ProdigalFrog

This has apparently been a problem for a few months now, and can effect Intel and Nvidia graphics too, but AMD is the most susceptible, and Gnome on Wayland seems to trigger the issue the most. A developer of Kwin explains in a comment on the bug report what's causing it.

My “Favorite”: Pageflip Timeouts

Judging by how often I come across this issue in bug triage, if you’re reading this, chances aren’t too terrible that you’ve heard of this one already, possibly even seen it yourself in the form of

kwin_wayland_drm: Pageflip timed out! This is a bug in the amdgpu kernel driver
kwin_wayland_drm: Please report this at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/is>sues
kwin_wayland_drm: With the output of 'sudo dmesg' and 'journalctl --user-unit plasma->kwin_wayland > --boot 0'

in your own system logs at some point. To be clear, this is just an example and it does not only affect amdgpu. I’ve seen the same with NVidia and Intel too, but as amdgpu’s GPU resets have been a lot less reliable in >the past, it’s been a bigger issue for them.

Basically, pageflip timeouts are when the compositor does an atomic commit through KMS, and then waits for that to complete… forever. When this happens, the kernel literally doesn’t allow the compositor to present to the screen anymore, so the screen is completely frozen forever, which is >very bad, to state the obvious.

Fixing all the individual causes of the problem hasn’t really worked out so well, and this is a bad enough situation that there should be a way out when it does happen. We discussed how to do this, and I’m happy >to report that we figured out a way forward:

• we need a new callback in KMS that tells compositors when a pageflip failed and will never arrive
• drivers need to support resetting the display-driver bits of the GPU to recover it
• if the driver entirely fails to recover in the absolute worst case, it should send a device wedged event, which tells the compositor it should try to reload the entire driver / device

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24783048

I put together a quick flyer for us to print out for tomorrow's Good Trouble Again protest. (Find events near you on the map at their website!)

It was made in Krita (Scribus probably would've been better, but I didn't have time to learn it), using graphics from old IWW pamphlets.

It recommends:

• Collective action and Unionizing with the IWW
• What a General Strike is
• Building community with a link to the Food Not Bombs website (probably the weakest section)
• A section on Solarpunk with text from the manifesto, along with a link to slrpnk.net!
• Ends with imploring readers to talk to the people around them at the protest and form connections.

The flyer is 2 pages designed to fit on a standard US Letter in landscape orientation to enable 2 flyers per page, and intended to be printed double-sided in long-edge mode.

You can create a PDF of the 2 pages for easier printing in Libreoffice Draw (go to Page > Page Properties > Enable Landscape Orientation, and reduce margins to 0.25")

Page 1 Double Flyer:

collapsed inline media

Page 2 Double Flyer:

collapsed inline media

If the double flyers aren't working out for you, I also have a single page version. (without the section imploring reader to talk to the people around them)

Page 1 Single Page:

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/48eb821d-c3c7-481f-8cbb-029989fb18c8.png

Page 2 Single Page:

collapsed inline media

I read a few posts from a few years ago that they suffered from some sort of ring crash bug frequently.

If you're currently on either of those cards, how is the stability nowadays? Any hiccups or problems, or is it 100% in gaming now?

Bonus question, does the Mesa driver allow you to access the VCN video encoder on the gpu?

EDIT: Thanks for all your responses, everyone! The consensus clearly shows they're pretty balin', and definitely worthy of switching away from Nvidia to. :D

This is a super interesting project, and the video is really well presented and explained, if you prefer that format.

I think this method could be brought even further by using 'thin clients' (a cheap laptop or used office mini-PC), making it possible to access the main gaming rig from any room in the house as long as you have access to a good network speed.

Utilizing a 'dummy' HDMI or Displayport stick, which simulates a monitor for the GPU, you could then remote into the gaming rig from a thin client-like PC through Moonlight/Sunlight, allowing you to use it as a fully fledged gaming or workstation PC.

If anyone decides to go that route, be aware that AMD GPU's have pretty notoriously bad encoders, so I'd recommend sticking with Nvidia (Pascal/1000 series or newer) or Intel GPU's/Integrated Graphics (6th generation 6000 series or newer) for the Host machine. It's a little less important for the client, I think.

EDIT: AMD did actually improve their encoders in recent years, starting with the Raven Ridge integrated graphics APUs, and the first generation Navi cards (RX 5700 onward, the lower end cards don't have it).

I thought this video was rather interesting, because at 12:27, the presenter crunches the numbers to find out how many years it would take for a new computer purchase to be more environmentally friendly (in regards to total CO2 expended) compared to using a less efficient used model.

Depending on the specific use case, it could take as little as 3 years to breakeven in terms of CO2 if both systems were at max power draw forever, and as long as 30 if the systems are mostly at idle.