Unity in 13.10 unstable with Radeon 7950

[zzarko]

About a month ago I installed a fresh Ubuntu 13.10 64bit on a i5 machine, 8GB RAM, with Radeon 7950 graphic card. Before this, I was running 12.04 64bit without any graphic driver related problems.

I tried both Catalyst versions from official repository, latest 13.12 drivers from AMD site and open source drivers (radeon), and I can't tell which one was more unstable. After a few hours of use, I could not play any videos with any of the drivers (tried mplayer and VLC, both crashed with various errors), OpenGL isn't working anymore (even glxgears was crashing) and I had various artifacts on screen (like parts of window rendered on the wrong place on screen). Putting machine to sleep and waking it up later produced even more errors. I also tried to turn off various things in CCSM, without any positive results. Steam client had terrible flickering almost all the time, it was practically unusable; also about 8 of 10 times it was crashing on startup.

After about two weeks of trying to make it usable, I gave up and installed MATE desktop. Not a single graphic error since then. Steam works flawlessly, 3D games also, Wine games, playing videos, everything.

I kind of like how Unity works, I was using it for the last two years as my main desktop (on the same machine), but this behaviour is unexpected and utterly undesireable.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: unity 7.1.2+13.10.20131014.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-15.23-generic 3.11.10
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-15-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: None
Date: Tue Jan 14 07:26:14 2014
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: saucy
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 fglrx, 13.251, 3.11.0-14-generic, x86_64: installed
 fglrx, 13.251, 3.11.0-15-generic, x86_64: installed
 vboxhost, 4.3.6, 3.11.0-14-generic, x86_64: installed
 vboxhost, 4.3.6, 3.11.0-15-generic, x86_64: installed
GraphicsCard:
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti PRO [Radeon HD 7950] [1002:679a] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:0424]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-12-06 (38 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release amd64 (20131016.1)
JockeyStatus:
 kmod:fglrx - ATI Fire GL (Proprietary, Enabled, In use)
 kmod:fglrx_updates - Video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators (Proprietary, Disabled, Not in use)
MachineType: To Be Filled By O.E.M. To Be Filled By O.E.M.
MarkForUpload: True
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.11.0-15-generic root=UUID=eab5c9d7-0979-4fae-9ed5-a26a530694de ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 07/08/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: P1.00
dmi.board.name: Z68 Extreme4 Gen3
dmi.board.vendor: ASRock
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrP1.00:bd07/08/2011:svnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:rvnASRock:rnZ68Extreme4Gen3:rvr:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
dmi.product.name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.sys.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.10+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1
version.fglrx-installer: fglrx-installer N/A
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.46-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 9.2.1-1ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 9.2.1-1ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.14.5-1ubuntu2~saucy1
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.7.3-0ubuntu3.1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.2.0-0ubuntu10
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.904-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.9-2ubuntu1
xserver.bootTime: Fri Jan 10 14:53:12 2014
xserver.configfile: /etc/X11/xorg.conf
xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.version: 2:1.14.5-1ubuntu2~saucy1
xserver.video_driver: fglrx

[madbiologist (me-again)]

There are changes in the 3.13 kernel that make Radeon HD 7xxx hardware faster and more stable. Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" currently has the 3.13.0-12.32 kernel. Are you able to test it?

Also, the upstream 3.14-rc4 kernel has this commit (which has also been ccd to the stable kernel series) which eliminates the display corruption some people have had with recent kernels:

author Alex Deucher
committer Alex Deucher
commit 6d8ea7de3f5035610f3bfacbe35e7b71ad1e4663
tree 215fe5cacbd723866e8515ae41734d56dc547bd6
parent 78b035101999d8d071781778c019c387dc8bebb2

drm/radeon: fix display tiling setup on SI

Apply the same logic as CI to SI for setting up the display tiling parameters. The num banks may vary per tiling index just like CI.

Bugs: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71488
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73946
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74927
Signed-off-by: Alex Deucher
Cc: stable

A PPA of the 3.14-rc4 kernel is available at http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/ and instructions on how to install and uninstall it are available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/MainlineBuilds

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

I finally installed 14.04.1 64bit a few days ago, and so far, so good...