Question 2013 AMD D500 drivers for Linux, anyone?

[Konan1024]

I was given a really nice Mac Pro 6.1 (Trash Can) that is too pretty and powerful to waste. I remember that Mac users hated it for various reasons but it has an Intel Xeon 12 core processor, 64 gb of Ram and a 500gb NVMe drive. Totally quiet and with lots of horsepower, it should make a fine Linux system.

And it does, except for the GPUs. I have no intention of using the pair of video cards for what they were intended, needing only the CLI screen and an occasional XFCE session for my trivial perl and python coding. Just put some pixels on the screen please - all I need.

I found a generic GPU driver that works, but the system still nags in the log at every boot time and apt-get upgrade that I am missing firmware. The problem is that I can't find the original drivers for the D300, D500, and D700 cards. They were pulled from the Debian repositories several years back. Amd is no help and neither is searching the net, so far.

Anybody got a clue as to where such might be found?

 

[helpstar]

did you try this one?

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-prorad-lin-amdgpupro

maybe the latest post of this thread can help:

[amdgpu-pro] Apple Mac Pro 6,1 running Ubuntu 16.04 (purple blank screen on boot)

Hi, I installed and am successfully dual booting Ubuntu 16.04 on my Apple Mac Pro 6,1 (note, NOT MAC BOOK PRO, but mac pro -> http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-pro/) After installing, I have the purple screen of death but unlike a Windows BSOD, the system is working (just no video). I am able...

ubuntuforums.org

 

[Konan1024]

did you try this one?

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-prorad-lin-amdgpupro

maybe the latest post of this thread can help:

[amdgpu-pro] Apple Mac Pro 6,1 running Ubuntu 16.04 (purple blank screen on boot)

Hi, I installed and am successfully dual booting Ubuntu 16.04 on my Apple Mac Pro 6,1 (note, NOT MAC BOOK PRO, but mac pro -> http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-pro/) After installing, I have the purple screen of death but unlike a Windows BSOD, the system is working (just no video). I am able...

ubuntuforums.org

Yes. As to the first, the target is Ubuntu (or Redhat), but obviously should work just fine on straight Debian. However, in their wisdom, AMD has included checks to abort if they do not find a "supported distribution." The installation script is humongous - by far the largest that I have seen for one driver set, and trying to read though it to find the kernel, so to speak, is nothing but frustration. And the number of libraries that it calls for it unbelievable - pages of them, so just a hunt and try install is very unlikely to work. And, if their code to support one driver set is so bloated as to look like the source for some major OS, I am not sure I want it on my machine.

For the second, that is what I am hunting for. Those are the drivers that got removed from Debian a few years back. It has been suggested that I load some old version, like Jessie, then upgrade from there. Haven't tried that yet.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Have you tried the open source Gallium drivers? That's where most, if not all, AMD driver development moved ages ago.

 

[Konan1024]

I might have the problem solved. Just for a test, I installed Ubuntu and it went on without issue. It has been working for a couple of days without a hiccup. I am not a fan of Ubuntu and their attempts to push Linux in the direction they think it should go, but I will say they are not Microsoft, shoving it in your face no matter how many times you click no.

And since Ubuntu is Debian derived, with a judicious use of Systemctl commands and a few utilities, it can be un-Ubuntuized fairly readily. As I said, it is a really nice looking and (now) nice working Linux box - as long as the need to plug in PCI cards doesn't arrive.

However, except for the power of the 12 core Xeon, it can't hold a candle to the old CheeseGrater Mac Pro. That box is a Linux dream-machine.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

You might give Arch or Gentoo a try. If you don't mind fiddling with build flags, config files and compiling everything from scratch Gentoo will squeeze every ounce of performance out of that system. The learning curve however looks more like a 5000ft sheer vertical to a beginner.

 

[Konan1024]

I did Gentoo years (and years) ago when I was learning Linux. Unfortunately, I was stuck out in the rural sticks with a 26k dialup line which would have taken about a century to download the sources. I would download during the day at work, then take it home on diskette. A lot of fun back then. And you can learn a lot by building from scratch.

But, these days, I am far more of a use it than hack it geek. I just need a solid machine to do my hobby programming.

 

[Konan1024]

Update:
Linux Mint also works and apparently delivers a good set of drivers. And again, like Ubuntu, it is Debian derived so all the fluff can be culled to get back to a standard Debian system.

 

[Konan1024]

Another update

I have discovered that if I install Debian Bookworm and select a GUI on the first pass, the install works and so does the machine, apparently. To find if it was an anomaly, I went back and forth several times. Install with bare minimums, then with a desktop selected. It always fails with a bare install, and always works with a desktop selected. Obviously some driver is getting installed in the second case that is missing in the first, but I have been unable to figure out which. Have almost become crosseyed from comparing grep outputs from both cases, and without finding a diffrence.

Interestingly, even when the bare install works long enough to install XFCE4 manually, it still fails eventually (Total lockup, no log).

Not a big deal, since anything can be removed afterwards to get back to a bare system, but I would like to find out just what is the missing key.