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Bruno Friedmann

See https://en.opensuse.org/Users/Bruno_friedmann

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AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx rpms, end of an era!

December 7th, 2016 by

Long time not talking about fglrx rpm, mostly because they’ve got no update since last December 2015.

Short Summary

In a word as hundred, fglrx is now a dead horse!

Dead horse

We had the hope of getting it working for Leap 42.2 in October, but except freezing kernel and xorg, you will not get what you would expect: a stable xorg session

Say goodbye fglrx!, repeat after me, goodbye fglrx.

If you are locked down and forced for any reasons to use fglrx with your gpu, and are still using 42.1, then don’t upgrade to 42.2, without a plan B

It has no more support from AMD upstream, and that’s it!, if someone want to break its computer, it’s still possible to pick the last files and try it by yourself, but the repository will never contain it for 42.2 (see below how-to)

That’s said, I’m not still sure, to keep for a long time the repository, I’ve been managing since 6 years now.

A bit of history

In 2010, when we were working hard to get 11.1 out, the news that no supported ATI (at that time) will be available for end-users, as we have for nvidia gpu

I didn’t check back the irc log, but we were a few, that would like to have this still available, by pure commodity. Especially that I’ve just exchanged a non working gpu by my new hd5750.

I remember the first chaotic steps, how to build that, and create repeating builds, what about the license? Did we have the right to offer a pre-build rpm etc. I spent some time fixing all of this stuff.
And start the build on real hardware. Hey afterward kvm was really in infancy stage.

Release after release amd/ati and openSUSE, the driver was build, on hardware for each supported distribution. When beginning of 2013 Sebastian Siebert, who got some direct contacts with AMD, release
his own script, we collaborate to have the possibility to build on virtual machines, which allow me to simplify the build process, as having on kvm for each openSUSE release supported.

Afterward, AMD start to split fglrx with the fglrx for HD5xx and above, and fglrx-legacy. So 2 drivers to maintain, but as always with proprietary software, the legacy version became rapidly obsolete,
and non usable. Not that bad, in the meantime the AMD effort on the free and open source radeon driver, quickly overcome the performance of legacy.

Still from 2013, to 2016 I’ve been able to propose ready to use rpm for several version of openSUSE’s distributions. I think the repository serve quite well end users, and I never got big flames.

I can’t avoid to mention the openSUSE powered server and sponsored by Ioda-Net Sàrl that has serve this objective so well during that time frame.

Future of the repository

Now that fglrx is becoming obsolete, I think seriously about why the repository online should stay online.

At openSUSE project level, we still have 13.1, 13.2, 42.1 and 42.2 that are mostly active. 13.1 is already almost out of the game of evergreen,
13.2 will follow soon, and I don’t know yet the exact plan for 42.1, but it will certainly go out of maintenance in less than a year.

If you feel or have the need of the repository, please express that in the comments below.

Wait there’s amd-gpu-pro, no?

Yeap there’s a closed driver, called amd-gpu-pro, available, for newer cards. But there’s two things that bring me out of the game, first I don’t have those newer gpu,
and don’t have the need to replace my hd5750 for the moment. The second and certainly the most important, those drivers are only available for Ubuntu or at least in .deb format.

I will certainly not help proprietary crap, if I don’t have a solid base to work with, and a bit of help from their side. I wish good luck to those who want to try those drivers,
I’ve got a look inside, and got a blame face.

For crazy, and those who don’t love their computer

So you want to loose your time? you can! I’ve kept in raw-src directory all the script used to build the driver.
They differ a bit compared to Sebastian Siebert last version in the sense of making Leap 422 as a possible target.
If you dig a bit around, you should be able to build them, but you’re alone on that way, you’ve been warned!

I’m not against a republished version, if someone find a way to make them working, just drop me a message.

That’s all for this journey, Have Fun! 🙂

Proprietary AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx 15.12 rpms released for LEAP 42.2

October 15th, 2016 by

Warnings

There’s no warranties the drivers will work, for you!

If you are satisfied with the open-source radeon drivers, don’t risk to break your computer !

Still there will NEVER be a fglrx driver for recent kernel and xorg. So if one of those component change in Leap fglrx will be broken.

Actual situation

Since last december, AMD doesn’t published any update about fglrx so the version is still the 15.12.302 published. A few days ago our beloved Leap release manager Ludwig ask me by email, if there will be an available drivers for Leap 42.2.

Today, after hacking a bit the last Sebastian Siebert’s script I’ve been able to build the drivers for Leap 42.2 RC1, and the driver install fine, and xorg start on my HD5750 (but that’s all what I can tell).

I will rebuild the driver once Leap 42.2 will hit its final stage.

Repository

zypper ar -cfg -n FGLRX http://geeko.ioda.net/mirror/amd-fglrx/openSUSE_Leap_42.2/ FLGRX

zypper -v refresh -f FGLRX

zypper -v install fglrx64_amdcccle_SUSE422 fglrx64_core_SUSE422 fglrx64_graphics_SUSE422  fglrx64_opencl_SUSE422 fglrx64_xpic_SUSE422

Future

AMD has stopped any development for FGLRX, so it is already considered obsolete. But on the other side they make a lot of effort to bring radeon and amdgpu (the free and open source driver) to a decent performance level.

I don’t have that much usage anymore of my AMD gpu powered computer, and my HD5750 is now 8 years old already, so I can’t promise to be able to follow up with changes.

Cleanup

I removed all the obsoletes packages letting only the last one for each openSUSE version still available. Also the server has no more copy of openSUSE github artwork. If this missing to someone, don’t hesitate to ask.

Have fun

TOSprint or not to sprint?

February 27th, 2016 by

TOSprint Paris 2016

Report of a week of sprint

TOSprint in Paris has just ended (wiki page).

What a week!

First of all I want to warmfully thank the sponsors, especially Olivier Courtin from Oslandia for the organization, and Mozilla France for hosting us.

What is TOSprint?

Once a year a bunch of hackers from projects under OsGeo umbrella, meet in a face to face sprint.
This year it happenned in Paris with great number of participants (52).

There was globally five big groups, and if each community was running its own schedule,
there was a lot of cross echanges too.

TOSprint Mozilla

Mateusz Łoskot

Personal objectives

My main objective, except being enough luckly to be a sponsor, was to go there and be in direct contact with upstream.

This can help a lot to improve packages, and create new ones.

Moreover, as one of my openSUSE’s Application:Geo peer maintainer, Angelos Kalkas was also participating, we decided to make somes changes, and improve the situation of the repository.

(more…)

A brief 360° overview of my first board turn

January 18th, 2016 by

You’ve certainly noticed that I didn’t run for a second turn, after my first 2 years. This doesn’t mean the election time and the actual campaign are boring 🙂

If you are an openSUSE Member, we really want to have your vote, so go to Board Election Wiki and make your own opinion.

The ballot should open tomorrow.

board-leaving-tigerfoot

Why not a second turn?

Being a board member (present at almost every conference call, reading the mailing lists and other task) consume free time. It has increased during the last semester too. And we’ve got some new business opportunities here at Ioda-Net Sàrl in 2015, and those need also my attention for the next year(s). I prefer to be a retired Board member, than not being able to handle my responsabilities.
But I’m not against the idea of a "I’ll be back" in a near future. Moreover with a bit more bandwidth in my free time, I will be able to continue my packaging stuff, and other contributions.

What a journey!

With the new campaign running, I found funny to bring back to light my 2013 platform written 2 years ago. And spent 5 minutes on checking the differences with today. I’m inviting you to discover the small interview between me and myself 🙂

1. Which sentences would you say again today?

I’m a "Fucking Green Dreamer" of a world of collaboration, which will one day offer Freedom for everyone.

Clearly still a day by day mantra and leitmotiv. But even if I’m dreaming, I never forget that
Freedom has a price : Freedom will only be what you do for it.

(more…)

Proprietary AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx rpms new release 15.11 (15.300.1025-1)

December 6th, 2015 by

Time to get an update for fglrx: the new release has been build for 13.1, 13.2, Leap 42.1, and tumbleweed 20151201

Tumbleweed beware : broken Xorg

It seems since the release, that a number of report of broken xorg with gdm, ssdm and so… segfaulting

You can still use the previous version hanging on the server. But I doubt it would work better

As soon, with Sebastian Siebert we have a patch for, I will republish a new build

Informations & bugreport Sebastian’s blog or lizards.o.o

The proposed drivers support kernel up to version 4.4

AMD release note available

Sebastien Siebert making script

Sebastian Siebert posts about fglrx

If you have any problems with the driver, don’t be afraid to report to Sebastian (German and English bugreports are gladly accepted).
he will try, as far as I am able to reproduce the bug. Together with the necessary system information, he will go directly to the right place at AMD to have the bug fixed in the next driver release.
Thank you very much, Sebastian.

See below what to do in case of troubles.

Or you can also ping him on irc (freespacer)

Debugging troubles

I recommend in case of trouble the use of his script which can collect the whole informations needed to help you. then you just have to issue a simple commande in console to collect all informations, you can review them, and finally transmit them.
Check the website to get the latest.

su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.11.sh -ur'
The system report 'amd-report.txt' was generated.                                                                                                          [ OK ]
Do you want to read the system report 'amd-report.txt' now? yes/no [y/n]: y
Are you sure to upload the above-named system report to sprunge.us? yes/no [y/n]: y

The report was uploaded to sprunge.us.
   The link is:  http://sprunge.us/eMEB

Copy paste the link in the comment zone of Sebastian post

All proudly distributed by openSUSE powered server and sponsored by Ioda-Net Sàrl

Proprietary AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx rpms released for LEAP 42.1

October 31st, 2015 by

Since the last few months, we all know that the new openSUSE Leap 42.1 is on its road.

But fglrx drivers were missing. Even with the 15.9 release in September.

Warnings

There’s really no warranties the drivers will work, for you!

If you are satisfied with the open-source radeon drivers, don’t risk to break your computer

All the trouble present in 15.9 will be there, like the failing gnome3 gdm start, see previous article from Sebastian, his scripts also available on the raw-src directory on the mirror, allow you to apply a quirk patch.

I’m considering the release of thoses rpms as experimental, they work for some, and sometimes are convenient. But they can also create kernel segfault on some configurations.
If you are in trouble start your openSUSE in rescue mode with nomodeset on boot line, and then zypper rm fglrx related packages, reboot and you should safely return to free radeon.

Story

Today, while packing my stuff for the SUSECON15 in Amsterdam, I was pleased on irc to have feedback of users
who were able to run fglrx Tumbleweed packages on their Leap 42.1

I’ve then start a Leap vm and hack a bit Sebastian Siebert’s script for 15.9 to add support for Leap.
The drivers build, and install correctly. I’ve also updated the one-click installer for people using this
technology.

Leap being available only for x86_64 bit plateform, the driver follow the same available arch.

Links to the new repository openSUSE_Leap_42

Have fun!

Cleanup on OBS – Bacula packages to adopt

October 25th, 2015 by

I was one of the creator and maintainers of bacula packages on obs (Story started 4 years ago).
Since then (+3 years) I’m using another tool called Bareos, and have no more interest
nor time to maintain those packages.

Since sometimes, bacula project has released two main major version. (7.0 and 7.2).
Nobody has taken care of the packages available on obs Archiving:Backup, nor have
proposed an update. [1]

Those packages have never been submitted to Factory, and proposed to any released openSUSE version.
From one of the last upstream announcement Bacula project will deliver directly prebuild packages for major distributions.

So if you’re interested to take ownership of those, raise your hands now (ask maintainer status with obs interface).
I will let a grace period of one month before sending a delete request.

Have fun!

AMD FGLRX new rebuild 14.501.1003-2 supporting Kernel 3.19 for openSUSE 13.1 13.2 and Tumbleweed

February 27th, 2015 by

There’s a new build published today for the AMD FGLRX drivers.

It include the new patch made by Sebastian Siebert supporting Kernel 3.19x series you could have on 13.1, 13.2 and Tumbleweed openSUSE distribution.

The server just got the new rpms, so you should be able to update with zypper ref -f && zypper up

Have fun.

openSUSE miniSummit @Scale13x – summary

February 20th, 2015 by

Hi Geekos, here a small summary of our Thursday February 19th openSUSE miniSummit event here at SCale 13x.

Located in Century AB room, a 80 seats room. The average attendance rate was varying between 50% and 85%.
Qualifying the attendance 50% or more were not related to SUSE / openSUSE, which was a good experience of question and feedback.

openSUSE miniSummit T-shirt

The day started by a talk about openSUSE / SUSE Xen and openstack by Peter Linnel and Russel Pavlicek.
One hour later Manu Gupta has presented all the bolts and nuts about GSOC at openSUSE.

We then go for lunch, and corridor exchanges.

I’ve opened the afternoon with my talk “them + me = we” about breaking mythic frontier
Then just after a small break, Mark Fasheh member of filesystem SUSE Labs group has talk about the project Duperemove: dedupe on btrfs (have a look on github the source are there, and package available on obs)

The day continue with a Town Hall talk co-animated by myself and Peter running an open discussion with attendees. With interesting remarks and feedback from openSUSE users, and also complete foreigners. For example, the way systemd was introduced in openSUSE distribution was appreciated (having choice during 2 versions). It was an unstressfull, open and positive exchange.

To follow, Bryan Lunduke and Peter animated a talk about “the 10 things you would love about SUSE and openSUSE if you only you knew…”
I did really enjoy the way they numbered the slides …
Freschy, punchy, funky, the kinda talk I would like to see again at OSC15.

To finalize the day, Markus Feilner​ for Linux Magazine (de) talked about openQA.

I found interesting the perfect mix we’ve done between openSUSE and SUSE during this day, confirming the excellent partnership we have.
Let the sponsors of this day be warmly thanked to make it happened.

Links :
SCale picture album day 1 : by Françoise on G+

openSUSE miniSummit day album :
Bruno’s Album on G+

Follow the news on G+ channel

Stay tuned for more news during this week-end.

Lizards, time to pack your stuff for openSUSE miniSummit @Scale 13x

February 17th, 2015 by

Again this year the thirteen annual Southern California Linux Expo is in the starting block.

scale_13x_onair

During 3 days you will be able to visit us at our booth (38,39,40).
Yeah 3 booths cause we co-run the KDE and Gnome booth.
The exhibition hall open Friday afternoon at 2pm.


Drew and Peter are working as daemon to get everything ready to spread, Doug have brought also quite numerous goodies there. I will do my best to inform you here or follow my G+ channel
scale_13x_hands-feets

Whatever the way you come, bring your feet there and shake hands.
On Thursday, no one has to miss our full day of openSUSE mini-summit, room Century AB.
There will be interesting talks and also a full green hallway, We’re looking forward SUSE’s team, working together in this promising adventure.

scale13x_luggage_ready
On our side Geeko is ready to cross 9.000 kilometers tomorrow.
Hey cool first time in the famous Airbus A380…
Demo laptop with Tumbleweed and KF5 is also secured.



See you all in Los Angeles