AMD APU A320 with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

[Dolk]

So I got my hands on a pretty rare AMD chip a while back, and I just placed in my Linux server. Now recently I had just updated my Linux system to 16.04 LTS, and keep it up to date with daily patches and the like. I'm wondering how hard it is going to be to get this chip to work correctly with hardware acceleration software like ffmpeg. So far I have found zero support of the chip on linux, or anyone mentioning they have used it in a linux environment. It is supported by AMD's Unified Linux Drivers up to 17.Q1.

Anyone have any experience with similar GPUs/APUs? Anyone know a good clean way to install it such drivers?

AMD SPEC: http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/workstation/firepro-3d/apu#
GPU SPEC: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1890/firepro-a320

Latest AMD Linux Unified Drivers Release Notes: http://www.techspot.com/drivers/driver/file/information/17741/

 

[Bluefalcon13]

So, long story short, AMD is a mess on Linux. For example, running AMD drivers mean an un-optimized for Ryzen scheduler. Running the newer kernels means not being able to run the AMD driver.

IIRC when 16.04 was released, only 200-series and newer AMD cards would be supported. These definitely ellipse that APUs GPU architecture, and you may want to consider running 14.04LTS. I believe it will still be getting security patches, just not feature updates. An alternative may be to run Debian Jesse and see what the AMD GPU support is like over there. Debian tends to lag a bit behind Ubuntu on kernels unless you run testing.

If I am remembering the problem with older AMD cards correctly, it had something to do with a change in the open source kernel component to the closed source kernel module. AMD lists Linux support for 11.04 (Ubuntu) which is ancient!

 

[Dolk]

Last night I did a lot of research and came to the same conclusion. Linux is just not stable and reliant for the parts I have, and worse, I'd have to downgrade to an older LTS. I want to really avoid that, I don't need a ransomware or some BS hacker coming in because of a security patch that missed my LTS.

Switching over to Windows Server 2016, because at least I know that I'll have security patches, and drivers that work at all times.

 

[Bluefalcon13]

Last night I did a lot of research and came to the same conclusion. Linux is just not stable and reliant for the parts I have, and worse, I'd have to downgrade to an older LTS. I want to really avoid that, I don't need a ransomware or some BS hacker coming in because of a security patch that missed my LTS.

Switching over to Windows Server 2016, because at least I know that I'll have security patches, and drivers that work at all times.

Fully understandable. It's quite unfortunate about the state of the AMD GPU drivers on Linux. Personally kinda wish I bought an Nvidia GPU these days... The RX480 is great, except the Linux support in conjunction with a Ryzen CPU :/

 

[Stratus_ss]

I'm both interested and saddened by this thread. Please keep us updated if you give linux another shot. To have to spend a significant cost to enable hardware is a shame, especially because of all the other great hardware enablement available in the linux kernel, although i dont give two hoots about the integrated gpu