Created attachment 519590 [details] dmesg output Using the Live DVD multilib 20160704, the booting sequence stops at the kernel level. KDE does not come up. There is no problem when booting with the Live DVD's from Fedora 27, Kubuntu 16.04.4 and Debian 9.3.0 KDE-nonfree. THe issue appears to be caused by a missing driver for the Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8690M ib the Gentoo Live DVD. Looking into the Gentoo documentation for Radeon, HD8670G is listed under the ARUBA family, but not the exact model of this laptop. This is a brand new laptop that I intended to use for working with Gentoo. Should I return it? Thank you.
Created attachment 519592 [details] 'emerge --info' output
Created attachment 519594 [details] lspci output
The LiveDVD will simply be to old for your laptop model, but that's not really a surprise given the release date. But that's okay, any non-Gentoo ISO will do the job and usually I recommend sysresccd.
Did you mean that it is possible to install KDE Gentoo on this laptop? If this is the case, I could use the minimal disk and follow the instructions from the handbook, working from the command line. Correct? But then where will the Radeon driver be coming from? Is it included in the current gentoo-sources? Or did you mean that this laptop is too new to run kde Gentoo because of the lacking Radeon driver? So, I am not sure why you recommend sysreccd. I can use the minimal disk and sftp with another computer for stage 3 tarball download. If this laptop is too new for kde Gentoo, can you recommend another good laptop for Gentoo? I really want to learn Gentoo :-) Thank you.
(In reply to jplx from comment #4) > Did you mean that it is possible to install KDE Gentoo on this laptop? As long as you can build a kernel that works with your laptop. yes. > If this is the case, I could use the minimal disk and follow the > instructions from the handbook, working from the command line. Correct? But > then where will the Radeon driver be coming from? Is it included in the > current gentoo-sources? Please read the Gentoo Handbook so you can learn how to install Gentoo and how to get X / KDE working. > Or did you mean that this laptop is too new to run kde Gentoo because of the > lacking Radeon driver? What Andreas meant was that the livedvd kernel / xorg drivers are too old to support your graphics card. > So, I am not sure why you recommend sysreccd. I can use the minimal disk and > sftp with another computer for stage 3 tarball download. > If this laptop is too new for kde Gentoo, can you recommend another good > laptop for Gentoo? I really want to learn Gentoo :-) > Thank you. The reference to sysrescue-cd was made as an alternative to using official Gentoo install media. If you're able to use the minimal install-cd, then just use that.
I installed Gentoo successfuly (kernel and X) on a X31 (old) laptop and it worked. So, I must have read the handbook :-) Mu question, in this case, is this: The XOrg/Guide handbook, under "Kernel Modesetting", "...configure the kernel as detailed in the firmware section of Radeon article". In de Radeon handbook, under Firmware --> Built-in Kernel, it lists the family and Chipset Names that correspond to the firmware *.bin files to be loaded. I cannot find the exact chipset of my laptop in the list. My laptop has: HD 8670A/8670M/8690M the closest chip set in the Radeon handbook list is: HD8670G (in the ARUBA) family So, my question is: can the firmware for HD 8670A/8670M/8690M be used for the HD8670G chipset? Is the "G" simply a revision that is compatible with "A" and "M" and if this is the case, should'nt the handbook Radeon list simply show HD 8670/8690? I looked through the AMD/ATI web site but could not find a definitive answer.
I did some more debugging on this issue. I think the firmware for HD 8670A/8670M/8690M firmware is fine for this computer and lsmod shows that ttm driver is loaded (in addition to drm, drk_kms_helper and i2c_algo_bit) when doing "lsmod | grep radeon". So, please forget about my initial question about the firmware. I think the failure is caused by something else. The dmesg section showing the error is shown below: 94.414692] radeon 0000:01:00.0: WB enabled [ 94.414694] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 0 use gpu addr 0x0000000080000c00 and cpu addr 0xffff8800978c7c00 [ 94.414695] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 1 use gpu addr 0x0000000080000c04 and cpu addr 0xffff8800978c7c04 [ 94.414696] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 2 use gpu addr 0x0000000080000c08 and cpu addr 0xffff8800978c7c08 [ 94.414697] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 3 use gpu addr 0x0000000080000c0c and cpu addr 0xffff8800978c7c0c [ 94.414698] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 4 use gpu addr 0x0000000080000c10 and cpu addr 0xffff8800978c7c10 [ 94.414699] radeon 0000:01:00.0: VCE init error (-22). [ 94.986166] [drm:r600_ring_test [radeon]] *ERROR* radeon: ring 0 test failed (scratch(0x850C)=0xCAFEDEAD) [ 94.986183] [drm:si_resume [radeon]] *ERROR* si startup failed on resume [ 100.449993] traps: sddm[5080] general protection ip:7f7c364eb401 sp:7ffdcc3a1a60 error:0 in libstdc++.so.6.0.21[7f7c364b6000+1e5000] [ 102.792748] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: qca9377 hw1.1 target 0x05020001 chip_id 0x003821ff sub 1028:1810 [ 102.792751] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 0 tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 1 [ 102.793027] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: firmware ver WLAN.TF.1.0-00267-1 api 5 features ignore-otp crc32 79cea2c7 [ 102.854815] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: failed to fetch board data for bus=pci,vendor=168c,device=0042,subsystem-vendor=1028,subsystem-device=1810 from ath10k/QCA9377/hw1.0/board-2.bin I think it shows a radeon VCE init error, followed by a radeon "ring 0" error, a radeon drm:si error and finally a sddm general protection error. Is this not a kernel issue?
I was remembering what Andreas said and tried the sysresccd. I was surprised to find out that it runs on Gentoo. The graphic display came up fine. So, the issue here is resolved by using this CD. The livedvd failure is not really a Gentoo bug. It is just that the livedvd is outdated. Conclusion is that I can keep this new laptop and start building and enjoying Gentoo. Thank you for your help and advice.
I got rid of this laptop Dell Inspiron. So, this bug is of no interest to me any more and can be closed as far as I am concerned.
