why does fglrx suck so hard?

[Panix]

Seems in bad shape as I've been googling the situation. Memory leaks, problems with resizing windows and video tearing. The bugs at Launchpad (Ubuntu bug report site) show a lot of entries, ones including updated reports as recent as late Feb.

[cutterjohn]

Hi,

I just installed fglrx again because I was bored and wanted to have some 3D. Then I tried to enable compositing in KDE4 and what happens? Right, it crashes.

Why does fglrx suck so hard? WHY?

They got off to an AWFUL start this year, as both 2010 releases so far have sucked hard.

It probably crashed because of the desktop effects, whatever does it for KDE. In Ubuntu/GNOME compiz segfaults at startup with 10.2, but seemingly runs OK if started after logging in.

I'm just waiting for 10.3, hope that it's out this week and finally a good release this year. (Also nice for Windows for me as it's supposed to be the generic installer which will work for mobility radeons. Just hope that MSI didn't opt out.)

RANT: WTF is the point of generic drivers if you let your stupid OEMs opt out? e.g. Sony, Toshiba, etc. AMD damn well knows that they have no extra special features requiring special drivers. In fact I doubt that there's EVER been a GPU that needed special drivers UNLESS they wanted overclocking or underclocking from the driver rather than default clocks for the part. (Like most nVidia OEMs do, but I almost always just use the generic nVidia drivers as they are updated more frequently and usually have good new features... I still think that AMD needs to steal away the nVidia driver crew... They're just better by far IME.)

[Kano]

Well Nv users need a bit more work for mobile, just like for older ATI systems, there you have to do a similar thing. For Nv users (Win only):

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

[droidhacker]

Why does fglrx suck so hard? WHY?

You found some way to use it to control your vacuum cleaner?

[bugmenot]

Oh yes! I'm planning to release my new "powered by ATI RADEON" vacuum cleaner series very soon. I'm sure these will be the best vacuum cleaners in the market.

[cutterjohn]

Well Nv users need a bit more work for mobile, just like for older ATI systems, there you have to do a similar thing. For Nv users (Win only):

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

Well, I've only had a few nbs w/recent GPUs and 2 of the 3 were nVidia based, one MSI and the other Lenovo IIRC which the nVidia generic drivers installed on fine.

The problem with this is the simple tool, Mobility Modder.net (ATI version) is now considering not bothering to update it any longer with 10.3 coming up shortly with SOME actual generic install support. Yes I know that you can modify it by hand, but I'm lazy... and I'd rather just not to have to do it at all. (Driver package changes to Catalyst have prevented the current release from working properly with 10.1 and beyond. They originally had planned to update it to support the new packaging format but as mentioned above, they appear to be re-thinking bothering with that.)

I also noticed that they have one for nVidia drivers, but I've never had anything that I needed to use it for so I was quite surprised to see it nad had assumed that it was a relic left over from years ago.

[daedaluz]

In my 64bit openSUSE 11.2, fglrx drivers from 9.7 to 10.2 have been effectively broken. They always needed some degree of configuration to work somewhat acceptably, plus the ATI's official openSUSE repository have been broken for a long time, offering corrupted packages (hash check fails) which results in major inconvinience, especially if kernel sneakily gets a security update. To be honest, I don't ever recall having easy time with fglrx.

I bit the bullet and poured 100€ on nVidia GTS 250, and suddenly everything started working simply by adding nVidia repositroy and installing drivers there. As a long time (~5 years) Linux user that always has fought with Radeon cards, I can only wonder why I didn't switch vendors earlier. Yup, it's my first nVidia card.

ATI, I am disappoint.

[Panix]

I think linux users care in opensource drivers.

catalyst and the hole nvidia is only an old style in being a computer user.

linux userd do not wana install drivers they wana full driver support out of the box!

The ATI OSS drivers don't offer full support though so what is the point? What if you have high performance cards? You have to worry about them frying because there is no POWER management and no option to control the fan speed among other things?

How come EVERY ATI driver is devoid of features? There is not enough manpower or resources to support/cover them all? There's fglrx, radeon, radeonhd.... too many and none of them are comprehensive. Nvidia might suck at supporting open source and they re-write and use their own stuff for the binary one but it's relatively complete and supported more or less. I think this can be perceived as part of the frustration. I haven't been using an ATI card, though, and my old ATI X300SE is not in use right now. I would like to get a newer ATI card but I need to know there won't be issues that impact video watching and restrict the potential features it inherently has. I don't want to have to resort to Windoze because of the video card. :-/

[mugginz]

I think linux users care in opensource drivers.

catalyst and the hole nvidia is only an old style in being a computer user.

linux userd do not wana install drivers they wana full driver support out of the box!

Install linux and then you are finish........

not install linux and search how to deinstall brain by installing nvidia/catalyst driver.

Well it is an absolute fact that users don't want to install any drivers what so ever if they don't have to. But if you want to use your graphics hardware to its fullest you must.

So that means either nVidia blob or fglrx and fglrx is still broken for the purposes of non-workstation use.

I was trying to get a lend of a 5770 to test the current fglrx but clearly this would be a waste of time as so many people are having issues with it. Thankfully I can wait and see if anything worthwhile gets released driver-wise when Ubuntu 10.04 comes out but assuming it's the same old same old I guess I'll have to get another nVidia card.

[Panix]

Well it is an absolute fact that users don't want to install any drivers what so ever if they don't have to. But if you want to use your graphics hardware to its fullest you must.

So that means either nVidia blob or fglrx and fglrx is still broken for the purposes of non-workstation use.

I was trying to get a lend of a 5770 to test the current fglrx but clearly this would be a waste of time as so many people are having issues with it. Thankfully I can wait and see if anything worthwhile gets released driver-wise when Ubuntu 10.04 comes out but assuming it's the same old same old I guess I'll have to get another nVidia card.

I'm doing the same. I hope it's not the same old, same old.

I also think you are both wrong in a way. I think Linux users are resigned to the fact they have to do a few things, the 'manual' way if they want things optimized. Although, fortunately, there are a few "shortcuts" for installing, for e.g., the Nvidia driver. There's a few script methods, I think, so that is as good as it gets for an easier install. I've wrestled with the Nvidia install but as long as there is a good script option, I'll take that inconvenience over a buggy driver and driver issues preventing me from using my card. In other words, I'm constantly trying to re-install, update or downgrade drivers or packages to avoid a video problem or various issues impacting me using the full extent of my OS, then it's hard to justify going that route. I read that, simply, ATI > NVidia for hardware and Nvidia > ATI for drivers and that's a bad sitution for Linux right now, I think. You can't get the best of either world in any way.