How to use Ubuntu 20.04 on a machine with AMD Radeon R7 without nomodeset?

dhersz

11/24/22, 3:30 AM

I have a Toshiba Satellite L-50B notebook, which has these graphics cards installed:

$ lspci | grep -E "VGA|Display"
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 5500 (rev 09)
09:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445 / 530/535 / 620/625 Mobile]

I'm not able too boot it properly, and can only get it to work whilst using nomodeset in the grub. When I try to boot without such option, the computer either restarts while booting, or freezes with this message:

kfd kfd: TOPAZ not supported in kfd

Many answers here in AskUbuntu and other forums seems to suggest that I should download some proprietary drivers to fix this issue. But the latest driver distributed by AMD to such graphics card is meant to be used in Ubuntu 14.04, not 20.04.

Thus, I figured out that trying to run something made for Ubuntu 14.04 would probably not work in my case (in fact I just read a thread of a guy that tried to do that on 18.04 and it didn't go well), and am therefore stuck using nomodeset. The problem is that I'm not able to, for example, use a second monitor - which I'd really appreciate :)

I don't have much experience with these configs, and all the research I was able to do seemed to lead nowhere. Any ideas on how to make booting without nomodeset possible?

Edit:

I tried disabling the Radeon R7 card for good adding radeon.modeset=0 amdgpu.modeset=0 amdgpu.runpm=0 in the grub options, but I keep getting back to the TOPAZ not supported in kfd message. Should I be doing anything else to disable it?

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Terrance

11/24/22, 3:34 AM

You might want to try the Oibaf drivers as they are still supported even up into 21.10. https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers

dhersz

11/24/22, 3:19 PM

Hi @Terrance, thanks for the suggestion. I tried adding the PPA, but it didn't work. I actually got past the whole boot freezing/turning off thing, but then my computer would get stuck right before the login screen, and the cursor wasn't moving at all either. Not sure why, but this is the same "output" I got when I tried adding `radeon.modeset=0` to grub options.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How to use Ubuntu 20.04 on a machine with AMD Radeon R7 without nomodeset?

TH: จะใช้ Ubuntu 20.04 บนเครื่องที่มี AMD Radeon R7 โดยไม่มี nomodeset ได้อย่างไร

RO: Cum să utilizați Ubuntu 20.04 pe o mașină cu AMD Radeon R7 fără nomodeset?

RU: Как использовать Ubuntu 20.04 на машине с AMD Radeon R7 без nomodeset?

VI: Làm cách nào để sử dụng Ubuntu 20.04 trên máy có AMD Radeon R7 mà không cần nomodeset?

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