I’m going to be doing some desktop upgrades including switching my OS over to Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS from 19.04. I wanted to ask how well currently is the general stability of the AMD RX 5700XT on Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS using the AMD Hardware Enablement driver for OpenCL?
I hope to do some compute applications like BOINC & F@H but if things aren’t quite there yet should I opt for a VEGA 56/64?
Any input on the topic is appreciated.
Why not just move over to 20.04.01, which is the latest LTS and contains the 5.4 kernel which makes the 5700 XT pretty solid, and should work pretty great out of the box?
I’ve been told there have been many changes to the default GUI in 20.04. Changes to how you navigate menus and the like and if it’s vastly different I don’t really want to re-learn how to navigate the OS. Admittedly I haven’t put the time in to look myself to see if it would bother my usual work flow but it’s something I will look into if we know it’s stable with the 5700XT.
How about getting OpenCL support? AMD does have a driver for 20.04 but I’ve not tested it. Would you happen to know how things are going there?
There are hardly no changes between 20.04 and 18.04 GUI-wise, the GUI is very familiar. See this video for some of the bigger things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtyaXnXxDQQ Sure, a few menus and buttons moved around but I do not see much workflow breakage, and the minor differences will be gone from your mind within a day or two.
As for OpenCL, yes you are right you will need additional drivers. The package you are looking for is called ‘ROCm’ and how to install it can be found here: https://rocmdocs.amd.com/en/latest/Installation_Guide/Installation-Guide.html#ubuntu
Good luck! 
Nah, I think that just might be anti-Buntu users. The lock screen looks different, the desktop looks different, but navigation, dock, panel, etc. are exactly the same. Things look smoother and more glossy, but that’s it.
That’s good to hear. I can spin it up in a VM to see what the latest features are before I commit. Changes to aesthetics aren’t really a bother. Even if it was I love the freedom GNU/Linux offers to completely change the GUI however you like.
Unfortunately this isn’t my first rodeo in regards to trying to get OpenCL support with ROCm. Absolutely nothing I tried, following multiple guides, and the official setup guide on their site, would get BOINC to recognize my GPUs. Refused to work no matter what I tried.
Then I found just installing the AMDGPU driver off the AMD site worked flawlessly so…but that was with R9 290X’s. Now we’re talking about updated OS, new kernel, new driver, new cards it might not work at all so…I could give ROCm another chance but I won’t hold my breath.