HIS Radeon HD 6870 configuration in Debian wheezy

[Alex Deucher]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 10:08 AM, Piotr Winter <piotrw82 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I see
>
> I noticed my GPU fan is too loud (compared to Windows 7) when system is idle
> (no aplications running, just XFCE desktop with no eyecandy).
> I did smoe research and found this article, interesting stuff:
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_dpm_preview&num=1
> BTW, I see you are mentioned as the author of DPM in linux 3.11 kernel :) so
> maybe you can help.
> First, will it help reduce the fan speed when idle?

Yes.


> If yes, is there a way to integrate DPM to older kernel, or need I recompile
> the kernel to 3.11 to enable DPM. Debian wheezy is using 3.2.0 kernel, and
> the next release will be using 3.10, according to documentation
> I tried recompiling to 3.11 using this manual:
> http://www.upubuntu.com/2013/09/installupgrade-to-linux-kernel-311.html
> (first I had to upgrade libc6 to newer version, I upgraded it to 2.17, from
> the debian 'testing' repository)
> but still i'm getting compilation errors (from gcc), mayby newer gcc is
> required then one present in my system, I didn't investigate the error much.
> Still, I don't know if it is a good idea to upgrade kernel to latest stable
> in Debian.
>

You'll need to use a 3.11 or newer kernel.

Alex


> Piotr
>
>
>
>
> On 16 September 2013 15:15, Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 3:13 AM, Piotr Winter <piotrw82 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > This is exactly what was happening. Thank you very much.
>> > Installing this package helped:
>> > http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/firmware-linux-nonfree
>> > I'm reading about this package, and about firmware in Linux in general,
>> > and
>> > the 'nonfree' term is a bit misleading. Does this mean it is
>> > propertiary?
>> > What is the reason Debian distribution does not include it?
>> > Other distros (i tried Mint, Fedora) didn't have problems with detecting
>> > my
>> > GPU properly, so does this mean they included this package, or they did
>> > it
>> > different way?
>>
>> Most other distros include the firmware by default.  Debian considers
>> it non-free because the source to the firmware is not available.
>>
>> Alex
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Piotr
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 16 September 2013 02:34, Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Piotr Winter <piotrw82 at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Hello
>> >> > I need help with radeon hd 6870 setup in debian wheezy. I'm a linux
>> >> > newbie.
>> >> >
>> >> > Autodetection did not work, since I only have low resolution enabled
>> >> > (max 1280x1024)
>> >> > I did the search and found Debian AtiHowTo document.
>> >> > I checked the driver and I have already proper one named "radeon"
>> >> > installed (judging by synaptic package manager)
>> >> > Then I checked xorg.conf and there wasn't any in /etc/X11
>> >> > So I run "Xorg -configure" as root after booting in safe mode and got
>> >> > segmentation fault.
>> >> >
>> >> > attachements:
>> >> > "Xorg -configure" output - log.txt
>> >> > xorg.conf.new from /root directory
>> >> >
>> >> > I can attach log mentioned in "Xorg - configure" output -
>> >> > /var/log/xorg.0.log if needed
>> >> >
>> >> > Copying xorg.conf.new to /etc/X11/xorg.conf didn't change anything.
>> >> >
>> >> > Anyone willing to help?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Check your dmesg output.  I suspect you either don't have kms enabled
>> >> in your kernel or your need to install the appropriate linux firmware
>> >> packages for your distro.
>> >>
>> >> Alex
>> >
>> >
>
>