Can Guix support Zen 2/AMD Ryzen?

Can Guix support Zen 2/AMD Ryzen?

[Jesse Gibbons]

Hi guix,
I built a guix image for a hardware enthusiast friend to try on his 
computers, in part to see how well/completely his more modern hardware 
would run guix and if it would be worth commissioning him to build me a 
computer. It successfully booted, but the screens turned blank and 
didn't show gdm. My friend tried this twice, and the same thing 
happened. He tried ctrl+alt+f{1..6} and didn't see anything (though he 
has a weird keyboard that requires him to hold a modifier key to enter 
any function key). He suggested it might be because his computer has a 
Ryzen CPU with the Zen 2 Architecture, which he knows might need to work 
around. Since it booted fine, I think it might be more related to his 
Nvidia GPU. Is there anything I can do, without resorting to proprietary 
solutions, to make a guix image with a desktop at least displays with 
his hardware?
-Jesse

Re: Can Guix support Zen 2/AMD Ryzen?

[jbranso]

I am kind of shooting from the hip here, others may be more knowledgeable than me, but here is my two cents.

As a general rule, any "brand new hardware" (except server grade hardware and Intel hardware) generally needs 3-6+ months before it has good Linux support.  So you may run into issues using the latest and greatest thing.

If you want a good GPU, then you might check out this: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nouveau-K2020-Low-End-Card   It's a $50 graphics card that works with the libre nvidia driver (nouveau).  I think you have to manually set the clock frequency though...All AMD graphics cards are virtually useless on the Linux libre kernel.  AMD has proprietary firmware, which Linux libre disables.  Nvidia is as bad.  I think the integrated graphics from Intel works fairly well with Linux libre.

I've also run into that booting issue.  I think there is a way to disable fancy graphics rendering during the installer, which is what I had to do, to get guix to run on my AMD APU a few years ago.  Maybe someone here can point out how to do that, because I'm blanking on the specifics.  

If you are trying to game on Linux libre, you will probably run into some issues.  :(

November 23, 2020 4:38 PM, "Jesse Gibbons" <jgibbons2357@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi guix,
> I built a guix image for a hardware enthusiast friend to try on his computers, in part to see how
> well/completely his more modern hardware would run guix and if it would be worth commissioning him
> to build me a computer. It successfully booted, but the screens turned blank and didn't show gdm.
> My friend tried this twice, and the same thing happened. He tried ctrl+alt+f{1..6} and didn't see
> anything (though he has a weird keyboard that requires him to hold a modifier key to enter any
> function key). He suggested it might be because his computer has a Ryzen CPU with the Zen 2
> Architecture, which he knows might need to work around. Since it booted fine, I think it might be
> more related to his Nvidia GPU. Is there anything I can do, without resorting to proprietary
> solutions, to make a guix image with a desktop at least displays with his hardware?
> -Jesse

Re: Can Guix support Zen 2/AMD Ryzen?

[Yasuaki Kudo]

Hi,

Not that I have any solution (sorry...) but a similar blackout happened when I removed the regular linux kernel (using nonguix channel) and tried the native Libre kernel for Guix, some months ago.  I immediately went back to the original Linux...

My PC has both Ryzen CPU and AMD video card.

Cheers,
Yasu


> On Nov 24, 2020, at 11:32, jbranso@dismail.de wrote:
> 
> I am kind of shooting from the hip here, others may be more knowledgeable than me, but here is my two cents.
> 
> As a general rule, any "brand new hardware" (except server grade hardware and Intel hardware) generally needs 3-6+ months before it has good Linux support.  So you may run into issues using the latest and greatest thing.
> 
> If you want a good GPU, then you might check out this: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nouveau-K2020-Low-End-Card   It's a $50 graphics card that works with the libre nvidia driver (nouveau).  I think you have to manually set the clock frequency though...All AMD graphics cards are virtually useless on the Linux libre kernel.  AMD has proprietary firmware, which Linux libre disables.  Nvidia is as bad.  I think the integrated graphics from Intel works fairly well with Linux libre.
> 
> I've also run into that booting issue.  I think there is a way to disable fancy graphics rendering during the installer, which is what I had to do, to get guix to run on my AMD APU a few years ago.  Maybe someone here can point out how to do that, because I'm blanking on the specifics.  
> 
> If you are trying to game on Linux libre, you will probably run into some issues.  :(
> 
> November 23, 2020 4:38 PM, "Jesse Gibbons" <jgibbons2357@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi guix,
>> I built a guix image for a hardware enthusiast friend to try on his computers, in part to see how
>> well/completely his more modern hardware would run guix and if it would be worth commissioning him
>> to build me a computer. It successfully booted, but the screens turned blank and didn't show gdm.
>> My friend tried this twice, and the same thing happened. He tried ctrl+alt+f{1..6} and didn't see
>> anything (though he has a weird keyboard that requires him to hold a modifier key to enter any
>> function key). He suggested it might be because his computer has a Ryzen CPU with the Zen 2
>> Architecture, which he knows might need to work around. Since it booted fine, I think it might be
>> more related to his Nvidia GPU. Is there anything I can do, without resorting to proprietary
>> solutions, to make a guix image with a desktop at least displays with his hardware?
>> -Jesse
> 

Re: Can Guix support Zen 2/AMD Ryzen?

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 02:31:47AM +0000, jbranso@dismail.de wrote:
> I've also run into that booting issue.  I think there is a way to
> disable fancy graphics rendering during the installer, which is what
> I had to do, to get guix to run on my AMD APU a few years ago.
> Maybe someone here can point out how to do that, because I'm
> blanking on the specifics.

The installer uses uvesafb to provide unaccelerated graphics, see

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2020-04/msg00320.html

Alternatively, here is the installer configuration file, so uvesafb is
only used when needed:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/system/install.scm

Regards,
Florian

Re: Can Guix support Zen 2/AMD Ryzen?

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

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On Tue, 24 Nov 2020 02:31:47 +0000
jbranso@dismail.de wrote:

> All AMD graphics cards are virtually useless on the Linux
> libre kernel.
Not all of them.

The issue is that I've been the only one working on making ATI/AMD GPUs
somewhat useful on linux-libre by making the radeon driver work:
- In contrast with the VESA driver and UEFI equivalent (efifb?),
  having the radeon driver working enables the right resolution, multi
  display, and probably some other features too that makes such GPUs
  much more usable.
- As I only worked around the lack of firmware, 3D still doesn't work.
  To work it would probably need someone to work on free firmwares.
- Like with nouveau, it depends on bytecode that is AFAIK nonfree and
  that probably contains code. That bytecode is in the video BIOS.
- I'm unsure of the status of video BIOS replacements for AMD/ATI GPUs,
  but AFAIK, like with Nvidia GPUs it's still an issue. Since it's
  useful to have a working display at boot (like in GRUB), it's a good
  idea to fix that too. I worked on doing that for Intel GPUs in
  Coreboot, along with other people that helped me, so it's possible.
  In addition GRUB (and probably radeonhd too) have some interesting
  code for some specific Radeons to init it without the bytecode and
  without the video bios AFAIK.

Since I don't have infinite time nor all the GPU families, and that
linux-libre requires patches to be tested before merging them, I didn't
add the GPU I don't have. I also don't have much time anymore for doing
that kind of work.

There is more information about this issue on the linux-libre wiki[1],
including a howto on how to add support for your GPU in linux-libre.

The amdgpu driver requires a bit more work, I started working on it by
helping someone on the linux-libre mailing list but it took me too much
time so I had to stop working on it.

References:
-----------
[1]https://libreplanet.org/wiki?title=Group:Hardware/research/gpu/radeon

Denis.

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