Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

BJSerpas · 2013-04-17 09:22:39

Short version:
I have an older AMD graphics card that won't work right with the open source drivers. The proprietary driver would potentially fix my problems, but it is incompatible with my current system.

Long version:
I've got this lovely old AMD Graphics card, which happens to be a Radeon HD 4250 card, and despite all of the help articles in the wiki, as well as the AMD Bar & Grill thread, I still can't get the darn thing to work properly. As of right now, I'm currently using the open-source xf86-video-ati driver. While it's a nice driver that performs well for day-to-day things, I can't seem to get the more nitpicky things working properly. One such thing, is HDMI Audio support.

Now don't go and bite my head off just yet: yes, I did read the help articles for that problem as well. I must have tried every possible fix in them, and then some. Video-out through HDMI works, at least. It's only when I try to force the audio (by adding radeon.audio=1 to GRUB) when my TV tells me it can't recognize the signal. Through all of this extensive trial-and-error, I've basically concluded that I have no other choice but to use the proprietary fglrx driver from AMD. Yay.

Sure, sounds easy enough, right? Not really...
Since my card is a bit older than the others, my only option is to use the 12.6 legacy version of the driver, which only supports Xorg version 1.12 and lower, as well as version 3.4 or lower of the Linux kernel. As most of us know, with Arch Linux being the bleeding-edge distro as it is, I currently run Xorg version 1.14 with Linux kernel 3.8. I've searched around for a possible way to downgrade both of these to the appropriate versions, but I've gotten more or less the same answer: downgrading is more trouble than it's worth.

SO.... that brings me to this:
I think I need to completely reinstall Arch Linux from the ground-up, once more. This time, however, I think I need to somehow tell it to install with older versions of both Xorg and the Linux kernel. This way, fglrx has no reason to be incompatible with my system, and I can finally quit fighting this problem and go on with my life. I'm not quite sure how to go about doing this (or if it's possible, for that matter), but that's why I'm here, and I'm definitely willing to try it in order to get this solved once and for all.

Of course, this is just my theory of how to fix this, but if anyone thinks they can help me get the open source drivers to behave properly, please, be my guest.
Either way, any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

P.S.
I wasn't sure what terminal outputs anyone may have needed for this, so if someone needs to see a particular output from the terminal, just ask.

Last edited by BJSerpas (2013-04-27 22:04:24)

jasonwryan · 2013-04-17 09:30:41

BJSerpas wrote:

I think I need to somehow tell it to install with older versions of both Xorg and the Linux kernel.

Arch is the wrong distro for this approach...

Why not go with Debian where you can just install and walk away?

Lone_Wolf · 2013-04-17 10:17:36

Radeon HDMI Linux Audio Might Be Restored Soon

Have you tried running with one of the mesa-git packages in aur ?

as for xorg 1.12 : there's an unofficial repo for that, see the catalyst wiki page for details.
for the kernel you could switch to the lts-kernel which is version 3.0.x now i think

drcouzelis · 2013-04-17 13:03:08

Well, according to the official radeon open source driver website, HDMI audio out from your r700 card is supported. Have you posted a bug report?

BJSerpas wrote:

I've got this lovely old AMD Graphics card, which happens to be a Radeon HD 4250 card

You completely surprised me by your definition of an "old graphics card".

BJSerpas · 2013-04-17 15:30:38

jasonwryan wrote:

BJSerpas wrote:
I think I need to somehow tell it to install with older versions of both Xorg and the Linux kernel.
Arch is the wrong distro for this approach...
Why not go with Debian where you can just install and walk away?

I guess I could do that, but I've tried Debian one before, and I just didn't like it. At least with Arch Linux, I know where everything is, and if I break something, I know exactly what it is I did to break it. I just figured that Arch would be the right distro for this, given that you have to build it yourself. I'll keep Debian in mind, though. I want to try something with Arch first.

drcouzelis wrote:

Well, according to the official radeon open source driver website, HDMI audio out from your r700 card is supported. Have you posted a bug report?
BJSerpas wrote:
I've got this lovely old AMD Graphics card, which happens to be a Radeon HD 4250 card
You completely surprised me by your definition of an "old graphics card".

Yeah, well it's not really old, but I only said that because AMD doesn't officially support it anymore. So as far as they are concerned, it's old. Still, I'm glad you said that. I thought the open source driver didn't support HDMI audio for my somewhat-old card. This is something else to look in to.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Radeon HDMI Linux Audio Might Be Restored Soon
Have you tried running with one of the mesa-git packages in aur ?
as for xorg 1.12 : there's an unofficial repo for that, see the catalyst wiki page for details.
for the kernel you could switch to the lts-kernel which is version 3.0.x now i think

I haven't tried running with one of the mesa-git packages, so I'll go ahead and try that first. If that doesn't work, I'll try my luck with downgrading Xorg from AUR and switching to a lower kernel. It is a fresh install, and all of my files are on a separate partition, so I guess it couldn't hurt. Too much.

BJSerpas · 2013-04-18 04:50:00

So I'm having a few issues here.
I went ahead and tried installing the mesa-git package first, but found that I was unable to build it. In order to build it, I needed to meet a dependency for a LLVM that worked with my card.
This is from the makepkg that I ran in order to build mesa-git:

configure: error: LLVM 3.3 or newer is required for r600g and radeonsi.
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
    Aborting...

So I went ahead and cloned it from git://people.freedesktop.org/~tstellar/llvm master, and then configured it with

sudo ./configure --enable-experimental-targets=R600

and got no errors. When I went to make the actual package, I got a whole slew of errors. I don't know if the log is actually necessary, so I'll just spare everyone a wall of text and put it in a pastebin.

So, moving on to plan B. Not much to this one: basically, I added the Xorg112 repo as found in the wiki, added the GPG key for it, and ran this:

sudo pacman -S xorg112/xorg-server

This had a sort-of catch-22 to it. I was told that "xorg-server and xf86-input-evdev are in conflict," and was asked to remove it. Okay, sure, why not? Well, when pacman got further in the process, I was told that I needed xf86-input-evdev in order to continue. Not quite sure what to do with that one.

This is where I am so far. Haven't gotten to switching kernels just yet. Let me know if I need to provide more info.
Also, probably should have said this earlier: you guys are awesome! Three replies in little more than a day? My post on the Linux Mint forums is still there from a week ago collecting dust. The community here is great.

Lone_Wolf · 2013-04-18 13:08:18

the out of tree llvm from tstellar is no longer compatible with mesa git master, guess the mesa-git package hasn't been updated recenlty.
you need llvm-amdgpu-svn , 1 of my packages in aur.

Instead of mesa-git, try my mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git .
I didn't mention it before, because it uses several 'experimental' configure flags and not everyone likes that.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2013-04-18 13:08:43)

cookies · 2013-04-18 13:22:18

BJSerpas wrote:

I was told that "xorg-server and xf86-input-evdev are in conflict," and was asked to remove it. Okay, sure, why not? Well, when pacman got further in the process, I was told that I needed xf86-input-evdev in order to continue. Not quite sure what to do with that one.

The xorg-server package in the extra repo needs xf86-input-evdev from the extra repo to work. The xorg-server package from the Xorg112 repo needs xf86-input-evdev from the Xorg112 repo.

BJSerpas · 2013-04-26 02:28:45

Ok, so I've been able to try a few things. First off, I attempted to downgrade Xorg and switch to the lts kernel, which ended up being a big mistake. It turns out that the ls kernel isn't compatible with the proprietary drivers, so when I installed it, I had no display. That caused a lot of issues, so I decided to go ahead and reinstall arch after that.
After that, I installed the packages that you recommended, Lone_Wolf. I managed to successfully install the radeon version of mesa-git, but unfortunately, it is not compatible with the ati-dri package. As a result, I currently have no display. I looked for a package similar to ati-dri in the AUR, but I could not find one.

In fact, I'm on the forums right now using the text-only lynx browser.

Lone_Wolf · 2013-04-26 09:44:12

BJserpas,

official mesa is a split package, but my mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git combines all that is needed in 1 package.

In short, mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git has ati-dri and mesa-libgl functionality built-in.
Just say yes to removal questions for mesa-libgl and ati-dri and it will work.

When you want to switch back to official mesa, do so by installing ati-dri . that will pull in mesa and mesa-libgl.

P.S.

If you look in the PKGBUILD, you'll see long provides/conflicts lines.
Those are there to make sure mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git is a drop-in replacement for official split mesa package.

BJSerpas · 2013-04-27 20:39:18

Lone_Wolf wrote:

BJserpas,
official mesa is a split package, but my mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git combines all that is needed in 1 package.
In short, mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git has ati-dri and mesa-libgl functionality built-in.
Just say yes to removal questions for mesa-libgl and ati-dri and it will work.
When you want to switch back to official mesa, do so by installing ati-dri . that will pull in mesa and mesa-libgl.
P.S.
If you look in the PKGBUILD, you'll see long provides/conflicts lines.
Those are there to make sure mesa-r300-r600-radeonsi-git is a drop-in replacement for official split mesa package.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with your package. I was actually changing out my display manager earlier, and forgot to enable it at startup. Silly mistake.

Moving on, even though my display works just fine, I still can't seem to get audio working over HDMI. Nothing I've read by searching the forums or the wiki helps, either.

BJSerpas · 2013-05-02 19:27:58

Unfortunately, despite all of the new packages on my system, I can confirm that adding "radeon.audio=1" to the Kernel Command Line at boot does not work.
By doing so, I get no picture on my TV, and my TV tells me the following:

This TV does not support the output format, video resolution and/or refresh rate being sent by the connected device.

However, if I do not boot with radeon.audio=1 I will get a picture on my TV, only without sound.

I really can't understand what's going on here. My video card is under the list of supported devices for the open source driver, with HDMI audio reported as functional. Why is my computer any different?

Lone_Wolf · 2013-05-04 11:00:26

It looks like sofar all efforts have been focused on the video driver, perhaps the problem is not in that part of the system ?

Which HDMI versions do card, tv and hdmi cable provide/support ?

Are you using alsa, pulseaudio , oss for sound system ?

for a pure alsa system, post the output of aplay --list-devices --list-pcms
check in alsamixer the hdmi is not muted (just in case).
Try aplay --device=name_of_hdmi_device /path/to/some/soundfile

BJSerpas · 2013-05-08 03:16:34

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Which HDMI versions do card, tv and hdmi cable provide/support ?

I'm not quite sure what HDMI version the TV has. It's a Magnavox 32ME402V 32" HDTV, if it's relevant. Same goes for the laptop. It's a Pavilion dv6-3025dx laptop, but I have no ide what version of HDMI it's currently running. I'd suspect both of them are running something along the lines of 1.3 or 1.4, but I don't know. The cable is, well, a cable. I know it's a Sony brand cable, and the box advertised it for the PS3, though the box doesn't specify an HDMI version either.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Are you using alsa, pulseaudio , oss for sound system ?

As of right now, I've been sticking with alsa. I think pulseaudio is installed, but everything is set to use alsa.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

for a pure alsa system, post the output of aplay --list-devices --list-pcms

Here you are:

# aplay --list-devices --list-pcms
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)
sysdefault:CARD=SB
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=SB,DEV=0
    HDA ATI SB, STAC92xx Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=0
    HDA ATI HDMI, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Lone_Wolf wrote:

check in alsamixer the hdmi is not muted (just in case)

No, it's not muted. When I check the HDMI device, it's set to 00 and I have no option of changing it. It's just stuck to that.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Try aplay --device=name_of_hdmi_device /path/to/some/soundfile

Yeah, I've tried that. It doesn't play out to the TV, but if I set the device to my laptop speakers, the sound test works (unsurprisingly).

Lone_Wolf · 2013-05-08 13:08:15

Well, cables and hdmi connectors should be ok then, especially since you do get video output from them.

No, it's not muted. When I check the HDMI device, it's set to 00 and I have no option of changing it. It's just stuck to that.

So it is detected properly.

default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)

This suggest that you do run pulseaudio as sound system.
check pacman -Qi pulseaudio to verify, on a pure alsa system that comes back empty.

The problems MIGHT have to do with pulseaudio, so i suggest you remove that.
Gnome (and maybe cinnamon) has pulseaudio as a hard dependency, other WM/DE can work with either pulseaudio or alsa.

After removal of pulseaudio try again.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2013-05-08 13:08:31)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-04-17 09:22:39

Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#2 2013-04-17 09:30:41

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#3 2013-04-17 10:17:36

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#4 2013-04-17 13:03:08

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#5 2013-04-17 15:30:38

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#6 2013-04-18 04:50:00

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#7 2013-04-18 13:08:18

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#8 2013-04-18 13:22:18

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#9 2013-04-26 02:28:45

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#10 2013-04-26 09:44:12

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#11 2013-04-27 20:39:18

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#12 2013-05-02 19:27:58

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#13 2013-05-04 11:00:26

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#14 2013-05-08 03:16:34

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

#15 2013-05-08 13:08:15

Re: Need assistance with AMD drivers (HDMI Audio Out)

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