AMD Graphics Setup on Arch

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4 Jan 2010
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Evening all,

A bit of background first; I've been dabbling with Linux for a long while, swapping between Ubuntu, Mint, Debian to name a few. After getting a feel for my way around, I decided to make the jump to Arch to learn a bit deeper. The setup on my old Dell laptop has made it feel like new, with zippy startups and rapid performance for browsing and dealing with various office applications. I now like Arch so much I decided to also make the switch from Ubuntu on my main machine (dual booting with Windows) to Arch, and this is where I have hit problems.

On my laptop, after following the various Wiki guides, I managed to get up and running with little issue, other than installing the wrong packages here and there. My laptop uses Nvidia hardware, and was a doddle to set up. However, my main machine is using AMD hardware; specifically an HD Radeon 6970. After following the various Wiki guides, trawling message boards and Google, I have been unable to manage to boot into the desktop environment.

I was hoping that some of the lovely folks on here with experience of Arch + AMD hardware would be able to lend a hand in diagnosing my issue, and getting it up and running.

To the problem specifically, when the system boots, I get a black scren plus some standard text in the top left regarding HDD blocks in use, followed by a message that a KVM has been disabled by the BIOS. The system then hangs, and I am unable to do anything else in this window. Switching to TTY2 and logging in, I can perform terminal commands, inclduing "STARTX" which brings up the windows as expected. When using the command "fglrxinfo", I get a message along the lines of "cannot find a monitor (null)". I have been through the X log file, and find no major errors (WW/EE).

Currently I am stuck with it, and would like to avoid switching back to the likes of Ubuntu where things 'just work'. Setting up Arch running exactly how I need it has been a very satisfying and rewarding experience thus far, and hopefully with some kind assistance I can get my main machine running on it as well as my laptop. Please let me know if I can post any other information about the problem to aid in the diagnosis.

Apologies for the ramble, and if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
 
It's not a graphics problem if you're able to switch to another TTY and startx successfully. KVM is the kernel virtualisation module and will be to do with your CPU and virtualisation support. If your CPU doesn't support virtualisation, but you've compiled the kernel with virtualisation enabled as a module, that could be the problem. At least that's the assumption I'm making based on your description.

What CPU are you using? If it doesn't support virtualisation, or you don't use virtualisation, try compiling the kernel with it disabled.
 
Interesting, perhaps i'm looking in the wrong place as you say.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom II X6 1090t. Not sure this is relevant, but my laptop also displays this message on boot, and is working fine. I have not specifically built the kernel with a particular option, I guess the default is enabled?
 
Interesting, perhaps i'm looking in the wrong place as you say.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom II X6 1090t. Not sure this is relevant, but my laptop also displays this message on boot, and is working fine. I have not specifically built the kernel with a particular option, I guess the default is enabled?

I've just done some reading on the error and have seen other Arch users saying that while the error does appear, it usually doesn't cause problems. It's simply a notification that virtualisation isn't enabled for the CPU.

Reading this thread and in particular this post about multi user target might also be the problem.
 
As it turns out, I again followed the Wiki on the Arch Wiki page, swapping from the official to the open source driver. I am unsure if I had simply missed a step in my first attempt, but I am now running a functional Arch desktop. Many thanks for the input.
 
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