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Steam client causing text rendering problems on ubuntu

steamclosed AMD driversDistro Family: Ubuntu
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#6768 · opened 2019-12-14 by Anode194 · updated 2020-02-09 · 7 comments · github
AAnode194 2019-12-14 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date):
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Ubuntu
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] N
  • Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Describe what you expected should happen and what did happen. Please link any large code pastes as a Github Gist

launching the steam client in KDE causes text to not to render throughout the whole system.

kernel version: 5.3
AMD 5700 xt
img

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. install steam through apt
  2. launch steam in KDE or other display manager/desktop under ubuntu
  3. should see black bars underneath text
Kkisak-valve maintainer 2019-12-14 github

Hello @Anode194, this looks like a video driver issue. Can you give kisak-mesa PPA a try?

AAnode194 2019-12-15 github

Ok so I added the PPA, updated the system, rebooted and the problem persists. driver info.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2019-12-15 github

Mesa 19.2.0-devel from glxinfo is suspicious and predates any support for AMD Navi. Something fishy is going on here. Maybe something like apt policy libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 would give a hint as to where that is coming from.

AAnode194 2019-12-15 github
EEdznux 2020-02-01 github

Hey

I had the same issue until today and it was very annoying, I fixed it with the following:
(after trying & failing with the things said above with the ppa)

I installed the latest amdgpu driver (the -pro name in the name is misleading, there is both the pro and non-pro version, you can find it here) on a 5.5 kernel (not sure if it changed anything). It's just a matter of download && tar xvf && cd amd-gpu..... && ./amdgpu-install. Don't use the -pro version, only the standard one will work.

Had to uninstall the old driver with amdgpu-uninstall first (and this broke the UI, kind of expected, so had to get to rescue root shell @ boot). You will probably get some complain about KMS/nomodeset enabled at the end of the install, since the boot param is there for the rescue boot, but it should be an issue once booted with standard boot params (no nomodeset nor vga= apparently)

Hope it help & so we can close :)

AAnode194 2020-02-09 github

Thank you for the reply feel free to close this I ended up switching distros, hopefully this can be helpful for other folks that run into this problem.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2020-02-09 github

Closing per the last comment.

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