Recent radeon GPUs need updated firmware files on recent kernels

[braveheartleo]

Hi  ,

It's been a while since I last used siduction. But now I'm rolling again, this time along with new hardware to play with ;-).

Back on topic, running siduction 'indiansummer' on a recent radeon GPU with a recent kernel, while using the radeon drm, requires updated, non-free firmware files that are not present in firmware-linux-nonfree version 0.43. Please see the following commits for reference:

   
• http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/commit/?id=f333bd435c0b6745cbc4fae3326725d77bf57c82
• http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon?id=de5158226d47829f85c07dd5bca59d96213e1e08
• http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon?id=629bd33c75196ca89625148614e9e34b42f4f460
• http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon?id=f2c6b0f452c3804496f55655fda28c2809e1a58b

The new firmware files are essentially lowercase-named counterparts of the old existing files for recent radeon GPUs (tahiti, kaveri, kabini, to name a few). But these are not simply renamed files. These updated firmware files use the new header format, thus the hashes of the new files are different from the old ones.

Errors would be logged if the kernel fails to load such files. Taken from http://forum.siduction.org/index.php?topic=5313.msg43428#msg43428:

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Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: [drm] Loading bonaire Microcode
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_pfp.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_pfp.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
...

Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_pfp.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_me.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_me.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_me.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_ce.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_ce.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_ce.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_mec.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_mec.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_mec.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_rlc.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_rlc.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_rlc.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_sdma.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_sdma.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_sdma.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_mc.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_mc.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_mc2.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: [drm] radeon/BONAIRE_mc2.bin: 31792 bytes
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/bonaire_smc.bin (-2)
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/bonaire_smc.bin failed with error -2
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39mradeon 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper

Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware radeon/BONAIRE_smc.bin
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: [drm] Internal thermal controller with fan control
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: [drm] probing gen 2 caps for device 1002:5a16 = 31cd02/0
Jan 24 15:11:53 oppa-hex-ssd kernel: ^[[1;39m== power state 0 ==

If the kernel fails to load said files, the hardware would have incomplete feature activation like missing UVD / VCE, among others.

To provide a workaround on this issue while waiting for an update to the firmware-linux-nonfree package, simply copy the lowercase-named .bin files for your GPU (or copy everything if you don't know which files are needed) from http://people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/radeon_ucode/ to /lib/firmware/radeon. Reboot the system.

This is my system for reference:

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System:    Host: xbox-am1m Kernel: 3.19.1-towo.1-siduction-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.9.2)
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.0 (Gtk 2.24.25) info: xfce4-panel dm: lightdm
           Distro: siduction 14.1.0 Indian Summer - xfce - (201411230427)
Machine:   System: ASUS product: All Series
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: AM1M-A v: Rev X.0x Bios: American Megatrends v: 1001 date: 11/25/2014
CPU:       Quad core AMD Athlon 5350 APU with Radeon R3 (-MCP-) speed/max: 800/2100 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Kabini [Radeon HD 8400 / R3 Series]
           bus-ID: 00:01.0 chip-ID: 1002:9830
           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 driver: radeon Resolution: 1440x900@59.89hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD KABINI
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.6.0-devel Direct Rendering: Yes
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1000.2GB (59.8% used)
Info:      Processes: 209 Uptime: 7:26 Memory: 1229.4/7421.2MB Init: systemd v: 215 runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 4.9.2
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.331 running in xfce4-terminal) inxi: 2.2.19

[seasons]

Is this your bug report?: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=780475
It's probably a duplicate of: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=780107

Maybe the maintainers are waiting for Debian 8 to release and testing unfreeze?

[braveheartleo]

The reportbug tool didn't fetch that existing bug report, so I assumed that it hasn't been reported yet. Thanks for letting me know though.