstd) before installation
`deduplicate`	Create symlinks for all firmware that is duplicate using rdfind
`dist-kernel`	Enable subslot rebuilds on Distribution Kernel upgrades
`savedconfig`	Allows individual selection of firmware files
`unknown-license`	Install firmware files whose license is unknown

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2024-10-28 17:51 More information about USE flags

With packages like these, which introduce a number of non-free binary blobs into the system, if you are security aware, it pays to use the savedconfig use flag, and do some removing of the unnecessary lines, or better yet uncommenting them, from the respective savedconfig file. See "How to install the linux-firmware package in Gentoo" in External resources at bottom of this article.

However, savedconfig editing is entirely optional, those in a hurry may not want to take this route. The system will work the same, with or without the savedconfig editing.

Emerge

root #emerge --ask sys-kernel/linux-firmware

Built-in kernel

When radeon has been compiled directly into the kernel (instead of as a module), make sure the firmware for the model (check available ones in /lib/firmware/radeon) is built-in to the kernel as well:

KERNEL Enable support for Linux firmware

Device Drivers  --->
  Generic Driver Options  --->
    Firmware loader --->
       -*- Firmware loading facility
       (radeon/<YOUR-MODEL>.bin) Build named firmware blobs into the kernel binary
       (/lib/firmware) Firmware blobs root directory

Note
radeon/<YOUR-MODEL>.bin should be replaced with the full list (space separated) appearing in front of the chipset's name in the table below (e.g. for Northern Islands TURKS the correct entry into the kernel would be: (radeon/BTC_rlc.bin radeon/TURKS_mc.bin radeon/TURKS_me.bin radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin radeon/TURKS_smc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin)

If the kernel cannot find the required firmware, in dmesg output there can be something like this:

root #dmesg | less

…
[   11.413985] [drm] Loading R500 Microcode
[   11.413991] Loading firmware: radeon/R520_cp.bin
[   11.414074] radeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/R520_cp.bin failed with error -2
[   11.414085] radeon_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/R520_cp.bin"
[   11.414089] [drm:radeon_get_legacy_connector_info_from_table [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
…

Below is a list of the firmware files needed for each family/chipset of cards:

Family	Chipset name	Product name	Firmware
R500	RV515	X1300-1500	radeon/R520_cp.bin
R600	R600, RV610, RV630, RV620, RV635, RV670	HD2400-2900, HD3450-3870	radeon/R600_rlc.bin radeon/R600_uvd.bin
R600	RS780, RS880	HD3200, HD3300, HD4200	radeon/R600_rlc.bin radeon/RS780_uvd.bin radeon/RS780_pfp.bin radeon/RS780_me.bin
R700	RV710	HD4300, HD4500, HD5145	radeon/R700_rlc.bin radeon/RV710_smc.bin radeon/RV710_uvd.bin radeon/RV710_pfp.bin radeon/RV710_me.bin
	RV730	HD4600, HD5100, HD500V	radeon/R700_rlc.bin radeon/RV730_smc.bin radeon/RV710_uvd.bin radeon/RV730_me.bin radeon/RV730_pfp.bin
	RV740	HD4770	radeon/R700_rlc.bin radeon/RV740_smc.bin radeon/RV710_uvd.bin
	RV790, RV770	HD4730, HD4830-HD4890	radeon/R700_rlc.bin radeon/RV770_smc.bin radeon/RV770_uvd.bin
Evergreen	CEDAR	HD5450, HD6350, HD7350, R5 220	radeon/CEDAR_me.bin radeon/CEDAR_pfp.bin radeon/CEDAR_rlc.bin radeon/CEDAR_smc.bin radeon/CYPRESS_uvd.bin
	REDWOOD	HD5550, HD5570, HD5670	radeon/REDWOOD_me.bin radeon/REDWOOD_pfp.bin radeon/REDWOOD_rlc.bin radeon/REDWOOD_smc.bin radeon/CYPRESS_uvd.bin
	JUNIPER	HD5750, HD5770, HD6770	radeon/JUNIPER_me.bin radeon/JUNIPER_pfp.bin radeon/JUNIPER_rlc.bin radeon/JUNIPER_smc.bin radeon/CYPRESS_uvd.bin
	CYPRESS	HD5830, HD5850, HD5870, HD5970	radeon/CYPRESS_me.bin radeon/CYPRESS_pfp.bin radeon/CYPRESS_rlc.bin radeon/CYPRESS_smc.bin radeon/CYPRESS_uvd.bin
	PALM (Wrestler)	HD6250, HD6310, HD7310, HD7340	radeon/PALM_me.bin radeon/PALM_pfp.bin radeon/SUMO_rlc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
	SUMO	HD6290, HD6320, HD6480G, HD6520G, HD6620G	radeon/SUMO_me.bin radeon/SUMO_pfp.bin radeon/SUMO_rlc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
	SUMO2	HD6370D, HD6410D	radeon/SUMO2_me.bin radeon/SUMO2_pfp.bin radeon/SUMO_rlc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
Northern Islands	CAICOS	HD6450, HD64xxM, HD7450, HD8450, R5 230, R5 235, R5 235X	radeon/BTC_rlc.bin radeon/CAICOS_mc.bin radeon/CAICOS_me.bin radeon/CAICOS_pfp.bin radeon/CAICOS_smc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
	TURKS	HD6570, HD6670, HD7550M/7570M/7650M	radeon/BTC_rlc.bin radeon/TURKS_mc.bin radeon/TURKS_me.bin radeon/TURKS_pfp.bin radeon/TURKS_smc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
	BARTS	HD6790, HD6850, HD6870, HD67xxM	radeon/BTC_rlc.bin radeon/BARTS_mc.bin radeon/BARTS_me.bin radeon/BARTS_pfp.bin radeon/BARTS_smc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
	CAYMAN	HD6950, HD6970, HD6990, HD69xxM	radeon/CAYMAN_mc.bin radeon/CAYMAN_me.bin radeon/CAYMAN_pfp.bin radeon/CAYMAN_rlc.bin radeon/CAYMAN_smc.bin radeon/SUMO_uvd.bin
	ARUBA	HD7400D/G, HD7500D/G, HD7600D/G, HD7660D, HD8310G, HD8410G-HD8670G	radeon/ARUBA_me.bin radeon/ARUBA_pfp.bin radeon/ARUBA_rlc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin radeon/TAHITI_vce.bin
Southern Islands	CAPE VERDE	HD7750, HD7770, HD7870M, R7 250, R7 250X, R9 370X	radeon/verde_ce.bin radeon/verde_mc.bin radeon/verde_me.bin radeon/verde_pfp.bin radeon/verde_rlc.bin radeon/verde_smc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin radeon/TAHITI_vce.bin
	PITCAIRN	HD7800, R9 270X	radeon/pitcairn_ce.bin radeon/pitcairn_mc.bin radeon/pitcairn_me.bin radeon/pitcairn_pfp.bin radeon/pitcairn_rlc.bin radeon/pitcairn_smc.bin radeon/pitcairn_k_smc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin radeon/TAHITI_vce.bin
	TAHITI	HD7870 XT, HD7900, R9 280X	radeon/tahiti_ce.bin radeon/tahiti_mc.bin radeon/tahiti_me.bin radeon/tahiti_pfp.bin radeon/tahiti_rlc.bin radeon/tahiti_smc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin radeon/TAHITI_vce.bin
	OLAND	HD8550M-HD8790M, R7 240	radeon/oland_ce.bin radeon/oland_mc.bin radeon/oland_me.bin radeon/oland_pfp.bin radeon/oland_rlc.bin radeon/oland_smc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin
	HAINAN	HD8970M	radeon/hainan_ce.bin radeon/hainan_mc.bin radeon/hainan_me.bin radeon/hainan_pfp.bin radeon/hainan_rlc.bin radeon/hainan_smc.bin radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin
Sea Islands	BONAIRE	HD7790, R7 260, R7 260X	radeon/bonaire_ce.bin radeon/bonaire_mc.bin radeon/bonaire_me.bin radeon/bonaire_mec.bin radeon/bonaire_pfp.bin radeon/bonaire_rlc.bin radeon/bonaire_sdma.bin radeon/bonaire_smc.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin
	KABINI	HD8180-HD8400	radeon/kabini_ce.bin radeon/kabini_me.bin radeon/kabini_mec.bin radeon/kabini_pfp.bin radeon/kabini_rlc.bin radeon/kabini_sdma.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin
	KAVERI		radeon/kaveri_ce.bin radeon/kaveri_me.bin radeon/kaveri_mec2.bin radeon/kaveri_mec.bin radeon/kaveri_pfp.bin radeon/kaveri_rlc.bin radeon/kaveri_sdma.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin
	HAWAII	R9 290, R9 290X	radeon/hawaii_ce.bin radeon/hawaii_mc.bin radeon/hawaii_me.bin radeon/hawaii_mec.bin radeon/hawaii_pfp.bin radeon/hawaii_rlc.bin radeon/hawaii_sdma.bin radeon/hawaii_smc.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin
	MULLINS		radeon/mullins_ce.bin radeon/mullins_me.bin radeon/mullins_mec.bin radeon/mullins_pfp.bin radeon/mullins_rlc.bin radeon/mullins_sdma.bin radeon/BONAIRE_uvd.bin radeon/BONAIRE_vce.bin

USE flags

USE flags for x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati ATI video driver

udev Enable virtual/udev integration (device discovery, power and storage device support, etc)

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2024-09-25 02:32 More information about USE flags

Emerge

Portage uses the VIDEO_CARDS variable for enabling support for various graphics cards. Setting the VIDEO_CARDS variable to radeon (see the feature matrix above) then asking Portage to rebuild the @world set will pull in the correct driver for older radeon cards:

FILE /etc/portage/make.conf

VIDEO_CARDS="radeon"

Note
Glamor OpenGL 2D acceleration, which is enabled by default, should be disabled for R5xx and older cards.

After the values have been ask Portage to rebuild the changed USE flags in the @world set so the /etc/portage/make.conf change takes effect:

root #emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world

Configuration

Permissions

If the acl USE flag is enabled globally and elogind is being used (default for desktop profiles) permissions to video cards will be handled automatically. It is possible to check the permissions using getfacl:

user $getfacl /dev/dri/card0 | grep larry

user:larry:rw-

A broader solution is to add the user(s) needing access the video card to the video group:

root #gpasswd -a larry video

Note that users will be able to run X without permission to the DRI subsystem, but hardware acceleration will be disabled.

xorg.conf

The X server is designed to work out-of-the-box, with no need to manually edit X.Org's configuration files. It should detect and configure devices such as displays, keyboards, and mice.

However, the main configuration file of the X server is xorg.conf.

The X server can be forced to use desired driver with:

FILE /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/radeon.confExplicit radeon driver section

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "radeon"
   Driver      "radeon"
EndSection

Advanced configuration

Power management

Power management can be set in the sysfs filesystem as follows:

Check the current power method:

root #cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method

Change the power method:

The "dynpm" method dynamically changes the clocks based on demand. (not effective as of June 27, 2012)

root #echo "dynpm" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method

The "profile" method lets you set a profile on how the card should behave.

root #echo "profile" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method

Check the current profile:

root #cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

Change the profile:

Options for profile:

"default" no change of clock speeds
"auto" switches between "mid" and "high" power states based on the whether the system is on battery power or not. The "low" power state are selected when the monitors are in the dpms off state.
"low" forces the GPU to be in the low power state all the time. Note that "low" can cause display problems on some laptops; this is why auto does not use "low" when displays are active.
"mid" forces the GPU to be in the "mid" power state all the time. The "low" power state is selected when the monitors are in the dpms off state.
"high" forces the GPU to be in the "high" power state all the time. The "low" power state is selected when the monitors are in the dpms off state.

root #echo "low" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

Check the current GPU, Memory clocks and voltage (needs to have kernel debugfs enabled):

root #cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/radeon_pm_info

Note
With more than one monitor connected, the memory clock will always be on full speed.

Note
On APU chipsets, those settings have little to no effect and give inconclusive results.

Power Management with Linux Kernel 3.11, 3.12

Linux Kernel 3.11 introduces improved power management for some radeon cards, to activate it pass the parameter radeon.dpm=1 to the kernel.

Note
Performance APU GPUs can be rapidly increased by enabling this option, which allow them use profiles with maximum clocks.

Check the dynamic power management state

root #cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state

Change the dynamic power management state

root #echo "performance" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_state

Other valid options include "battery" and "balanced".

In order to verify that the new dynamic power management code is active check radeon_pm_info (see above), it should say something like:

uvd vclk: 0 dclk: 0

power level 0 sclk: 25000 mclk: 15000 vddc: 900 vddci: 950

Note
Using the new dynamic power management will disable the use of the power profiles mentioned above

Power Management with Linux Kernel >= 3.13

Linux Kernel 3.13 enabled dynamic power managment by default for a lot of video cards.

Check the current GPU, Memory clocks and voltage (needs to have kernel debugfs enabled):

root #cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/radeon_pm_info

Note
With more than one monitor connected, the memory clock will NOT be on full speed as it was before.

Power consumption when using multi-head / multi-monitor

When using more than one monitor at once, the power consumption of the graphics card increases up to additional 150% relative to its idle power consumption, because the memory clock switches to full speed (see above). This behavior causes a system using a Radeon HD6870 card to consume around 30 W of additional power when running in multi-monitor mode than in single-monitor mode. This behavior can be avoided by using power method "profile" instead of "dpm" and by forcing "profile" to "low".

Using power method "dpm" and setting a low power profile (i.e. "balanced") is sure possible but useless in this case. The "dpm" method does not allow to forcibly remain on a certain power preset, because it uses the internal GPU hardware to dynamically change the clocks and voltages depending on the current GPU load. As a result, the power consumption increases as soon as you activate a second monitor (because the GPU hardware wants it so).

Deactivate dpm first (Kernel >= 3.13) with an appropriate kernel commandline via GRUB at boottime:

FILE /boot/grub/grub.cfg

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="radeon.dpm=0"

Note
"dpm" is the default power management method since kernel 3.13, supported on R6xx and newer asics.

After rebooting the system to desktop, force the power profile to "low". (This can also be automated by creating a /etc/local.d/* script):

root #echo "low" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

Limitation: For my KDE/Plasma desktop environment this procedure will only work when the power profile level is assigned after KDE/Plasma has started. An automated command in /etc/local.d/*.start is not sufficient. The memory clock rises and remains high (like normal behavior).

Solution: Let KDE/Plasma do the job with its autostart feature.

Allow the user to change the power profile by giving him the appropriate privilege when booting. Create a file like the following:

FILE /etc/local.d/pm.start

chown <YourUser> /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

Add a startscript to KDE5/Plasma autostart:

FILE ~/.config/autostart/pm.sh

#! /bin/sh
echo low > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile
exit 0

Do not forget to make it executable:

user $ chmod +x ~/.config/autostart/pm.sh

You can check the result via kernel debugfs (see above) and it should be similar:

root #cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/radeon_pm_info

default engine clock: 900000 kHz
current engine clock: 99990 kHz
default memory clock: 1050000 kHz
current memory clock: 150000 kHz
voltage: 950 mV
PCIE lanes: 16

Benefit: After these changes, you may use as many monitors as possible without an increased power consumption of your system. Despite the fact that the GPU memory clock is constantly reduced there are still enough graphic resources left to render desktop effects, to play HD movies (also with USE="vdpau") and to do all the regular stuff to get your work done.

I recommend using two entries in GRUB (with and without DPM) and creating a startscript based on the value of /sys/module/radeon/parameters/dpm (0 = DPM off, 1 = DPM on), in order to automatically adjust the power management, based on the decision at boottime (single-head with DPM vs. multi-head without DPM).

Tuning

Warning
There are several options to tweak the radeon driver and some of these might break your desktop, so if you are uncomfortable with the console better stick to default.

Parameter	Application	Effect	Comment
radeon.pcie_gen2=1	kernel commandline	Run at PCI-E 2.0 speeds per default	Enabled by default since kernel 3.6
radeon.audio=1	kernel commandline	Enable HDMI audio on some cards	Enabled by default since kernel 3.13
radeon.dpm=1	kernel commandline	Enable dynamic power management on some cards¹	Enabled by default since kernel 3.13
R600_STREAMOUT=1	Environment variable	Enable the use of OpenGL 3.0/4.2 on some cards	Enabled by default since Mesa 8.0
R600_HYPERZ=1	Environment variable	Enable the use Hyper-Z on some cards	See Bugs: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75112
R600_TILING=1	Environment variable	Enable 2D Tiling on some cards (also needs the xorg.conf parameter set)	This option is probably activated by default, see man radeon
R600_SURF=1	Environment variable	Enable 2D Tiling on some cards (also needs the xorg.conf parameter set)
R600_GLSL130=1	Environment variable	Enable more features of the OpenGL 3.0 API	Enabled by default since Mesa 8.0
ColorTiling2D True	xorg.conf parameter	Enable 2D Color Tiling in conjunction with R600_TILING=1 and R600_SURF=1	This option is probably activated by default, see man radeon

Further driver parameters can be found via the command modinfo radeon. They are listed next to parm:. Add the prefix radeon. to use them (i.e. radeon.backlight=1).

Tuning with mesa from git

Mesa from git (=mesa-9999) offers a different way to tune the 3D driver. Use the environment variable R600_DEBUG with the following options

Parameter	Effect
help	List all of the configuration options

See mesa commit for more information.

Kernel parameters can be just added to the kernel commandline in grub.cfg or grub.conf.
Environment variables could be put into a file like /etc/env.d/99radeon to have them initialized during boot.
xorg.conf parameter are usual in the Device section for the card.
A full list of kernel parameters can be found here: X.Org Wiki - RadeonFeature
S3TC compression needed for some applications like most 3D games: media-libs/libtxc_dxtn

1) supported by Linux kernel 3.11

Monitoring

lm sensors can be used to monitor the cards temperature. It uses the I2C interface, which needs to be enabled in the kernel:

KERNEL Including radeon firmware

Device Drivers --->
   Graphics support --->
      <*> Support for frame buffer devices --->
         <*> ATI Radeon display support 
            [*] DDC/I2C for ATI Radeon support

Note
R6xx and newer radeons have an internal thermal sensor that is exposed by the driver on most cards that utilize it. On pre-r6xx hardware, the thermal sensor was an external i2c chip, so you need to choose and load the appropriate i2c hwmon driver.

Audio over HDMI

Audio through the HDMI port is available for some cards. Check the X.Org Wiki - Radeon Feature Matrix for the model family. A recent 3.x kernel may be needed.

If you are using a kernel older than 3.13, HDMI audio must be explicitly enabled using the kernel commandline paramater radeon.audio=1. In addition, ALSA typically does not use HDMI as the default audio, so one way to force this as the default is to add a config file:

FILE ~/.asoundrc

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave.pcm "hdmi"
}

which may be moved to /etc/asound.conf to make HDMI audio the system-wide default.

Another solution is to enable the pulseaudio USE flag, update the system and use pavucontrol to set the HDMI port as fallback (or use pavucontrol to change manually which application uses which audio port).

Multichannel LPCM

If you want to enjoy full 5.1 HDMI sound on your Gentoo rig try out anssi's HDMI audio patch as mentioned in the phoronix forums.

root #

cd /usr/src/linux

root #

wget http://onse.fi/files/atihdmi5.patch

root #

patch -p1 < atihdmi5.patch

root #

make && make modules_install && make install

Check the bootloader config to use the correct kernel and reboot.

mesa-amber for r100 and r200

With the introduction of Mesa 22, the classic driver was dropped from the main library^[2]. One way to restore acceleration is to use media-libs/mesa-amber.

First, unless there is another Radeon video card in the system (which is unlikely on such an old setup), disable llvm and video_cards_radeon USE flags in package.use for media-libs/mesa:

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/mesa-amber

media-libs/mesa -llvm -video_cards_radeon

Then, install mesa-amber:

root #emerge --ask media-libs/mesa-amber

This may or may not need further configuration.

Troubleshooting

Debug tools

It might be helpful to install the package x11-apps/mesa-progs, which provides the packages glxgears and glxinfo.

Glamor does not load

If you see errors like "glamor detected, failed to initialize EGL.", then try enabling USE="gbm egl gles2 llvm" in the mesa builds.

If you see errors like "Failed to link: error: fragment shader lacks `main'", then make sure the glamor package has been built with USE="-gles".

On cards that are supported by radeonsi (starting at Southern Island, see the feature matrix) make sure to not only specify "radeon" but also "radeonsi" as the driver.

Poor X server performance

If graphic performance (such as playing videos) is terrible, then make sure KMS Color Tiling is enabled. You can see this in your Xorg log:

[  3407.235] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Color Tiling: enabled
[  3407.235] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Color Tiling 2D: enabled
[  3407.235] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Pageflipping: enabled

If you see "no" instead of "enabled", then you'll have to look earlier in the log to see why it's been disabled. If glamor failed to load, see the previous troubleshooting item.

Trouble with integrated graphics (A8 or similar)

When having trouble getting an on chip integrated graphic core to work (strange visuals/black screen) the solution may be found in the motherboard's BIOS settings.

In some cases it appears the 'auto' settings don't work correctly, so make sure to explicitly enable the integrated graphics. In my case (MSI A88XM-E45 motherboard):

Settings > Advanced > Integrated Graphics Configuration > Initiate Graphics Devices - I changed this from 'auto' to 'Dual graphics'

Settings > Advanced > Integrated Graphics Configuration > Initiate Graphics Shared Memory - This then appeared which I gave a setting

After this all problems cleared up.

radeon_drv.so undefined symbol exaGetPixmapDriverPrivate

Problem:

X refuses to start.

Error Message:

symbol lookup error /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so undefined symbol exaGetPixmapDriverPrivate ...

xinit unable to connect to X server : Bad file descriptor.

Solution:

Reconfigure the Kernel, making ATI Radeon (CONFIG_DRM_RADEON) and Direct Rendering (CONFIG_DRM) load as a Module [M], as opposed to a built-in [*].

Bug trackers

External resources

References

↑ Mesa 20.0.0 Release Notes / 2020-02-19
↑ Mesa 22.0.0 Release Notes / 2022-03-09, mesa3d.org. Retrieved on October 19, 2022

[1] Mesa 20.0.0 Release Notes / 2020-02-19

[2] Mesa 22.0.0 Release Notes / 2022-03-09, mesa3d.org. Retrieved on October 19, 2022

[1]

[2]

radeon

Installation

Prerequisites

Hardware detection

Feature support

Kernel

General

AMD "Zen" CPUs

AGP

Audio

Firmware

linux-firmware

USE flags

USE flags for sys-kernel/linux-firmware Linux firmware files

Emerge

Built-in kernel

USE flags

USE flags for x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati ATI video driver

Emerge

Configuration

Permissions

xorg.conf

Advanced configuration

Power management

Power Management with Linux Kernel 3.11, 3.12

Power Management with Linux Kernel >= 3.13

Power consumption when using multi-head / multi-monitor

Tuning

Tuning with mesa from git

Monitoring

Audio over HDMI

Multichannel LPCM

mesa-amber for r100 and r200

Troubleshooting

Debug tools

Glamor does not load

Poor X server performance

Trouble with integrated graphics (A8 or similar)

radeon_drv.so undefined symbol exaGetPixmapDriverPrivate

Bug trackers

See also

External resources

References