18.04 Not going past GRUB on Ryzen 2400g / no video

[wojciechem2]

Hello,

Background: I had 17.10 installed on the same machine and it "sort-of" worked - 640x480 graphics. After installing 4.16 kernel from [1] it even did display HD, however with high CPU usage.
When 18.4 got out, i tried:
1. install MATE flavour (ISO from ubuntu.com) - flash created using Ubuntu creator tool (that hanged for like 2 minutes BTW). Failed to load the installer
2. install MATE - flash created using Rufus on Windows. Failed to load installer
3. install official Gnome flavour - issue in topic.

Details:

I am using PC with Ryzen 2400g processor with AMD Vega DGPU, Corsair MP500 nvme, 16 GB 3000Mhz DDR-4.
I just did a fresh install of 18.04 LTS from usb drive, created using Rufus from official ubuntu ISO.
My screen is connected using HDMI cable. I use built-in GPU, do not have separate video card.

The installer booted and worked nicely, installed the system, then rebooted to pitch black screen.
After selecting Ubuntu in GRUB, screen goes black and "no signal".
"Recovery mode" works in VGA resolution. Using it I installed 4.16 kernel (again, from [1]). Still it doesn't boot in normal mode.
I'm able to boot in "recovery mode" using 4.16

For me the very strange thing is it DID work in 17.10.

Will I be unable to use Ubuntu 18.04 on my machine right now? Perhaps someone with similar configuration has it working?


[1] - http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.16/

[wojciechem2]

One resource I found that might be helpful to others with this problem: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen5-2400g-vega11&num=1
but my issue remains unresolved. Lack of support for recent hardware is kind of a shame...

EDIT: After physically powering off the machine and starting it again, Ubuntu booted OK. That is using kernel mentioned in [1]. I will update if it consistently boots from now on.

EDIT 2: Booting on 4.16 is inconsistent, I'd say success / failure rate is 1:3. Also when booted, it crashes frequently on playing video in Firefox - complete freeze, only reset by button works :/

[experimancer]

It has been reported in many forums and sites that Linux installs, boots and works fine in AMD Ryzen 5 2400G builds when the kernel is at the minimum 4.17 and MESA is updated to 18.2. Kernels 4.16 or 4.15 will fail and/or the graphics are not working.

[njc-juggler]

The only distribution I've found with a kernel that is 4.17 is Manjaro (https://manjaro.org/) which is OK but I'm a big fan of apt-get which Manjaro does not use. Also I had to update to 18.2 Mesa -- and wasn't totally sure how to do it so I followed a youtube video and mistakenly went all the way to 18.3. Seems to be working OK once booted (no lockups) but only boots 1/2 the time and the other half of the time freezes.

Does anyone know of a good "nightly build" that has the right mix of 18.2 MESA and Kernel 4.17? If not, how hard would it be for a relative noob to modify the iso to have the 4.17 kernel? (I'm just re-learning linux after 15 years of not using it much.... )

In other words, I'm seeing several people saying 4.17 Kernel + 18.2 MESA gives good support for this but since I can't find a live ISO with these specs (except the Manjaro) I can't install a desired distribution in the first place.

[kurt18947]

I'm typing this on an Asrock AB350M Pro4 board with Ryzen 3 2200G & 8 GB. Patriot signature RAM. No issues at all running stock 18.04 BUT I'm using an older AMD video card (2013ish) instead of the Vega graphics. I'm not going anything 'hotrodding' wise, this machine is fast enough stock for my purposes. My setup was reserving 1 GB. RAM for video use even though the onboard GPU was not in use. It took a bit of searching to be able to reclaim most of the reserved RAM, current BIOS is quite a bit different than what's shown in the manual.

[wojciechem2]

I have a hard time to even install anything on this machine. Ubuntu Mate / Kde Neon installers freeze. I had Ubuntu 18.04 with the newest kernel from ppa, which booted once in a while, but mostly hanged on boot. I tried some weird boot options in grub, nothing.
Even after successful boot it crashed i.e. on video in firefox. Right now I'm sitting on Win 10 which at least works with the built-in GPU (still a bit buggy)...
So I'm thinking of just getting a dedicated GPU, but ryzen 2400g was a huge fail for me, trying to build cheap machine for software development. Dunno lol.

[kurt18947]

I have a hard time to even install anything on this machine. Ubuntu Mate / Kde Neon installers freeze. I had Ubuntu 18.04 with the newest kernel from ppa, which booted once in a while, but mostly hanged on boot. I tried some weird boot options in grub, nothing.
Even after successful boot it crashed i.e. on video in firefox. Right now I'm sitting on Win 10 which at least works with the built-in GPU (still a bit buggy)...
So I'm thinking of just getting a dedicated GPU, but ryzen 2400g was a huge fail for me, trying to build cheap machine for software development. Dunno lol.

Unfortunately running anything 'bleeding edge' on Ubuntu is going to be challenging. What's your BIOS version? I bought my board as open box and the BIOS was 4.70, .I don't know if it came from Asrock like that or if the 'refurbisher' updated it. 4.90 came out the end of July. For a while new BIOS versions were coming out every few weeks and they did help some people. I do know that trying to use the Vega graphics with 18.04 is a no-go, I tried it. The machine would boot and the light on the monitor would turn from amber to white but no image. I didn't try the 'nomodeset' trick.

[salomonster]

Hi,

I was having the same problem, but disabling iommu on bios, updating to 4.19rc3 kernel with Ukuu and latest BIOS update for AGESA it works great. It shows some ACPI warning on boot, but no freeze at all.

I hope this help you with your machine.