Troubleshooting: Linux Firmware & ROCm

🚨 CRITICAL WARNING: linux-firmware-20251125

Date: 2026-01-08

AMD pushed an update to linux-firmware (included in version 20251125) that critically breaks ROCm functionality on Strix Halo systems. While this update has been recalled, many distributions (including Fedora) have not picked it up.

If you are on this firmware version, you will likely experience instability, crashes, or arbitrary failures with ROCm workloads.

How to check your version

rpm -qa | grep linux-firmware

If you see linux-firmware-20251125 or similar, you must downgrade.

Downgrade Instructions (Fedora)

The recommended stable version is 20251111.

Fedora 43

mkdir -p ~/linux-firmware-downgrade
cd ~/linux-firmware-downgrade

wget -r -np -nd -A '*.rpm' https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/packages/linux-firmware/20251111/1.fc43/noarch/

sudo dnf downgrade ./*.rpm

Fedora 42

mkdir -p ~/linux-firmware-downgrade
cd ~/linux-firmware-downgrade

wget -r -np -nd -A '*.rpm' https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/packages/linux-firmware/20251111/1.fc42/noarch/

sudo dnf downgrade ./*.rpm

Kernel & Modules Check

After downgrading firmware, ensure your kernel and modules are consistent. You may want to reinstall/upgrade the kernel to ensure initramfs is rebuilt correctly or simply to match the tested configuration.

sudo dnf install kernel-6.18.3-200.fc43.x86_64 kernel-modules-extra-6.18.3-200.fc43.x86_64 kernel-tools-6.18.3-200.fc43.x86_64 --enablerepo=updates-testing

(Adjust kernel version numbers as appropriate for your specific distribution state)

Finally, reboot your system:

shutdown -r now

Credits & References

Huge thanks to the Strix Halo Home Lab Discord community for identifying this regression and testing the fixes.

Specific thanks to:

lorphos
kazak

Relevant discussion threads:

2.1 KiB Raw Blame History