AMDGPU-install on Ubuntu makes it worse

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

I installed the amd gpu driver using amdgpu-install on Ubuntu but it seems like it made everything just worse. the animations are lagging and the display backlight controll does not work anymore. I wanted to have propper amd drivers on my Laptop-13 so i can use DavinciResolve and VLC. But after installing the drivers i still cant use any of it.

Am i doing somthing wrong?

2

That’s normal, the default open source driver should be more than sufficient for VLC and so on.

Why are you trying to install the other one?

3

what open source driver. can you give me a link or documentation?

4

Unlike the Windows ecosystem, the vast majority of drivers in Linux are part of the kernel. amdgpu follows that. Whatever that script installed is probably out of date or doesn’t match the rest of the kernel (that it still has to work with), hence the problems.

5

The one that comes with Ubuntu in the standard kernel. You generally don’t need to install anything (except VLC and so on, maybe proprietary codecs, but no video driver.)

Only Nvidia cards used to need a separate driver for good performance, but even there may be improvements incoming soon.

6

i only want to use VLC and Davinci Resolve.
VLC is currently not starting at all.
Davinci Resolve cant find a GPU.
The amdgpu-install was from AMDs own website. it could be outdated tough. it was from last year.
What do i need to do to get my stuff working right. I record with AV1 on my PC and want to watch it on my Laptop.

7

Unfortunately, without knowing exactly what commands the amdgpu-install command ended up executing, the simplest solution is probably going to be a reinstall.

I’d recommend this procedure:

  1. Create a Ubuntu install media thumbdrive (if you’re just coming from Windows, you may wish to try out the Kubuntu flavour of ubuntu to get a desktop environment that looks and behaves more “windows-y” instead of the more “mac-y” user interface Ubuntu’s GNOME environment uses by default, in all other respects Kubuntu is the same underlying OS, just has a different user interface on top)
  2. Create and format a second usb drive with a linux file system (EXT-3 is a good one to choose if you dont’ know what that is)
  3. boot the Ubuntu install media (Selecting Try Ubuntu instead of going directly to Install) and use the live environment to mount your hard drive and the external thumb drive
  4. copy the contents of your home directory onto the thumb drive. you’ll want to grab all the hidden dotfiles too, so copy the whole home directory, not just the files within it
  5. unmount the drives and remove the second thumb drive (to avoid accidental erasure)
  6. install ubuntu to your harddrive again, this will wipe out any program installs and whatever the AMDgpu script did.
  7. when the install is complete instead of rebooting to your ubuntu install, instead boot back into the live environment to remount your harddrive and backupe home directory.
  8. copy the home directory back to your harddrive to restore your files and customizations and stuff
  9. reboot into ubuntu and use the built in software manager to install VLC and other programs. this software center will be your go-to place to get software as it will always be packaged for your distro by your distro (or in the case of flatpaks or appimages are distro agnostic)
  10. if you do get downloads for applications from websites, even the official manufacuter/developer’s site, be extra super cautious and take backups before installing as they can do really weird and unexpected things like messing up your install so being able to roll back as if nothing happened is a really nice to have.
  11. take a big sip of water or something and congratulate yourself for learning a new thing today. because learning is valuable!
8

i have just ran amdgpu-uninstall and everything is back to normal, so i just want to know what i should do to get my stuff working. Still thanks for the nice guide.

9

That’s very unusual and most likely not a problem with the GPU. Are there any error messages when you start vlc from the terminal?

A complete reinstall might be the best option.

10

i installed the flatpack version of vlc and that works. stange that the snap store version dosnt work. Maybe it was a bug. Still Davinci Resolve cant find a GPU.