Re: Stuttering Gnome Debian Buster

[Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org>]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 10:10:48AM +0200, solon wrote:
> I should probably have specified, but I am certain I am using a compatible
> driver, and backports is enabled.

But what did you *install* from backports?  Simply enabling the repository
doesn't do anything.  Backports are pinned in such a way that they are
never installed by default.  You must explicitly install each package.

> 85:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
> [AMD/ATI] Oland PRO [Radeon R7 240/340] [1002:6613]

OK.  First thing I wonder is whether you have installed the
firmware-amd-graphics package (from the non-free repository).  But even
then, I don't know whether it has the correct firmware for your device,
because I couldn't find "R7" or "Oland" in the package description.  I
do see "oland" a few times, but...

  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series CE microcode (amdgpu/oland_ce.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series K SMC microcode
    (amdgpu/oland_k_smc.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series MC microcode (amdgpu/oland_mc.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series ME microcode (amdgpu/oland_me.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series PFP microcode (amdgpu/oland_pfp.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series RLC microcode (amdgpu/oland_rlc.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series SMC microcode (amdgpu/oland_smc.bin)
  * Radeon HD 8500/8600/8700 series UVD microcode (amdgpu/oland_uvd.bin)

I don't know whether any of those is intended to match your device.

Checking "dmesg | grep -i firmware" would be good.

> Linux MyMachine 5.10.0-0.bpo.8-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.46-2~bpo10+1
> (2021-07-22) x86_64 GNU/Linux

So you grabbed a kernel image from backports, at least.  That's probably
a good step.  But this doesn't tell us whether you also grabbed the X
server (or Wayland), Mesa, firmware, etc.

> I'll upgrade to bullseye in a few days and will probably only continue
> investigating it if it comes back with enabled gnome extensions after that.

Upgrading to bullseye is probably wise for this new a device.  If nothing
else, it would save you having to figure out all of the backported
packages you need.

Googling gave me a page that's not directly related to Debian:

https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci:1002-6613-1458-22b0

And an unanswered Debian bug report: https://bugs.debian.org/966420

But the person reporting that bug was using a buster kernel, where you
are using a backported kernel.  So perhaps that doesn't affect you.