So I've bought an Acer Aspire 5 (model A515-41G-1480) featuring an AMD A12-9720P APU with integrated graphics (R7 M440) and dedicated graphics (RX540, 2GB GDDR5 VRAM).
However, I'm not planning on using Windows, I'd like to use Linux Mint 19 Tara 64-bit, which is based on Ubuntu 18.04, on this laptop. Problem is, there is no official driver support from AMD and when I got to talk to AMD's technical support team, all they had to say is that "as of now" there is no support for it on Linux, only Windows.
Because the integrated/dedicated graphics adapter switcher controller is not supported, I'm stuck with the integrated graphics. On top of that, I'm using the community driver (amdgpu), which doesn't do a good job when playing games, watching videos, scrolling pages, etc. All I get is screen tearing, artifacts and whatnot, resulting in such a frustrating experience for all the scenarios I've mentioned.
To make matters even worse, I investigated even further on AMD.com in order to find at least a Spectre/Meltdown-proof firmware update and to my surprise, my processor is not even listed!
And before you ask, no, that wasn't a typo. My processor is an AMD A12-9720P (AMD A12-9720P SoC - Benchmarks and Specs - NotebookCheck.net Tech ).
It's just too sad to see the company that I chose over Intel to go with still has ways to go in order to catch up to Nvidia, which does a good job at supporting Linux Distros.
Windows-only drivers for my APU/RX 540. Welcome back to 2001.
AMD, is there even a reason to believe you guys are making a Radeon Software-variant, along with proper driver support, for Linux Distros?
I just want to be able to choose which tasks I'd like RX540 to handle, with an official driver (which is exactly what Radeon Software lets me do on Windows).
