AMD Releases Catalyst 12.1 Driver For Linux

AMD has unleashed the first Catalyst Linux binary driver update of 2012, but does Catalyst 12.1 bring anything interesting or just more breakage?

The AMD Catalyst 12.1 discussion has already begun today within the forums when apt readers realized the binary drivers for Windows and Linux surfaced on AMD's website.

AMD's continued in their tradition of no longer providing Linux release notes for the Catalyst driver (only Windows), but fortunately I have you covered once again... Below are some of the notes that I have concerning what's become the public Catalyst 12.1 Linux release, which is now fully marked as an AMD driver without lingering ATI references.

- Ubuntu 11.10 "production" support. The Catalyst driver has worked under Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" for a number of releases now, but now it's deemed "production" capable. However, as already reported in the forums, if you try to build the Debian packages from the Catalyst 12.1 installer, it's actually broken. You're better off waiting for the Catalyst 12.1 packages to appear in an Ubuntu PPA or the updates repository. If you want to build the packages youself, fetch the latest fglrx-packaging build scripts from Phorogit (a Phoronix Media owned property) where the official Catalyst Linux packaging scripts are housed.

- Catalyst 12.1 has early-look support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SLED11) Service Pack 2.

- Various packaging script updates from Phorogit.

- Known issues still under Ubuntu 11.10 include: LP#884564 display overlap problem (NUX), LP#885989 White screen on second screen (nautilus), LP#885991 No window manager on second screen (compiz, gnome-session), LP#882916 Panning doesn’t work (g-s-d and Xserver), LP#838128 Unity crash when use xrandr to enable Single Large Desktop mode (unity, compiz), and LP#898970 Cannot maximize the window to both screens in vertical multi monitor configuration (unity, NUX).

- There is some unannounced OpenCL work that went into Catalyst 12.1.

- The AMD Radeon HD 7970 should now be officially supported by Catalyst 12.1 wit working acceleration and no longer being flagged as "unsupported hardware." However, I'm still waiting on my Radeon HD 7970 hardware from AMD to confirm.

- The known issues still outstanding in the Catalyst 12.1 world is GNOME Shell doesn't work with dual-head mode.

That's it as far as the official Catalyst 12.1 Linux work goes... Nothing too exciting this month.