Does anyone know if the AMD processor A8-3850 (AMD Series A-Series APU Socket FM1 Llano Quad-Core) works with Linux ?

This processor is called a APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) because it combines a CPU & GPU in a single device.
AMD lists the "AMD Catalyst 11.9 Proprietory Linux X86 Display Driver" for its Integrated Graphics
AMD Radeon HD 6550D

I want to build a new Linux box using this processor & the Asus F1A75-M (FM1 socket) motherboard & hopefully
end up with working SATA 6.0 & USB 3.0 drives. The AMD A75 (Hudson D3) South Bridge has native support for
sata 6.0 & usb 3.0 so, I hope The Linux AHCI & xHCI-hdc driver modules will work.

Thank you for reading this post & I look forward to reading your comments.

hi,

The A-3850 has been successfully (almost) benchmarked back in july with the 2.6.38 kernel, IMO with the latest kernel you should be fine, although you might have to use the proprietary fglrx drivers (opensource radeon for fusion doesn't seem to be in too good shape, but maybe that info is outdated).

Serafean

You dont need to go to an A8-3850 to get SATAIII and USB 3.0- all the 8XX/9XX chipset AM3/AM3+ boards support SATAIII and most have a USB 3.0 chip as well.

IMO you would be better of with a AM3/AM3+ board and a AM3 CPU unless you are really worried about power usage, then you'd be better off with a dual core A8-A3300/A3400, or an older AMD 'Brazos' system (slower, but a lot less power consumption) or even an intel atom (slower even than the Brazos, but agian its got very low power consumption).

BTW, the A8-3850 should run fine, even the APU, if you've got a late enough kernel and xorg versions.

I got an email from about this thread. I wont answer in a email, I'll answer here-

Not a bad setup, but I'd be going for a different board myself. Probably a 870 chipset, or 9XX chipset (if you want to upgrade to 'bulldozer' later 9XX is the way to go) or GA-880GMA-USB3 if you really want a microATX board.

The 7XX chipsets all have SB6XX/SB7XX southbridges with SATAII/USB2.0 support. 8XX chipsets can come with SB7XX southbridges, so those models only have SATAII, the models with a SB850 southbridge have native SATAIII. 9XX should all be using SB9XX southbridges with native SATAIII support.

USB 3.0 isnt natively supported by the 7XX/8XX/9XX chipsets, but the add-on chips work. Not that USB 3.0 is that great anyway.

Is any one running KDE 4 Linux, on the new FM1 AMD CPU & Motherboard.

JR Namida

It won't work, I have the almost the same combo, f1a75-mpro / A8-3850 and i've got no sound and no graphic display on any Linux flavour. Completely unreliable. I just want to cast it overboard but I need a good replacement for the motherboard.

That setup should work with newer linux versions-

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...graphics&num=1

Yes, its a different board, but its got the same graphics APU and chipset. The sound chips are different, but both should work with linux.

What distros/versions have you tried?

I run kde-4.6.5 with the AMD A-Series APU A8-3850 processor, the Asus F1A75-M motherboard, the 32bit Fedora-15 ext4 linux distribution & kernel-3.2.1. I also use the the proprietary video driver fglrx & the grub-1.99 boot loader. Everything works fine for me including onboard sound, SATA-6 & usb-3.

Hope this helps.

I've tried Ubuntu 11.10; DVD, Alternate, NOMODESET,USB, Mint Gnome ,Fedora, Kubuntu oR Xubunto don't even remember, Fedora.
All those went completely black screen when O.S. installing, monitor went to sleep, out of signal or plain black on a regular 23" VGA LG flat panel
Just Ubuntu 10.04 and Mint Debian didn't go black. But then 800x600 display. Installing Catalyst driver was a nightmare, equaly unreliable on both. I ended up using only Ubuntu 10.04, my choice O.S. long time ago, but Catalyst graphic display didn't work properly, display settings were unstable. Some times I could swich on, others VGA went black and monitor display settings changed. Sound didn't work either, crack and hissed always.
After lot of reading, testing diferent things and reconfigurations, a new HDMI connected monitor was the solution together with a new 20.€ sound card. Now AMD Catalyst graphic drivers on Ubuntu 10.04 are getting along with my new full HD monitor but only HDMI connected. Both new and old monitors display fail to perform reliably when VGA connected, wrong screen resolution settings and changes every time you turn on the pc. I even had to use a little trick to skirt black screen around, plug and and unplug VGA when O.S. loaded.

In the end, a new HDMI screen and a cheap sound card were the 200€. solution to ASUS motherboard F1A75-M PRO & AMD A8-3850 chip.
I'd rather toss it out than going back to the Windows family but what an ordeal!

Saludos y gracias por los consejos.

I just installed the amd drivers on an A6. Worked fine. I know you asked about the A8 but AMD has the drivers.

If that fixed the problem, then it wasnt software (or wasnt 'purely' software). Likely it was due to a bad EDID on your old monitor.

The sound from a Realtek ALC892 should work. Its not he 1st time I've heard of crackling problems with ALC892, but there is a fix- use the realtek drivers.

2 members found this post helpful.

I know this thread is old, and asks about a faster CPU & better motherboard. However: this week my local computer store has a MD A4-3400 APU & MSI A55M-P33 Motherboard Combo for $50. Thought I might ask again is anyone running KDE version of Linux with this FM1 configuration, with or without using the proprietary video drivers?

JR

Thank you all for your help.

It must be my "not so old" monitor which had made for all the problems. I've been running Ubuntu 10.04 for some months now without a glitch, but for the sound; I haven't been able to make it work properly, so I resorted to the extra sound card which save me the pain of more "tweaking" whith the beast.

...and sorry for my english.