Bjørn Mork wrote: > Bob Proulx writes: > > Fresh install of Debian Stretch 9. X11 starts in software rendering > > mode. The same laptop with Ubuntu 16.04 runs with hardware rendering. > > > > Any hints on how what is needed for hardware rendering with this > > hardware combination in Debian? I am sure this hardware used to be > > fully supported and therefore hardware support must have been dropped > > at some point. > > Does > > dmesg | grep radeon > > say anything about firmware? Do you have the firmware-amd-graphics > package installed (from non-free)?
Thank you! That was the hint I needed. Let me put the root problem here so that the search engines can find it. dmesg | grep radeon [ 4.026170] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/R520_cp.bin (-2) [ 4.026297] radeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/R520_cp.bin failed with error -2 There is no firmware available. Without the firmware the radeon adapter is not fully functional and X must run in software rendering mode. The firmware is available but has been removed from Stretch. (I should have seen that myself. I was aware of the drivers in firmware-linux-nonfree and also firmware-iwlwifi from nonfree but not of firmware-amd-graphics which must be a new'ish change / addition. Thank you very much for helping lead me through the problem to see this and to fix it. [me kicks the ground with my head hanging down because I should have seen this myself.] ) The solution for the X11 software rendering problem was to install the radeon adapter firmware from the non-free section. Add non-free to /etc/apt/sources.list and install the radeon firmware. apt-get install firmware-amd-graphics I also installed firmware-linux-nonfree (and firmware-misc-nonfree may also be needed) so as to get the intel-microcode updates too. And also firmware-iwlwifi for the Intel iwl3945 wifi driver. Thanks everyone for helping me get this system running! Now it is time for me to merge in the user files from backup and get this machine back to my mechanic's wife. She is getting anxious for it. :-) Bob
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