Folding Forum

Old guide can be found here: viewtopic.php?t=42491

Having written the first part in the link above, I realised few things about how AMD does things on Linux, and I made few mistakes up there. This prompted me to write much simpler strategy, cutting some of the steps. Basically AMD drivers come with Linux kernel, all one needs to do is download couple of ROCm/OpenCL packages. This guide will show, how to do it in various distros. This approach removes the need to work with amdgpu downloaded drivers and DKMS system, which is rather annoying. Also, every time you download new kernel, your GPU drivers get updated. Also this guide now supports ROCm up to 6.4.3 (and probably later). Lastly, this guide takes into consideration latest Linux package filing changes. Oh, and make sure you have done symlinking trick to not get failed WUs on certain cores: viewtopic.php?t=42789
Radeon 9000 series owners, you will have to remove mesa-opencl-icd package and restart in order for rusticl not to take over. FAH does not work with rusticl yet. However, I'm hearing that AMD is pushing all their linux compute stack towards Mesa, so I guess FAH will have to adapt.

So:
People, who know how to add Radeon repo to their distro sources, you need to add ROCm 6.4.3 repo (from https://repo.radeon.com/rocm), and then install rocm-opencl-sdk and install ocl-icd-opencl-dev or, in some distros, ocl-icd-devel, restart fah-client service, or reboot the system, and you should be good to go. Your FAHclient v8 should report your GPU as supported in Web UI System Info section.

For others:

--Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Pop_OS:
Since amdgpu driver is already in the kernel, you just need rocm-opencl-sdk and icd-loader. icd-loader is within distro repos already, but only old rocm-opencl-sdk is available. We need to add radeon repo for upgrade.
Find Synaptic Package Manager, click Settings, Repositories. Fill in the fields as shown below in the screenshot and click OK:
Remember: 20.04 - Focal, 22.04 - Jammy, 24.04 - Noble


From terminal enter following:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install rocm-opencl-sdk (select 6.4.3)
sudo apt install ocl-icd-opencl-dev
sudo systemctl restart fah-client <---if you have fah-client already installed and running

Check Web UI System Info section if your GPU is now supported (Should say True next to Supported)

--Linux Mint:
Since amdgpu driver is already in the kernel, you just need rocm-opencl-sdk and icd-loader. icd-loader is within distro repos already, but rocm-opencl-sdk is not. We need to add radeon repo for that.
Find Software Sources, click Additional Repositories, click Add. Enter the following lines and click OK:
For Mint 21

deb [arch=amd64] https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/apt/6.4.3 jammy main

For Mint 22

deb [arch=amd64] https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/apt/6.4.3 noble main

Click on green button, which will show up at the bottom right corner, and then close Software Sources window.

From terminal enter following:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install rocm-opencl-sdk
sudo apt install ocl-icd-opencl-dev
sudo systemctl restart fah-client <---if you have fah-client already installed and running

Check Web UI System Info section if your GPU is now supported (Should say True next to Supported)
Note: It is possible that Software Sources will not save your newly added repo, so you will have to re-add it again. I usually tick/untick newly added repo, reload cache again, and then close it. That seems to save the repo.

--Debian 12/13+:
Older than Debian 12 might have issues with drivers, but with more recent kernels things are working.
Since amdgpu driver is already in the kernel, you just need rocm-opencl-sdk and icd-loader. icd-loader is within distro repos already, but not rocm-opencl-sdk. We need to add radeon repo for that.
Find Synaptic Package Manager, click Settings, Repositories. Fill in the fields as shown below in the screenshot and click OK:

Note this screenshot is best suited for Debian 13.
For Debian 12 write jammy under Distribution section.

From terminal enter following:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install rocm-opencl-sdk
sudo apt install ocl-icd-opencl-dev
sudo systemctl restart fah-client <---if you have fah-client already installed and running

Check Web UI System Info section if your GPU is now supported (Should say True next to Supported)

--Fedora 40+:
Since amdgpu driver is already in the kernel, you just need rocm-opencl-sdk and icd-loader. icd-loader is within distro repos already, but not rocm-opencl-sdk. We need to add radeon repo for that.
Launch terminal, cd your way to /etc/yum.repos.d. Inside of it create empty file named ROCm.repo (it will ask for elevated permissions).
Then using your favorite terminal text editor, populate that file with following (I am using nano text editor as in: sudo nano ROCm.repo):

[ROCm]
name=ROCm
baseurl=https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/el9/6.4.3/main/
enabled=1
gpgkey=1
gpgkey=https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/rocm.gpg.key

Save it (for nano CTRL-X to Exit, Yes to Save changes, and, if asked, click Enter).

From terminal enter following:

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install rocm-opencl-sdk
sudo systemctl restart fah-client <---if you have fah-client already installed and running

Check Web UI System Info section if your GPU is now supported (Should say True next to Supported).
If it says False next to Supported, in terminal window run:

sudo dnf install ocl-icd-devel
sudo systemctl restart fah-client

Check if Web UI System Info shows True next to Supported. If the damn thing still shows False, install ocl-icd package. But I doubt this is needed, since this is already installed.

--ArchLinux, Manjaro, Endeavours:
There is no radeon repo for you, btw. I asked AMD, cannot remember the answer... But I think their response was, that things are available from AUR repos.
But, I heard you are quite resourceful ladies and gents. I believe rocm-opencl-sdk is available in AUR repos (it is present in Endeavours), so if that is the case you can adapt your installation sequence from any above examples. Best of luck, btw and, obviously, amdgpu driver is already in the kernel.
EDIT: here is more precise info on regards to situation on Arch Linux. Thank you very much @untilitdid


--OpenSuse: Following has issues with dependencies
amdgpu driver is already in the kernel.
Add https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/zyp/6.4.3/main/ to your Yast Software Repositories app.

From terminal enter following:

sudo zypper in rocm-opencl-sdk <---Choose Solution 2, to ignore the dependency (I asked AMD why this is the issue, hope they'll fix it)
sudo systemctl restart fah-client <---if you have fah-client already installed and running

ocl-icd-devel should already be installed by default, if not grab it as well and restart fah-client service
Check Web UI System Info section if your GPU is now supported (Should say True next to Supported)

Few notes:
Latest distribution versions have changed something to the way they boot, so FAHClient seem to start before all the OS components are loaded, so every time you reboot Ubuntu 25.04, or Debian 13, or Mint 22, you have to run the following command in terminal:

sudo systemctl restart fah-client

. Dev is looking into how to "fix" this, not sure when the "fix" will be ready. v8.4.9 does not have it yet.
If all the above guide still does not get your GPUs recognised, try following:

sudo usermod -a -G render fah-client <---system restart is required afterwards

ocl-icd-devel package requirement is now global, even evil doers on nVidia side need this package now. This is apparently global Linux things, not just vendor agnostic.
And, finally, as noted before, this might be obsolete, if/when we get HIP Fahcore, but even if this happens tomorrow, we will be long way from completely moving away from opencl.