AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support

[Redeeman]

You don't patch the kernel, you patch the DRIVER. Don't get this wrong.

except in the cases where you... patch the kernel... Think unexported symbols like in 8.5 and 2.6.25 x86_64....

[Redeeman]

You mentioned the magic word, PATCHES.

Why do I must patch the kernel all time just for AMD/ATI fglrx support? Why not just supported with the vanilla kernel? That stuff is PITA to the user, I just want to use the latest kernel for my distro (gentoo-sources in Gentoo, for example) and put the fglrx driver on it without need to do manual patching with every kernel update.

I think Nvidia makes things easier, as they are more compatible with latest Linux kernels without need of patching all time. What do you think?

Sorry if this can be half offtopic or seem like trolling to some people, but I think being overoptimistic instead critical and objective makes companies lazy in their efforts.

OT: I think closed source drivers must be totally eliminated from the FLOSS world at long term, this situation is ridicule and against the spirit of the Free Source movement. I see some hope, as it seems companies are starting to understand it or at least being moved to it in a frictional way. I think all this problems with closed source drivers never would exist if these drivers were FOSS.

Dont think for a second that nvidia isnt also shit.. Gentoo just shields you from most of the kernel incompatibility by having the patches applied for you.

[Kano]

Yes, for new nvidia drivers you have problems when XEN is enabled. Then you run into gpl only problems. But not so many users really need XEN. Could get a bit tricky for Ubuntu Intrepid as they enable XEN by default. At least I don't know of a working patch for 173+ (worked up to 171).

[M1AU]

Good news!
However, as a so called hardcore linux gamer I still stick with Nvidia cards until all of my favourite games work flawlessly on ATI cards.
I'm still reading posts about other users reporting grapical glitches or even game client crashes with games such as Transgamings EVE-Online or, Savage 2 when using the fglrx drivers.
Also as long as radeon or radeon-hd doesn't support the latest 3D features, it absolutely makes no sense to me switching over to an ATI pendant.

Nvidia also has its bugs and sometimes I even have to reinstall the driver after an distribution package update which of course sucks, but at least I'm getting quite good performance on the latest games out of it.

Oh, and no. Even as a gamer I absolutely do not intend to use Windows anymore on any of my machines.

[Lothar]

Actually, as part of AMD's strategy, they will be having new work going on in the area of video playback. However, you'll need to wait and see what that entails.

The article said that none of the open source drivers currently had UVD support. How about the closed source driver? If this feature were available, I would switch over immediately.

[Redeeman]

yeah i dont believe fglrx is in a usable state yet.. So again, when not needing top notch performance, intel is still the better choice, unfortunately :|

[sundown]

Well, I'd buy an ATi card next time... maybe one of those phenom/spider platforms or whatever, who knows. As a friend said it, I guess I like to stick with the loser/underdog (sports wise)

BUT this really depends on the state of radeonhd at the end of the year. I don't mind going back and forth between radeonhd and fglrx if I want to play games.

[he_the_great]

I'm interested in knowing what will happen with Hybrid CrossFireX. Since CrossFireX is coming I would assume that Hybrid will get here. And like others have said it isn't about will but when. I suppose I'm less interested on the Linux side of things but more on what Cards are supporting it.

I'm upgrading probably at the end of the year, in hopes for a better view of what will be happing. But I know I'm going with AMD, and the next GFX card will be ATi I just want to know what technology I should try for.

[Michael]

Intel/AMD CPU Discussion Moved To: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10963 In order to keep this thread on track.

[bridgman]

As I understand it Hybrid CF is aimed at cases where the add-in GPU is comparable in power to the GPU integrated into the chipset, eg a 780 and an HD3450. If the add-in GPU is a lot more powerful than the IGP then AFAIK you're generally better off only using one GPU at a time.