Folding + AMD GPU + Linux = Impossible?!

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, NodCommander said:

Nope.

Thanks, but all this does not make any amount of sense to me. I see in your Terminal screenshot you have it opened in your Downloads folder. Okay, but where did you get the downloaded files from, the AMD site? I went there and downloaded the files meant for Ubuntu and tried to run the command you wrote from the Downloads folder, but the Terminal just responds with that it cannot find the file or directory. There seem to be at least one step missing in your written guide there.

Well let's start with what exact version of Ubuntu are you running right now? You can't install just any version of the driver became it WILL break things (speaking from experience).

[NodCommander]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

Well let's start with what exact version of Ubuntu are you running right now? You can't install just any version of the driver became it WILL break things (speaking from experience).

Right.

 

Ubuntu 19.10, Gnome 3.34.2

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, NodCommander said:

Right.

 

Ubuntu 19.10, Gnome 3.34.2

Hmn, I can't seem to locate a driver specifically for 19.10. It's possible the Ubuntu 18.04.3 driver will work but I haven't tested it and actually cannot test it because my system really hates 19.10 and I haven't found a fix for it.

 

When you download the driver you need to extract it.

Next open a terminal in the extracted folder.

Then run the installation command.

 

Before you go potentially ruining your install I would grab a spare drive and test the driver on 19.10. If it works as intended then perform the install on your main drive.

[Metallus97]

On 3/15/2020 at 1:46 AM, Windows7ge said:

OK here we go. I was going to help last night but the forum quite literally died. Now I've gotten this working on both 18.04.3 & 19.04 so it's my expectation that you should be able to get it going on 18.04.4 & 19.10.

 

NOTE: You may run into kernel/driver incompatibilities. If this happens you'll have to run an earlier kernel.

 

The most proper method of getting OpenCL going on Linux would be through ROCm. This is basically an open source development of the OpenCL driver. Unfortunately I've never gotten this working myself for BOINC. I do plan to test it again for Folding though so it could work here.

 

What I did get working is as I said, during the driver installation add the OpenCL argument:

./amdgpu-pro-install --opencl=legacy,pal

You can find other options using the help option:

 

 

 

It's also mentioned on the AMD website when you go to install the driver: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-lin-19-10-unified

 

 

 

All of this worked for me to getting BOINC working. I expect Folding should work under a similar enough principal which I will test on Ubuntu Server if ROCm fails me.

No matter what and wich version of Ubuntu I try I always get le problems with the AMD install script installing but saying this: https://community.amd.com/thread/228245 

The guy here was able to reboot and then install amd-dkms and stuff. My system blackscreens on next boot... have to reinstall the whole OS. Tired to

apt install amdgpu-dkms libdrm-amdgpu-amdgpu1 libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm2-amdgpu  

without a reboot, but that resulted in the same error...

PLZ help, I have a 290x. I dont care wich Ubuntu or Linux version I have to use, but would love to fold on Linux!

[Windows7ge]

47 minutes ago, Metallus97 said:

No matter what and wich version of Ubuntu I try I always get le problems with the AMD install script installing but saying this: https://community.amd.com/thread/228245 

The guy here was able to reboot and then install amd-dkms and stuff. My system blackscreens on next boot... have to reinstall the whole OS. Tired to

apt install amdgpu-dkms libdrm-amdgpu-amdgpu1 libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm2-amdgpu  

without a reboot, but that resulted in the same error...

PLZ help, I have a 290x. I dont care wich Ubuntu or Linux version I have to use, but would love to fold on Linux!

I know for a fact Ubuntu 18.04.3 will work with the Ubuntu 18.04.3 driver  on the main driver download page (will link later). HOWEVER the AMD  driver has not been updated to work with the latest Linux Kernel. You will need to deliberately downgrade the kernel to get the AMD driver to work on 18.04.3. From there it's just a matter of adding the opencl option to the installation executable.

 

In the coming days I will be testing this myself for folding. Should I find success I'll let you know.

[NodCommander]

10 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I know for a fact Ubuntu 18.04.3 will work with the Ubuntu 18.04.3 driver  on the main driver download page (will link later). HOWEVER the AMD  driver has not been updated to work with the latest Linux Kernel. You will need to deliberately downgrade the kernel to get the AMD driver to work on 18.04.3. From there it's just a matter of adding the opencl option to the installation executable.

 

In the coming days I will be testing this myself for folding. Should I find success I'll let you know.

It sounds a little complicated, how does one downgrade the kernel?

[Windows7ge]

3 hours ago, NodCommander said:

It sounds a little complicated, how does one downgrade the kernel?

It's a little bit of a process but not too bad. I don't have all the answers here but you can downgrade the kernel using programs like ukuu. Where I don't have answers is exactly how to force Linux to use the new kernel as I've have cases where Ubuntu saw the new kernel was there but wasn't booting with it. I ended up just using an older .ISO file I had on my file server.

 

The latest 18.04.3 driver I know will work with Ubuntu 18.04.3 running on the 4.15.0-88-generic kernel. May not have the latest security patches and features but I expect it should get you folding.