15.6" INITIA AMD - Working 99%

[bhunachicken]

All,

I got my Initia AMD yesterday and installed Mint 20.1 on it. Installed great straight out of the box. There's a handful of issues that I'm trying to iron out, if any one is able to help.

1. Brightness controls don't work (using Cinnamon desktop).

2. Keyboard is always lit (blue).

3. Suspend (sleep) results in a screen with a cursor in the top corner. Pressing a key brings up the lockscreen. mem_sleep reports that s2idle is set. ACPI says that S0, S4, and S5 are supported. I think I need S3 to be available for full sleep.

Output of inxi -F

System: Host: nova5 Kernel: 5.4.0-58-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.6.7 Distro: Linux Mint 20 Ulyana
Machine: Type: Laptop System: PC Specialist product: NL5xRU v: N/A serial: <superuser/root required>
Mobo: CLEVO model: NL5XRU serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: INSYDE v: 1.07.04TPCS date: 11/09/2020
Battery: ID-1: BAT0 charge: 36.9 Wh condition: 38.3/36.2 Wh (106%)
CPU: Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 4700U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 4096 KiB
Speed: 1397 MHz min/max: 1400/2000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1397 2: 1397 3: 1397 4: 1397 5: 1397 6: 1397 7: 1397
8: 1397
Graphics: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir driver: N/A
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: ati,fbdev unloaded: modesetting,radeon,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~77Hz
OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 10.0.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 20.0.8
Audio: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor driver: N/A
Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-58-generic
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: 80:fa:5b:8a:1f:a3
Device-2: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi
IF: wlo1 state: up mac: b0:7d:64:12:10:06
Drives: Local Storage: total: 946.42 GiB used: 11.68 GiB (1.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 QVO 1TB size: 931.51 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Blade size: 14.91 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 913.74 GiB used: 11.32 GiB (1.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
ID-2: /boot size: 704.5 MiB used: 204.8 MiB (29.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
ID-3: swap-1 size: 976.0 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 43.4 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 296 Uptime: 54m Memory: 30.81 GiB used: 3.95 GiB (12.8%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.38

 

[bhunachicken]

Okay, I installed the latest available kernel and that fixed the screen brightness issue.

The keyboard is always still lit, however, even when using suspend.

Suspend no longer has the flashing cursor, but I'm not sure if it's in deep sleep. Doesn't seem to be.

Otherwise, the rest of it is working just fine.

 

[bhunachicken]

I found a module that allows one to control the keyboard backlight, so that's all good. Can change colours and everything.

Seems the suspend issue is linked to the BIOS not advertising that S3 is available. Maybe a kernel update can fix that (has done for some in the past).

 

[Strontium]

Looks like your swap partition is too small for suspend. There is no way I could suspend my system at the moment on that little swap, even with compression. Looks like you have plenty of space to extend the partition though!

Edit: Missed out that it might be trying to suspend-to-disk rather than to RAM, or suspend-to-both. You can find out in your /sys/power files:

System Sleep States — The Linux Kernel documentation

 

[bhunachicken]

Thanks! Hmm, I might be out of luck here. I took a look and dmesg for ACPI says that it supports:

ACPI: (supports S0 S4 S5)

Running:

cat /sys/power/state

produces:

freeze mem disk

Finally:

cat /sys/power/mem_sleep

results in:

[s2idle]

Trying to do:

echo deep | sudo tee /sys/power/mem_sleep

Return an invalid command error

Probably due to the BIOS..?

 

[Strontium]

I don't know - but there is a package that might help.

pm-is-supported is part of the pm-utils package, it is available for Debian so you should be able to install it.

You seem fine with commands so maybe give it a go:

pm-is-supported(1) - Linux man page

The intended purpose of pm-is-supported is to find out which power management modes are supported by the system. hald(8) will call it to do just that.

linux.die.net

 

[Strontium]

A quick google suggests that AMD chips have sleep/suspend options disabled, perhaps in the BIOS or that they simply are not supported by AMD chips. I have an Intel chip with the exact same BIOS as you and S3 is supported.

It might be possible to get the system to suspend to RAM with pm-suspend from the pm-utils package, I don't know for sure. Windows handles the sleep function without S3 enabled on the same laptop, so I don't see why linux should have a problem with the correct power management settings.

I use KDE Plasma which has PowerDevil installed, it allows pretty advanced configurations for suspend/hibernnate etc. There must be a Gnome equivalent.

 

[bhunachicken]

Ah, okay. Some further googling has revealed others with AMD 4800U CPUs having similar issues, so perhaps a firmware update or kernel update later down the line will sort it out. The hardware is maybe a bit too new.

So, for anyone wondering, this laptop works more or less perfectly with Mint 20.1, other than the suspend to RAM issue as outlined above.

 

[Mnemonic]

Just a stab in the dark here (wild guess), but perhaps add acpi_osi="!Windows 2015" to your boot params? So in your /etc/default/grub, you'd have something like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2015\""

Then run:

sudo update-grub

Then reboot.

 

[bhunachicken]

Thanks! Give it a whirl, but it didn't make a difference. I believe the issue lies with the way the Linux kernel is currently handling the 4700U CPUs:

Ryzen 4700U failing to enter suspend/modern-standby correctly (#1230) · Issues · drm / amd · GitLab

Brief summary of the problem: When I close the lid of my laptop, it does not actually enter the suspend/sleep state....

gitlab.freedesktop.org

Looks like I'll need to wait until that's fixed. I don't think it'll be all that long, and for now I can cope without it

 

[theend]

Windows do "modern standby" on this laptop which basically saves Zero power .... Kind of S0

The Bios delivered on this machine ( I have one here ) does not advertise S3 So it won't work , You need a New Bios to support it , some people have already done it and it works.

 

[AgentCooper]

Just remember that you'll need to contact PC Specialist and get their permission to update the BIOS, your warranty is likely to be voided if you do so without their consent.

'We reserve the right to suspend the warranty or refuse service if your Case, Motherboard, CPU or BIOS have been replaced without authorisation.
Any tampering, repair or modification by unauthorised personnel voids the warranty'

 

[bhunachicken]

A shame that PCS couldn't add a BIOS toggle to advertise S3, but leave it disabled by default. I'd rather not muck about with a non-official BIOS

 

[spoo333]

Hello Bhunachicken,

is your touchpad recognised as a touchpad? I've been trying to install an Initia Intel system for a friend and the the touchpad is recognised as a Logitech PS/2 mouse instead of a touchpad. I've tried Linux Mint 20, 20.1 beta, Fedora 33, kernel 5.11rc2 in Ubuntu ... no luck. Would appreciate your feedback. Thank you.
PS: xinput list shows no touchpad ...

 

[bhunachicken]

@spoo333: it has been recognised, yes. I'm using Mint 20 Ulyana on the laptop. It's reported by xinput to be:

FTCS1000:00 2808:0101 Touchpad

I'm actually not a touchpad fan, so I've turned it off (in the Cinnamon desktop setting) and use a USB wireless mouse instead. But I can confirm it does work.

+1 for the backlight link. I used the same thing to get my backlight working.

 

[spoo333]

@spoo333: it has been recognised, yes. I'm using Mint 20 Ulyana on the laptop. It's reported by xinput to be:

FTCS1000:00 2808:0101 Touchpad

I'm actually not a touchpad fan, so I've turned it off (in the Cinnamon desktop setting) and use a USB wireless mouse instead. But I can confirm it does work.

+1 for the backlight link. I used the same thing to get my backlight working.

Thank you. I'll check again with Linux Mint 20.

 

[spoo333]

The touchpad is still not recognised as a touchpad. I wish I could change settings in the BIOS, but the BIOS only offers very simple options ... out of luck I guess

 

[bhunachicken]

That's quite odd. Were you able to confirm it was working before you installed Linux? Does it work in the BIOS, for example?

 

[spoo333]

I installed Windows 10 to see if it was recognised and working there. It was. There are no entries in the BIOS for the touchpad that I could find. The BIOS options are very limited in general.

 

[ubuysa]

I installed Windows 10 to see if it was recognised and working there. It was. There are no entries in the BIOS for the touchpad that I could find. The BIOS options are very limited in general.

I'd suspect the BIOS is designed for Windows 10.....