Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

walteweiss · 2023-07-30 09:00:09

I have a GPU that works on Windows, but doesn’t work on Linux. I tried Arch Linux, Fedora Workstation 38 and Silverblue, Ubuntu 23.04.

I would like someone to help me investigate the issue, since I was under the impression that a Radeon GPU would work out-of-the-box, and all my other Radeon GPUs worked very well with various Linux distros.

(I’m not a newbie, but as

I’m having a hard time formulating this issue
and I believe it’s something obvious I could miss,

I think it may belong to the newbie corner.)

Hardware

GPU: Asus Radeon HD 6450 Silent, 1 Gb. Detailed info on techpowerup.com: ASUS HD 6450 Silent Low Profile 1 GB, EAH6450-SILENT/DI/1GD3(LP)
CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6300 (2) @ 1.86 GHz
Motherboard: Asus P5V-VM Ultra

Other Linuxes

Fedora worked, but only in Safe Graphics Mode.

I tried to install Fedora (both Workstation 38 and Silverblue), with no success in the standard graphical installer.

I succeeded with the Workstation in Safe Graphics Mode and didn’t with the Silverblue in Safe Graphics Mode (which was in console for some reason). After installing Fedora in Safe Graphics Mode, I found out the installation in Safe Graphics Mode as well. I couldn’t find how to change that, as I’m less experienced with Fedora and Arch is more familiar for me. So I have Arch installed right now.

Arch

I prefer swaywm, and I tried river and Gnome with no success.

Some notes

any OS shows its correct model and information, but it works only in Windows 10, not any Linux I’ve tried
the display attached to the GPU outputs information
when I take the GPU off the motherboard, and connect the display cable to the motherboard (where I don’t have an iGPU, as it’s Core2Duo), it outputs the graphics in TTY and during the BIOS’ boot process. But when I start any DE, it tells me it cannot find a GPU. When the GPU is connected, it shows other errors. I assume Linux sees the GPU, and it works, but there are issues to be addressed. I don’t understand whether that’s some proprietary driver I ought to install (which I don’t want to, if possible).
I thought of testing the system with other GPUs I have, but I’m pretty sure they won’t have any issues, as they already work with Linux pretty much out-of-the-box. I had an impression any Radeon GPU, especially a relatively new one, is a nice choice for a computer for basic browsing activity. In this context, a 10-years old GPU is not old or obsolete.
I assume I don’t need Wiki’s AMD page, as my GPU is from April 2011

I have no idea what to do next. Shouldn’t it work with the default open-source kernel driver? Do I need to install a proprietary one?

Windows

I’ve installed Windows on the machine, just to test it out. I didn’t test it thoroughly, but it works. The thing is, I don’t need (and want) Windows for that very machine, as it’s for very basic occasional browsing activity. But if the test with Windows is successful, and it’s impossible to use Linux with that GPU, I’m forced to use Windows till I buy another GPU.

----

But at first, I’d like to understand what I can do in this situation and hopefully learn some things.

Extra information:

1. Errors:

1.1. Staring swaywm (I type `sway` from tty), I get a black screen. I press Super+Enter (which opens a terminal in a standard config) and type `sway exit` and I’m back to tty. These errors are output:

[walter@c2d-pc ~]$ sway
2023-07-20 21:13:24 - [swaybg-1.2.0 main.c:293] Found config * for output VGA-1 ((null) (null))
Environment variable $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP not set, ignoring.

warn: wayland.c:1454: fractional scaling not available
warn: wayland.c:1462: no server-side cursors available, falling back to client-side cursors
 err: wayland.c:1903: failed to flush wayland socket: Broken pipe
 err: wayland.c:1347: failed to read events from the Wayland socket: Broken pipe
 err: wayland.c:1938: failed to roundtrip Wayland display: Broken pipe
 err: wayland.c:1938: failed to roundtrip Wayland display: Broken pipe
 err: wayland.c:1938: failed to roundtrip Wayland display: Broken pipe
warn: terminal.c:1798: slave exited with signal 1 (Hangup)
 err: wayland.c:1903: failed to flush wayland socket: Broken pipe

or another one almost the same (with these two strings before warn messages and after env variable warning):

00:03:02.102 [wlr] [backend/drm/legacy.c:181] connector VGA-1: drmModePageFlip failed: Device or resource busy
00:03:02.102 [wlr] [backend/drm/backend.c:137] connector VGA-1: Failed to restore state after VUT switch

1.2. Starting Gnome with `systemd start gdm.service`, I get a gray screen, top panel with a clock and status bar on the right. The interface is frozen. I can move the mouse cursor and nothing changes, but when I switch to another tty (ctrl+alt+F2) and back (ca+F1), the cursor is in a different position. The same behaviour was during the Fedora Workstation installation, so it’s not something Arch-related, I assume.

1.3. Starting river (I type `river` in tty) gives me a black screen as well. I didn’t collect the errors here, as I didn’t use river and have no idea how to do that properly.

I assume there should be some log-information, but I don’t know where to look for the relevant info (hence newbie corner).

2. I worked through ATI’s wiki page.

I installed `mesa`, `libva-mesa-driver` and `lib32-libva-mesa-driver`. I tried `mesa-amber` driver, with no difference. Since I tested that (obsolete?) driver on another machine while gaming (OpenMW), `mesa-amber` showed itself much worse even on an older hardware (Intel Atom netbook).
Also, I followed the guide 5.4.1. Deactivating PCIe 2.0and deactivated the PCIe, which I’m not sure was needed. Nothing visibly changed for me.

Since kernel 3.6, PCI Express 2.0 in radeon is turned on by default.
It may be unstable with some motherboards. It can be deactivated by adding radeon.pcie_gen2=0 as a kernel parameter.
See Phoronix article for more information.

3. I installed X11.

I don’t know how to work with Xorg, as I never did. Once upon a time it was a thing, I was a GUI Linux user (mostly Ubuntu).

I managed to force Gnome to work with X11, but it shows the same problem: just a grey screen with a moving (not hanged) cursor.
I installed Xfce, which worked very well, but with no GPU acceleration as well (e.g. screen resolution of 1024x768 on a display that’s 1440x900).
I installed LXQt, but it had some issues. Sometimes it loaded, sometimes it won’t.

I spent loads of time investigating the issue, and was thinking that could be some hardware issues. But the fact that Windows 10 works very well on that very hardware makes me think it’s not the hardware, but the software I need to tune.

Can anyone help me to diagnose what’s wrong with the GPU? I would greatly appreciate someone pointing me in the correct direction.

Last edited by walteweiss (2023-08-02 09:57:43)

Lone_Wolf · 2023-07-30 12:56:26

No idea about wayland, but let's investigate basic setup first.

Post lspci -knn and /etc/mkinitcpio.conf .and the full journal from a boot (run this with root rights)

P.S. only cards that don't use gallium need to use mesa-amber. for intel cards that can mean cards only a few years old but for amd it means cards that are 20+ years old .

walteweiss · 2023-07-30 18:50:54

Thank you for giving my issue your attention!

Here’s the result of what you’ve requested (all commands with elevated `sudo` privileges). I used the pastebin service as recommended in the wiki, https://0x0.st/

curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st < file

Some additional info I thought might be irrelevant, but still.

I have my system installed on a RAID-0 array of two old HDDs, not SSDs
I have noticed my journal shows me 23:32 time, but the correct time is 20:32, the timezone should be correct. Could that be a sign of some malfunction? I highly doubt so, but I’m inexperienced with the journal, as I never explore it.
I have just 3 GB of RAM for that machine, but it’s plenty for my use case (super-light occasional browsing)
The CPU is from 2006-Q3, the GPU is from April 2011, and the Motherboard is from 2006 as well, I believe it’s not an issue
The Motherboard English Manual

Also, I tried to run `startxfce4`, but it didn’t load Xfce this time. Just a cursor I can move, a grey screen and nothing else for quite a long time (I waited for at least a couple of minutes, which is plenty to load this light DE).

Maybe I messed something up in the process. The thing that bothers me is that the computer is unstable with Linux and stable with Windows 10 (didn’t test it thoroughly, but it loads each and every time with zero issues that I mentioned). I feel I could miss something, but again: I believe it should work pretty much just out-of-the-box.

Last edited by walteweiss (2023-07-31 05:33:40)

Lone_Wolf · 2023-08-01 09:26:09

There are several mentions in the motherboard manual that indicates it has an onboard vga chipset (common before processors got integrated gpus) .
Those chipsets typically only supported basic stuff, like text consoles with vesa graphics ( 1024x768x256 was considered high res/high color for such a chipset) .

Enter your bios setup
Go Advanced > chipset > northbridge configuration > AGP & P2P Bridge configuration
Verify "primary adapter" is set to PCIE and AGP mode to 8x .

The other options on that bios screen can stay at defaults, see page 58 / 2-18 in the MB manual .

The journal shows entries from several conflicting network services, iwd , systemd-networkd and dhcpcd .
This can cause all kind of weird effects, including instability.

Choose one and disable / remove the others.

seth · 2023-08-01 13:21:19

Please also post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General

walteweiss · 2023-08-01 19:53:48

I checked my BIOS setup, and it was exactly as it’s in the manual: "primary adapter" is set to PCIE and AGP mode to 8x. I did the defaults just to be sure there’s nothing I could mess sometime earlier, and checked the Northbridge configuration again, with the same result.

I disabled `systemd-networkd`, rebooted, and nothing changed (in the sense that my network works). But as I understand this, I need to keep `dhcpcd` for dhcp-service, as `iwd` cannot do that. Am I wrong here?

Also, I checked my Arch-laptop and I have all three of them enabled as well. I remember at some point I was trying to do something about my network. There was a bug in the kernel, when my Wi-Fi didn’t work, I had a forum post about that, so it could be back then.
There was no issue with my network as far as I remember, but I disabled systemd-networkd as well.
Certainly I don’t understand this topic well enough. I tried to ask a friend long before, but as I see he doesn’t know that network topic well too. Can I keep just systemd-networkd (as I have this systemd monster installed anyway) and ditch iwd and dhcpcd entirely? I don’t understand, as if I remove my network, it’ll be somewhat difficult to restore it back.

My Xorg logs

I don’t know which logs are the correct ones, so I post all four of them:

I tried to run `startxfce4` again, with no success. Just a moving cursor and nothing more. I tried to `systemctl start sddm.service` to run previously installed with it LXQt, with no success. There was a graphical window with user and password input field. I could move the cursor, but the interface didn’t react to my inputs. It looked like a hanged system, but the cursor was moving freely. Until I switched to another tty: black screen, with no tty. Switched back: still black screen. I shortly pressed the power off button on my case and the computer shut down. Which signals that the system didn’t hang, just its GUI.

Also, I installed Ubuntu 23.04 in Safe Graphics mode, but I couldn’t run it. The system simply halted at the point of loading the interface. May give it some extra tries tomorrow.

I made a USB drive with Debian 12, and I’ll try it installing it tomorrow as well. I remember Debian has a TUI installer and read somewhere that they implemented non-free drivers into their installer (so I may succeed with my Wi-Fi at least). Maybe it’ll work with some lightweight system, like LXQt or LXDE out-of-the-box. Which I doubt, as it doesn’t work on Arch for me, but I’m going to give it a try.

I may settle with any Linux distro for a while, if I’ll succeed with it working out-of-the-box, just to ditch Windows. But I still want the machine to run Arch with sway, if possible. So thank you everyone with your help here.

seth · 2023-08-01 20:04:55

[   131.913] (WW) RADEON(0): flip queue failed: Device or resource busy
[   131.913] (WW) RADEON(0): Page flip failed: Device or resource busy

The server from

[    36.975] (==) Log file: "/home/walter/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Jul 30 23:27:45 2023

actually ran fine (on the radeon driver, ofr about 100s)

First and foremost: get rid of every single xf86-video-* package. Post an updated xorg log.
2nd, out of what context did you try to start the X11 server that produced the posted ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log ?
Was anything else running (wayland server/attempt, sddm, …)?

I tried to run `startxfce4` again, with no success. Just a moving cursor and nothing more.

That's probably not the run that produced the posted ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log ?

walteweiss · 2023-08-01 20:06:31

As a slightly off-topic note. In my final comment about any Linux distro, I wanted to say that any free OS would work for me, including e.g. FreeBSD or others. I’m inexperienced with anything but Linux, just distantly familiar from reading FreeBSD’s handbook. But I highly doubt the hardware would work better with FreeBSD than it works with Linux. Meaning its support, as I have an impression that Linux is less picky about hardware.

I did some search and found the issue that could be related: Video Problem - Asus ATI Radeon HD6450 Silence. I think I’m going to test out FreeBSD on that machine as well, maybe it could reveal some extra info about the hardware.

walteweiss · 2023-08-01 20:10:31

seth wrote:

That's probably not the run that produced the posted ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log ?

Yes, it’s not that run, or I could run it later than I copied the log, as the computer ‘hanged’ after I switched to another tty. Although I think I can make the job via ssh again. I’ll give it a go tomorrow and check the things you mentioned.

seth · 2023-08-01 20:37:58

I installed Xfce, which worked very well, but with no GPU acceleration as well (e.g. screen resolution of 1024x768 on a display that’s 1440x900).

The resolution is because your VGA output (adapter?) doesn't provide any EDID, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xrandr … esolutions & https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel … s_and_EDID
What makes you believe there was "no GPU acceleration"?

Arch Linux

#1 2023-07-30 09:00:09

Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

Extra information:

#2 2023-07-30 12:56:26

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#3 2023-07-30 18:50:54

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#4 2023-08-01 09:26:09

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#5 2023-08-01 13:21:19

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#6 2023-08-01 19:53:48

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#7 2023-08-01 20:04:55

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#8 2023-08-01 20:06:31

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#9 2023-08-01 20:10:31

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

#10 2023-08-01 20:37:58

Re: Radeon HD 6450 doesn’t work on Linux for me

Board footer