This triple booted rig ( LMDE 7, Debian Trixie Cinnamon and Slackware) has been giving me problems for about 3 weeks now.

I thought that Modicia (the first distro in the Grub Menu) was the problem. Come to find out after a fresh install of LMDE 7 the issue is still present so the mixed config that Modicia has wasn't the issue.

Things I tried:
1- Adding amdgpu.sg_display=0 to the /etc/default/grub config file in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT string.
2- Adding dcdebugmask=0x10 made the flickering and screen tearing even worse
3- Changing the GFX resolution from 1920x1080 to 1024x768
4-Changing the Hz on the monitor from 60Hz to 120 Hz or 100 Hz

All 3 distributions once they finally boot from log in are fine. With one exception, in Debian Trixie as it has a solid thin black line across the center of the screen at all times.

AI suggests that there is some sort of mismatch with the kernel buffer and the amd graphics driver.
I'm not so sure I can trust this.
The firmware and graphics driver is installed in Debian. I haven't done much with the fresh install of LMDE 7 that I just performed yesterday.
In many years of running Slackware I've never seen this behavior before. Perplexing to say the least:-

Sometimes the Grub Menus is clear and I can see all 3 distro's listed and sometimes not.
The boot-up process shows lots of heavy flickering and screen tearing in all 3 distro's. The log in screens are so flickery and show so much screen tearing that I can barely see to log in.

In the meantime I'll download a fresh .iso and make sure the RAM isn't on it's way out.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hmmm. Possibly GPU? Bad drivers for graphics?

How do I test?
Modeprob the driver?

Drivers installed are:

apt list --installed | grep -E "nvidia-driver|nvidia-.*-server|amdgpu|libgl1-mesa"

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

libdrm-amdgpu1/stable,now 2.4.124-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libgl1-mesa-dri/stable,now 25.0.7-2+deb13u1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu/stable,now 23.0.0-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
@debianbox:~$

From what I can tell the kernel in Debian is using the amdgpu driver:

 lspci -knn | grep -iA3 vga
09:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Lexa PRO [Radeon 540/540X/550/550X / RX 540X/550/550X] [1002:699f] (rev c7)
    Subsystem: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device [1002:0b04]
    Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
    Kernel modules: amdgpu

@debianbox:~$  inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Lexa PRO [Radeon
    540/540X/550/550X / RX 540X/550/550X] driver: amdgpu v: kernel
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.16 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu resolution: N/A
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,radeonsi,swrast
    platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 25.0.7-2+deb13u1
    renderer: AMD Radeon RX 550 / 550 Series (radeonsi polaris12 ACO DRM 3.64
    7.1.7+deb13-amd64)
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

I'll have to look for an older version later. Got things going on that require my attention.

In among your 'tryouts' re gpu....disable the driver/gpu completely. Maybe in driver manager there may be a possibility to use onboard graphics in its place ?

Worth a try

Would I need to disable/blacklist the driver in LMDE 7 or all 3 distro's?

I've got Memtest86 downloaded however the pkg manager is locked up.
I have to work in the morning so this will have to wait.

Code:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet fbdev=1"

...and if the above ^^^^ fails. Alex have you tried inserting into the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT string

nomodeset

??

You could try it in one, update grub and reboot, and if successful try it in others.

HTH

Chris

• 

  AMD Mod's in the Kernel.png

  232 KB · Views: 22

• 

  AMDgpu.png

  235.3 KB · Views: 23

some AI prompting leads to info about plymouth conflicting with the monitor's native refresh rate & it recommends to disable the loading logo via:

Code:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet fbdev=1"

hope that helps!

I tried that, updated grub and rebooted. No dice:-

Just make sure you use the amd-gpu-burn, as from what I have seen, the regular version is Nidiva only.
Hope all goes well!

Does this link look correct to you?
I read the ReadMe. I'm not that good at building Rocketing-warp9 so I hope there aren't any make errors.

Memtest did it's job and the RAM is ok. Zero errors I'm glad to report.