HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

It seems that a lot of GPU problems revolve around specific versions of drivers. Though AMD has their own support structure, you can often learn from information reported by others who fold.

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qwertz
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2020 5:38 pm

HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by qwertz »

Hi,

after some struggling, I finally got my setup running with GPU. This setup includes:
  • A PC running Debian Linux Version 10 (Codename buster)
  • A AMD Radeon RX 550 Graphics card
I wanted to use Open Source drivers, so I installed rocm, as explained in https://rocm-documentation.readthedocs. ... Guide.html. I did not try proprietary AMD drivers, so I can say nothing about them. I checked it was working by running "clinfo".

I also installed FAH as explained in https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/i ... des/linux/.

Initially FAH worked, but did not use the GPU. So I did the following:
  • Add the user fahclient to the group render by running "adduser fahclient render" on a console as root. It is required to access the GPU, but it is not done by default (FAH 7.5.1).
  • restart the fahclient outside of systemd

    Code: Select all

    systemctl stop FAHClient.service
    /etc/init.d/FAHClient start
    Surprisingly, this made a difference. I do not know why.
  • configure the GPU slot with opencl-index=0
  • and most important: wait for the latest rocm update! (rocm-dkms version 3.3.0-19, early April 2020)
Then I just needed to verify that FAHControl "System Info" detects the OpenCL Device and finally run folding. :D

I hope this will help some of you in getting started.

(see also viewtopic.php?f=83&t=32226)
Last edited by qwertz on Thu Apr 23, 2020 5:06 am, edited 3 times in total.
muziqaz
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Re: HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by muziqaz »

Awesome stuff, thank you for your effort. Hopefully it will be helpful for other using Linux and AMD GPUs :)
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toTOW
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Re: HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by toTOW »

Thread pinned, unless some one complains that it didn't work for him ... ;)
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Re: HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by Rainmaker »

Nice! I'm still battling freezes that I think are attributable to the current proprietary AMD OpenCL driver, as they only happen on Linux not Windows (which runs different versions). Just a question: Did you install rocm-dkms or did you opt to use upstream kernel drivers (as outlined in the install guide you linked)?
qwertz
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2020 5:38 pm

Re: HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by qwertz »

Rainmaker wrote:Nice! I'm still battling freezes that I think are attributable to the current proprietary AMD OpenCL driver, as they only happen on Linux not Windows (which runs different versions). Just a question: Did you install rocm-dkms or did you opt to use upstream kernel drivers (as outlined in the install guide you linked)?
Right, I was not precise. I followed the Ubuntu instructions with rocm-dkms, not the Upstream Kernel Drivers.
holstien
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Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:02 pm

Re: HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by holstien »

Hopefully more success stories follow. I have been using the proprietary drivers without issue, but they are so painful to get installed and working.
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braiam
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Re: HOWTO: AMD Radeon RX 550 on Debian 10 with rocm driver

Post by braiam »

I did the same. But instead I edited the init file so that it uses root user instead. viewtopic.php?f=106&t=34231
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