Re: No GRUB with brand-new GPU

[Linux-Fan]

Georgi Naplatanov writes:

On 12/27/20 12:19 AM, The Wanderer wrote:
> I have for some years been running Debian with an older model of AMD GPU
> (Radeon HD 6870) for graphics.
>
> I recently purchased a relatively recent model of GPU (Radeon RX 5700
> XT), and today swapped it in and attempted to boot with it.

[...]

> With the new GPU in place, I get video output during POST and in the
> BIOS (yes, this machine is old enough that it doesn't have a UEFI)
> without problems. That demonstrates that the GPU isn't dead on arrival,
> and that signal is getting through to the monitor on a basic level.

[...]

Curious, what machine does not do UEFI yet but still benefits from large GPUs such as the RX 5700?

> Any suggestions for what to try?

[...]

I'm not a hardware expert but I found the following on Internet:

 - the interface for this card is PCI-Express 4.0 and I guess that your
old computer doesn't support that

PCIe 4.0 is backwards-compatible (down to at least PCIe 3.0, possibly further).

 - BIOS Support - Dual UEFI - I'm not sure what this means but is it
possible this card not to be supported by non-UEFI systems ?

(Unsure on this)

[...]



* linux-image-5.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64
* firmware-amd-graphics



        $ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
        Section "Device"
                Identifier "AMD"
                Driver "amdgpu"
        EndSection



Here are some other suggestions:



        $ grep -E '(GFXMODE|TERMINAL)' /etc/default/grub
        #GRUB_TERMINAL=console
        #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480





HTH
Linux-Fan

öö

I have a RadeonPro W5500 which is also too new, to be supported on Debian stable out of the box. What I did to get it running for basic 2D graphics (enough for me most of the time) was to install the following packages from debian-backports: Additionally, I tried to enable amdgpu in xorg.conf, although I am not sure whether that is actually needed: This system is using UEFI to boot and I do not recall having the same issue (black screen) even before, though. As you mentioned GRUB not loading correctly, could there perhaps be an explicit graphics resolution configuration entry? I do not have any special configuration enabled there: Apart from a live system, it could already be helpful to boot a Debian installer to see if it can load a Linux if GRUB is not invovled. If that works (i.e. presents language selection screen), checking with a live system seems to be a reasonable next step. If you need the 3D accelleration performance (why buy an RX 5700 if not?), I'd suggest to setup a Debian testing environment for that. I managed to get some (fast enough for me) 3D accelleration working by creating a Debian sid chroot (testing did not have some dependencies I needed) and I can use it by logging in through TTY2 -> chroot -> startx. BUT: Please note that this setup is brittle -- dual-boot or testing-only configurations can be expected to run _more stable_ in this scenario :)

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