Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

Sempiternal-Futility · 2023-11-17 18:43:39

Im having a lot of bugs with amdgpu. So i decided to just use radeon.

However, I still need amdgpu when I play games (and radeon for everything else). However, swapping kernel parameters and rebooting takes a pretty time. Is there a way to do it without rebooting?

I already tried using modprobe for this: "modprobe --remove-dependencies radeon && modprobe -rf radeon", but this doesn't work. It seems like radeon is still in use (modprobe: FATAL: Module radeon is in use.) even though Im running the command on a tty. Also, if I run "lsof | grep radeon", the output is empty.

How could I use modprobe to remove radeon, and then use modprobe again to load amdgpu?

Last edited by Sempiternal-Futility (2023-11-17 18:46:31)

seth · 2023-11-17 20:37:29

Effectively "not" - if that's your only GPU.
(Certainly not w/o restarting your GUI session which likely is the brunt of the "rebooting" hassle anyway?)

Im having a lot of bugs with amdgpu. So i decided to just use radeon.

Some recent posts where actually more the other round.
What kind of "bugs with amdgpu"? Maybe it's easier to straighten those.

xerxes_ · 2023-11-17 21:03:38

You would have to end all graphical sessions: end X server/Wayland session(s), get away from graphical.target to multi-user.target: 'systemctl isolate multi-user.target', change amdgpu module to radeon or vice versa and return back to graphical.target, start graphical session...
You could try if that work but as day to day solution would it be comfortable?

seth · 2023-11-17 21:08:24

Even in the multi-user.target the console is gonna claim the device for KMS, https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … -rebooting

Sempiternal-Futility · 2023-11-20 19:54:00

Ok, So I just wrote a script to:

1- edit /etc/default/grub
2- run grub-mkconfig
3- reboot

It does all of these 3 steps automatically, so it's pretty quick

Last edited by Sempiternal-Futility (2023-11-20 19:55:58)

Sempiternal-Futility · 2023-11-20 19:55:21

Now, how do I mark this post as [SOLVED] or close it?

V1del · 2023-11-20 21:53:46

Edit the title in the first post (might have to shorten a little)

walkingstickfan · 2023-11-26 23:47:33

Sempiternal-Futility wrote:

Ok, So I just wrote a script to:
1- edit /etc/default/grub
2- run grub-mkconfig
3- reboot
It does all of these 3 steps automatically, so it's pretty quick

Thank you for sharing your solution. So, I'm assuming that this just refreshes the GUI/desktop to recognize the GPU driver switch. How are you switching the GPU drivers? Are you using modprobe?

seth · 2023-11-27 07:18:41

Fwwy, you could also have two different bootloader entries with the desired amdgpu/radeon parameters to steer the selection and call them "Archlinux/amdgpu" and "Archlinux/radeon" respectively, so you can skip the grub-mkconfig part. You just reboot and select what you want.

Edit: maybe even use https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB/T … _only_once

Last edited by seth (2023-11-27 07:20:21)

Arch Linux

#1 2023-11-17 18:43:39

Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#2 2023-11-17 20:37:29

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#3 2023-11-17 21:03:38

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#4 2023-11-17 21:08:24

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#5 2023-11-20 19:54:00

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#6 2023-11-20 19:55:21

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#7 2023-11-20 21:53:46

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#8 2023-11-26 23:47:33

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

#9 2023-11-27 07:18:41

Re: Is it possible to swap GPU drivers without rebooting?

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