Hi!
I got a new computer (a "mini gaming pc" with a Ryzen 8845, which is practically the laptop version of the Ryzen 8700G APU) today. I had thought it would be no problem to take the SSD with my Slackware64 15.0 install from my ThinkPad (8th gen intel) and stick it in there. But even after resolving UEFI troubles, there are problems.

I thought all of this stuff is detected at runtime, is there something about drivers fixed at install?

The biggest problem is that SDDM doesn't come up. I use Plasma/Wayland.

When I run startkwayland as user, Plasma comes up, but it doesn't use the right driver I think. I stuck the amdgpu module in the initrd, but I don't know if it does anything.

Another problem is that the wifi is not detected. (But I was planning to run a network cable eventually, so not a total dealbreaker. It's some chinese wifi card with a brand I've never seen before.)

I'd really like to avoid a new install. Should I do it anyway, or is there a way?

thanks for reading so far

Are you able to trawl the system logs for any errors? Is SDDM starting an Xorg server, or as a Wayland client?

The questions are: how the system was configured and how the new hardware is supported at all?
If you tied (hardcoded) anything on the old host which is invalid on the new one.
Yes need to check the logs.

At least, you need this:

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Slackware64 15.0? Is that still on the 5.15.x kernel series?

Kernel 5.15 was released in 2021, the Ryzen 8845 is a chip that launched in mid-2023. It wouldn't be surprising if Slackware 15.0 just plain didn't have driver support for the iGPU.

You could try grabbing the kernel from slackware64-current. You might need Mesa and other things too. Or just fully switch to -current.

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Thanks all!

sddm.log and Xorg.0.log were unhelpful. I also trawled /var/log/{messages,syslog}, but not thoroughly.

I tried to find out which kernel introduced the relevant support, but I guess it's not so clear cut. This article makes me want to at least go to 6.3, I also found an unsourced claim that I'll need at least kernel 6.7. But it doesn't matter so much in the end, I'll just go with the -current kernel.

I don't really want to go with current proper, I already did this in the last cycle and did get used to it, but living in the quieter world of stable was a relief after all.


PS: for anyone reading this in the future, just sticking the amdgpu module in the initrd is not fruitful.

Running kernel 6.12 now (still on the thinkpad for now).

As for Mesa, I want at least 23.3. What are mesa's dependencies, in terms of glibc etc? glu, obviously. I've played this game before, with my thinkpad's iGPU and Slackware 14.2, of trying to replace as little as necessary of Slackware stable to get to as high as possible a mesa version. Also I'd have to upgrade X and Wayland, for xf86-video-amdgpu, wouldn't I? Going to -current starts to sound better and better. *sigh*

Tried running mesa 23.3.4 from current (cumulative archives).

Parts of it are compiled against libLLVM 17 and glibc 2.38. (Slackware 15.0: 13 and 2.33.)

I guess I could try building this (or a newer) mesa myself… or go to current already. Any other options?

you can try to build latest mesa on slack15 and see what kind of error is happen.

according to mesa website,
https://docs.mesa3d.org/install.html

you need:
slackware 15 should be able to build mesa.

Compiling the current mesa (25.0.2) from current has so far needed me to:

• install python3-meson-opt from SBo (already had that)
• install rust16 from SBo (for both of these, follow the README to put them on the PATH for subsequent mesa compilation)
• install rust-bindgen from extra/
• (I upgraded llvm-19 from extra/ too, for good measure. If you do that, you also need to install llvm13-compat from extra/!)
• compile libdrm with SlackBuild/version from current (short compile, this made more sense to me than installing the compiled package)
• compile spirv-llvm-translator from current – this failed because it wants LLVM 20

This is where I give up for now.

The cumulative archive on slackware.uk doesn't include source/ (for disk space reasons, iirc). Can I find these older versions of official SlackBuilds anywhere? Then I could try this process again with an older mesa version.

Ok I didn't give up just yet. I was able to build spirv-llvm-translator for llvm 19 with the recent -current SlackBuild. But it's too old still to compile this mesa. From mesa configure:So now I could try walking back mesa versions, if they build with the most recent SlackBuild.

Mesa 24.3 has the same error as 25.0. Mesa 23.3 won't compile with the SlackBuild for 25.0. I can still try 24.{0,1,2}. Else to go ahead I'd need to get my hands on an older version of PV's build script, or figure out the build options to mesa myself.

I've looked btw, the binary packages don't include the SlackBuild.

ETA: same error on 24.0

Marking as solved as I'm upgrading to current.

Still, feel free to answer open questions.