AMD Radeon Graphics Driver Amassing Improvements For Linux 5.8

[cjcox]

Catalyst was using FGLRX at that time and it was highly buggy. It's very true that radeonsi hadn't been performance optimized yet, but it's also true that the OSS stack was -MUCH- more stable that Catalyst. The OSS stack at that time provided for a considerably better user experience.

Sounds good, but not really true. I love to praise AMD.... but not going to wear the rose colored glasses, you know? Not saying there weren't issues with Catalyst, but ran a lot of it and didn't really have any issues. Early AMD work tended to be very targeted. You didn't want "old" and you didn't want "new" either.... and even then, there were exceptions. It was actually sort of painful IMHO. Let's just say it's gotten a LOT better, and the drugs may have made Woodstock sound better, but way back, it really wasn't all that great.

[fuzz]

A friend of mine is doing F@H. He buys Nvidia cards because Nvidia cards have a much better performance (points/day) when running the F@H clients. I don't know if it is because of optimisations for Nvidia GPU arch or using CUDA or whatever... But, from his explanations it seems absolutely clear that everybody wanting to do F@H or supporting a F@H team would do so with an Nvidia GPU.

That says more about F@H than Nvidia. Plenty of BOINC projects (other @home projects that support a unified distribution framework) work better with AMD GPUs.

[DanL]

Nvidia is plagued with tons of issues which they don't care to fix from broken PRIME to lack of modern desktop support (Wayland / XWayland use cases) and so on. All of that is due to their refusal to upstream.

Hmmm. Works for me. Maybe that's because I wouldn't touch a Hybrid GPU laptop with a 40 foot pole (if I intended to run Linux on it), and I don't care about Wayland, especially with their devs' attitude/priorities.

Only blob fanatics try to deny the fact that Nvidia is DOA when it comes to anything modern on Linux.

LMAO. You're the one calling people fanatics? That's precious.
Nvidia is not DOA by any sane stretch of the imagination. And I'm not a blob fanatic at all. I greatly prefer open source drivers, and have opted for AMD on desktops and laptops several times over the past decade+. As I've said multiple times, I would have gladly bought an AMD card instead of my current GTX950 if AMD had competitive hardware at the time. They didn't (this was pre-Polaris).
So while it's great that AMD supports open drivers, they don't get a magical free pass just because of that. You have to offer good hardware before the vast majority of people care about whether the driver is open or closed. Count me among them.

[shmerl]

LMAO. You're the one calling people fanatics? That's precious.

You started calling people fanatics for preferring open source drivers. So back at you. That's blob fanaticism. As I said, Nvidia is DOA for everything modern. Just because you are stuck with outdated technology that "works for you" doesn't mean the rest of the Linux desktop is or event strives to be.

[DanL]

You started calling people fanatics for preferring open source drivers. So back at you. That's blob fanaticism.

*Sigh* I didn't call people fanatics for simply preferring open source drivers. I called people like you fanatics for placing undue importance on open drivers and believing that all or most Linux users feel the same. In other words, if someone would buy a clearly inferior GPU just to avoid a closed driver (when the closed driver works fine), that would be fanatical behavior.

As I said, Nvidia is DOA for everything modern.

Yeah, you said that, but just because you say something, that doesn't make it true. I feel like I'm talking to 144Hz here.

Just because you are stuck with outdated technology that "works for you" doesn't mean the rest of the Linux desktop is or even strives to be.

X.org is old, but not outdated. Heck, even the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 release defaults to it. And if I like something and prefer it over its supposed replacement, how is that being "stuck" with it?

[shmerl]

*Sigh* I didn't call people fanatics for simply preferring open source drivers. I called people like you fanatics for placing undue importance on open drivers

Open drivers are important for the progress of the Linux desktop, and it's not "undue placing". Blobs like Nvidia one are slowing progress down. So deal with your own blob fanaticism, instead of calling people names.

[mcoffin]

I know this isn't the most contributory comment/post, but I was astonished to see that radeon was getting love in 5.8.

The title is a little bit confusing, since AFAIK, most of this pertains to the amdgpu driver, not the radeon driver, which is mostly used for volcanic islands and before cards.

[pal666]

According to the Folding@home stats, Nvidia is 16x more popular than AMD on Linux

because fah doesn't support amd, so nobody bothers to use fah

[qarium]

The big issue

AMD could easily do much better than they do now...

people have problem because windows-only hardware have bad linux experience but they buy it because they believe there is linux support. this is was AMD really do wrong.
instead of releasing new hardware for all operation systems and do 1 big release amd should do 2 releases.
first you do your so loved windows-only release and you call the chip WINDOWS-ONLY chip
then 6 month after the windows-only release AMD should do the second release and name it: Linux Compatible chip.
it is really pure ignorance by amd not to release linux compatible cards instead they do windows-only releases.

yes now the old babbling about amd does not build cards instead they only build chips

just tell your cards builder that they need to do card release modell as i tole you here first your windows only release and after the linux driver is in good shape release the linux compatible card "brands" or logo or whatever.

there are other filds what could be better what about a driver GUI?

AMD also should go back to work on clover this clover situation alone generate bad PR for AMD.

and really really really make the FLOSS driver the the PRO because the closed source driver on linux infact hurt the linux ecosystem like the handbrake video coding stuff what uses closed source tech instead of the open source tech.
instead of selling pro cards (you can still do it no problem) amd should build up a voting system for pro users so they can vote on features they want and they can put in money to pay for the development of pro features for the open-source driver.

for me it feels like these 2 drivers on linux just generate bad PR for AMD. but it makes money so bad PR is ok as long it makes money sure you are cynical. believe me the bad PR is much greater hit to amd than any cash what comes in by selling pro hardware. but sure you can not proof this by cost/sale numbers.

[DanL]

Open drivers are important for the progress of the Linux desktop

I'm not disagreeing with that.

and it's not "undue placing".

If you think that enough people are choosing GPU's based solely on driver openness (or even as the primary factor) to influence the balance of AMD/Nvidia, then yes, you have an exaggerated sense of self-importance as a Linux user, and you're ignoring the other more important factors I've pointed out.

Blobs like Nvidia one are slowing progress down.

In some ways, yes. But in other ways, they aid progress, such as allowing users of common hardware to run Linux. Obviously, it would be far better if Nvidia contributed to nouveau, but if they don't want to do that, it's their choice. You're not entitled to an open driver.

So deal with your own blob fanaticism, instead of calling people names.

LMAO. I hope the irony of that sentence isn't lost you. And I already clearly demonstrated that I'm not a blob (or even Nvidia) fan/atic. But, by all means, keep calling me one. You're just discrediting yourself and digging yourself deeper in the hole. (Hint: Stop responding to me. Quit while you're behind.)