AMD Loses Its Linux Core Engineering Manager

[Svartalf]

But fglrx is buggy and unmaintainable.

Buggy, I'd concur with. Drivers for a modern GPU aren't easy in the normal sense of writing drivers. I know, I've had a hand in the old GPU style driver work (Utah-GLX...) and with modern GPU style development (can't disclose for whom though...do a bit of digging, though, you'll find out... ) and I can attest to the fact that it's quite a bit more difficult than people make it out to be. It's not un-doable, but it's a lot harder than people think. Partly because of the complexity of what you're asking the GPU to do, partly because the design's a bit lopsided.

Not sure if Larrabee will resolve the lopsided part without performance penalties- we'll just have to see when they ship it.

As for "unmaintainable", you can't know that without seeing the code. I won't agree with you on that one for various reasons.

[Chad Page]

If fglrx really was unmaintainable, the 5xxx's wouldn't be supported yet.

Overall it sounds like things are a lot better internally than before, since the OpenGL code is now shared with Windows.

[The_Monkey_King]

Thank you, Matt!

Yes, the ATI drivers are not what I want or expect from AMD, but they are a damn sight better than what they were. Also, it seems there is a sense of planning and scheduling within the Linux side of AMD, which I knew was completely lacking before.

Good luck with the new company and take it from me, you really won't miss the snow.