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I have installed Ubuntu 16.04 final beta on a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Series (Intel(R)) - 5559. This laptop has a AMD Radeon(TM) R5 M335 4GB DDR3 GPU.

I am unable to tell if it is being used or not. Indeed, the open source drivers module seems to be loaded:

$> lsmod  | grep radeon
radeon               1511424  1
i2c_algo_bit           16384  2 i915_bpo,radeon
ttm                    98304  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper        139264  2 i915_bpo,radeon
drm                   360448  9 ttm,i915_bpo,drm_kms_helper,radeon

however, I expected to see it listed in lspci, while there only seems to be the integrated intel card:

$> lspci | grep -i graphic
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Sky Lake Integrated Graphics (rev 07)

Also, I have installed the radeontop utility but it outputs:

Can't find Radeon cards

I don't know if it's relevant, but OpenGL seems to be working:

$> glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes
GL_ARB_direct_state_access, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, 
GL_ARB_draw_indirect, GL_ARB_draw_instanced, 
GL_ARB_map_buffer_range, GL_ARB_multi_bind, GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect,

but still I don't know if it's the intel or the radeon card taking care of it.

I have never tried older versions of ubuntu on this laptop, so I have never tried the - now deprecated - proprietary drivers.

How can I tell if my graphic card is working? If it's not, how can I make it work again?

ellisistfroh
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Nicola Sap
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  • I have problems with AMD integrated graphics too. I'm using 14.04. The drivers are not OK. – NonStandardModel Apr 15 '16 at 10:26
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    I've just filed this bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1570802 – Nicola Sap Apr 15 '16 at 11:22
  • I have graphics problems with the same GPU. The Linux kernel no longer supports the GPU. It appears that Debian/Ubuntu wrote a generic driver and it lacks full rendering. It still works. Toshiba sold this model, and I bought it off eBay for $40 new with a defect. Ubuntu 16.04 runs great on this machine. The original OS, Windows 7, could barely boot. I suggest moving to a better laptop with a newer generation CPU. Anyway, that;s my plan. – tom-adelstein Mar 24 '17 at 19:06

1 Answers1

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To tell if your card is working, do a xrandr --listproviders. Both cards should be visible.

If you want to use it, the best way is xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink radeon Intel, with it, you can use your discrete card for the applications who need it the most (for example games, 3D modellers...) by prepending the DRI_PRIME=1 environment variable:

DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer" should give an output of OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD <platform>.

emk2203
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    The first command outputs `Could not find provider with name radeon`, the second one reads `Gallium 0.4 on AMD HAINAN (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0)`, but I'm not sure what does it mean! – Nicola Sap Apr 15 '16 at 09:22
  • Ok, the meaning of the prepended variable is clear now. So, I'm apparently able to make the GPU work. However, I've tried launching `DRI_PRIME=1 blender` and it is very unstable, making the whole system freeze. I'll file a bug report. I still don't know what I should have expected from the `xrandr` command, though. – Nicola Sap Apr 15 '16 at 10:05
  • The AMD support is laughable at the moment. I edited my answer to make it less confusing. – emk2203 Apr 15 '16 at 10:13
  • Ok so now I know how to make it work, but it works very bad. Anyway, your answer led me closer to the answer, so I'm accepting it. Thanks – Nicola Sap Apr 15 '16 at 10:22
  • @ emk2203: pls get this writing in the best way: `xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink radeon Intel` Cannot imagine it's a oneliner? Deleting my comment once it's done. – ellisistfroh Apr 23 '16 at 10:33
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    @NicolaSap I have the exact same problem on the same hardware. Would you mind explaining more in detail what exactly you did to make it work, maybe in a separate answer to your question? That'd be awesome! – deesnook Feb 18 '17 at 09:54
  • WARNING... I ran above commands and was not successful. Sadly my system entered into "low graphics mode", where it will not start as expected. Hence, now I am referring: https://askubuntu.com/q/141606/22704 from my mobile. :-( – iammilind Jun 23 '17 at 10:41