How to solve crash issue with AMDGPU-PRO Linux driver on Ubuntu

After a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 install, I started installing the Radeon Software for Linux 18.10, the famous AMDGPU-PRO driver for Linux platform with computing part that enables OpenCL 1.2 support to be able to mine on Linux with AMD GPU cards. Unfortunately, I got only crashes, black and blue screens.

 

The AMDGPU-PRO Linux driver is compatible with all the modern GPU cards

The AMDGPU-PRO driver for Linux platform provides different features like OpenGL 4.5 and GLX 1.4, OpenCL 1.2, Vulkan 1.0, VDPAU, Vulkan support for DOTA2, KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) and ADF (Atomic Display Framework) support, GPL compliant kernel module.

Installing the AMDGPU-PRO Driver on Ubuntu systems

There are four simple steps involved in the installation of the AMDGPU-PRO driver: Download, Extract, Install and Configure. The instructions to perform the installation are intended for an Ubuntu installation of 16.04 and should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Before installing the driver, a quick note on how to check if your system already has AMDGPU-PRO installed. In addition, the recommended best practice is to bring the system up-to-date before starting the driver installation, with:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade
$ sudo reboot

The easiest way to find out if you have AMDGPU-PRO already installed on your Ubuntu System is to query the Debian package manager.

Using the following command at a terminal will provide you with the version of the AMDGPU-PRO stack on your system, or inform you that there are no packages found:

$ dpkg -l amdgpu-pro

If it is installed, you should perform this:

$ amdgpu-pro-uninstall

Then you can download the new version. A direct link to download the AMDGPU-PRO Linux driver is given below and it is also available on the Driver Download Page. Unpack the driver with your favorite software or with a tar command and proceed to install it.

Open the driver unpacked folder and launch the install command:

$ cd amdgpu-pro-18.10-xxxxxx
$ ./amdgpu-pro-install –y --opencl=legacy,rocm
$ sudo usermod -a -G video $LOGNAME
$ sudo reboot

Ok, you’re done. The driver is installed and fully working.

You can check if your system is ready for miners with:

$ sudo apt install clinfo
$ clinfo

How to solve the crash issue, black screen issue and blue screen issue

If your system, after sometimes, crashed or shows only a black screen or maybe a blue screen, there’s something wrong. So, how to solve it?

All my problems started after the installation of snap packages and in log files, I found many crashes of snap applications. I can live without snap sub-system on this machine and all the application I need are also available in the form of apt packages.

***WARNING! I DID THAT BECAUSE I DON’T USE SNAP ON THIS SYSTEM AND I TESTED THIS ONLY ON UBUNTU 16.04. PAY ATTENTION ON DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS AND IF YOU USE SNAP APPLICATIONS, YOU CAN BREAK YOUR SYSTEM***

So, I decided to try to completely remove the snap sub-system from my Ubuntu installation and I re-installed all the applications that I have installed as a snap with apt commands. To remove snap core from your Ubuntu installation, type this in a terminal session:

$ sudo apt purge snapd ubuntu-core-launcher squashfs-tools
$ sudo reboot

And yes… all my issues went away and my system is now super stable with the AMDGPU-PRO Linux 18.10 driver installed.

Useful Links

Radeon™ Software for Linux 18.10 Release Notes – https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-for-Linux-Release-Notes.aspx

How-To Install/Uninstall AMD Radeon™ Software AMDGPU-PRO Driver for Linux® on an Ubuntu System – https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDGPU-PRO-Install.aspx

How to completely remove snappy or snapd from Ubuntu systems – https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2328152

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