Introduction
Recently, I've got a chance to try AMD GPU.
I didn't have experience as a user with AMD GPU, but I felt it was very easy to switch.
Here is the steps to migrate from NVIDIA GPU.
(I'm using Debian sid as a daily driver, but the following instructions are also applicable)
Not only nvidia-driver, but also need to say good-bye to CUDA related packages.
Anyway, it is important to clean it up.
Ensure without nvidia-driver, it correctly boot with GUI desktop.
Now you can see driver was changed to nouveau module.
You can ensure it with lsmod command.
$ lsmod |grep nou
nouveau 3055616 16
mxm_wmi 12288 1 nouveau
drm_gpuvm 45056 1 nouveau
drm_exec 12288 2 drm_gpuvm,nouveau
gpu_sched 65536 1 nouveau
video 81920 1 nouveau
i2c_algo_bit 16384 1 nouveau
drm_display_helper 274432 1 nouveau
drm_ttm_helper 16384 2 nouveau
ttm 106496 2 drm_ttm_helper,nouveau
drm_kms_helper 253952 3 drm_display_helper,drm_ttm_helper,nouveau
drm 774144 14 gpu_sched,drm_kms_helper,drm_exec,drm_gpuvm,drm_display_helper,drm_ttm_helper,ttm,nouveau
wmi 28672 4 video,wmi_bmof,mxm_wmi,nouveau
button 24576 1 nouveau
- Install amdgpu related stuff
Install the following packages.
libdrm-amdgpu1 2.4.124-2
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu 23.0.0-1
mesa-vulkan-drivers 25.0.7-2
mesa-utils 9.0.0-2+b2
firmware-amd-graphics 20250410-2
Now ready to switch GPU.
I rarely had the opportunity to replace the GPU and in this time need to change power supply as well,
it was a bit difficult to do.
Then, graphic driver was changed from nouveau to amdgpu as expected.
$ lsmod | grep amd
amd_atl 57344 1
edac_mce_amd 28672 0
kvm_amd 217088 0
kvm 1396736 1 kvm_amd
ccp 163840 1 kvm_amd
amdgpu 14450688 33
amdxcp 12288 1 amdgpu
drm_exec 12288 1 amdgpu
gpu_sched 65536 1 amdgpu
drm_buddy 20480 1 amdgpu
video 81920 1 amdgpu
i2c_algo_bit 16384 1 amdgpu
drm_suballoc_helper 12288 1 amdgpu
drm_display_helper 274432 1 amdgpu
drm_ttm_helper 16384 2 amdgpu
ttm 106496 2 amdgpu,drm_ttm_helper
drm_kms_helper 253952 3 drm_display_helper,amdgpu,drm_ttm_helper
drm 774144 23 gpu_sched,drm_kms_helper,drm_exec,drm_suballoc_helper,drm_display_helper,drm_buddy,amdgpu,drm_ttm_helper,ttm,amdxcp
crc16 12288 3 bluetooth,amdgpu,ext4
gpio_amdpt 16384 0
gpio_generic 20480 1 gpio_amdpt
That's all.
Currently, I'm using it on linux-image-6.12.38+deb13-amd64 kernel.
It seems that there is more newer release for firmware-amd-graphics,
but no critical issue is found yet.
Conclusion
By switching from NVIDIA GPU, there were some disadvantage that
some application does not support AMD GPU yet.
On the positive side, no need to worry about nvidia-driver issues such as
#1089513
I just started using AMD GPU, I hope I could help to improve the AMD GPU experience on Debian.
This article was written with Ultimate Hacking Keyboard 60 v2 with Riser 60.