Q4OS Forum

kendew

Member

Registered: 2019-01-19

Posts: 12

Need help with video on AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310] driver

Hi
I came across Q4OS on a long journey of seeking the best operating system for a number of Lenovo X120:

$ inxi -M
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 059624U v: ThinkPad X120e 
           serial: <root required> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 059624U serial: <root required> UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO 
           v: 8FET29WW (1.13 ) date: 05/06/2011 

I intend to install a Linux OS on these machines and release them into the wild, meaning into the hands of people who are not necessarily tech savvy.  For this purpose, what attracts me to Q4OS is its reputed stability, long term support (thought I saw this somewhere but can't find it now), and that it is said to work well on older hardware.  Plus, I happen to like Qt.
However, I am having trouble with video, such as YouTube, which is important for many.  Video in general, doesn't work as well with AMD drivers compared to the Intel architecture I'm more used to.  It's varied a lot depending on distro.  It works best on certain rolling releases I've tested, but also slower.  These rolling releases, with their constant and numerous updates, which occasionally break the system, however, are not the ideal distros for the non-tech savvy people I have in mind. 
In fact, Q4OS video is not unacceptable.  It can just flicker a lot and tear a little.  This seems worse on the Trinity Desktop than lxqt. 
I'm hoping there are some people on the forum who understand and have experience with video on AMD, especially older computers and have some ideas on how to improve quality of video for this driver.
Help much appreciated
Kendew

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,992

Re: Need help with video on AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310] driver

Hi Kendew and welcome to the forum.

I have no experience with the radeon cards and drivers but if you could post the output of

inxi -G

it would show what module is loaded for it and would be useful for anyone with the right knowledge.

kendew

Member

Registered: 2019-01-19

Posts: 12

Re: Need help with video on AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310] driver

Thanks for the reply, Dai. 

$ inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310]
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)                            
           Resolution: 1366x768@60.01hz                      
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PALM (DRM 2.49.0 / 4.9.0-8-amd64, LLVM 3.9.1)                                 
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6 

I don't see much in either /etc/X11 or /usr/share/X11 that is relevant except this file called 10-amdgpu.conf

Section "OutputClass"
	Identifier "AMDgpu"
	MatchDriver "amdgpu"
	Driver "amdgpu"
EndSection

I know the modesetting driver is usually the default these days for Debian but I've never seen it used by default with Radeon.  I wonder why.  I also know that when working with Intel drivers, seating a tear free option in X11 as well as certain manipulations of Compton can make a difference, but I'm wanting to know the best way to proceed with Q4OS.  Some suggestions or advice from experienced users could save me a lot of precious time.

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,992

Re: Need help with video on AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310] driver

According to this post in the Debian Forum and this page of the linked ArchWiki page you can use the

Option "TearFree" "on"

in your 10-amdgpu.conf file and it should work, although it says the line should be added to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf so you could check if you have that file first and use that if available.