AMD Releases Catalyst 9.6 For Linux

[Spanner]

Buying an ATi card was the worst decision I ever made in my life. It really goes to show that paying a little more and getting an Nvidia is definitely worth it.

That's pretty extreme - but I'd say that buying a 4870 was the worst mistake of my PC-building 'career'. It wasn't based on cost, it was to support AMD's "open" approach.

To be sure I expected *some* pain with fglrx, but I had no idea just how much, or how consistent it would be. Now I just can't wait to throw cash at a GeForce card, to hell with open documentation!

[Jimmy]

Linux 2.6.30 seems to work just fine with Nvidia's drivers. Even on my really old SLI GeForce 6600s.

Don't know what to say other than I feel sorry for the ATI folk.

[BhaKi]

People, please don't underestimate the value of open specifications. It's true that nVidia's closed-source Linux driver is better than AMD's Linux drivers at the moment. But don't just assume that Linux-support is everything. "You must use Windows or Linux in order to use our card" is almost as bad as the "You must use Windows in order to use our card"-attitude that we've been fighting against for years. For instance, what if you decide tomorrow to switch to some obscure OS like OpenBSD? With nVidia's cards you'll only be able to use resolutions like 640x480 and that too without any acceleration or compositing. With AMD's open specs, independent developers can write drivers. That could be myself or the OpenBSD developers. THAT is true freedom.

[energyman]

don't forget that nvidia betrayed partners and users over the last couple of years. More and more shit is unconvered about their mass dying chips.

[Pulfer]

My r700 card works great out-of-the-box for everything I need (EXA, Xv etc.) except 3d.

How did you get Xv to work? What driver do you use? What's your xorg.conf settings?

[grege]

People, please don't underestimate the value of open specifications. It's true that nVidia's closed-source Linux driver is better than AMD's Linux drivers at the moment. But don't just assume that Linux-support is everything. "You must use Windows or Linux in order to use our card" is almost as bad as the "You must use Windows in order to use our card"-attitude that we've been fighting against for years. For instance, what if you decide tomorrow to switch to some obscure OS like OpenBSD? With nVidia's cards you'll only be able to use resolutions like 640x480 and that too without any acceleration or compositing. With AMD's open specs, independent developers can write drivers. That could be myself or the OpenBSD developers. THAT is true freedom.

Except Nvidia make BSD drivers as well, at least for FreeBSD the last time I tried it.

However I take your point. I have a Media Box based on a Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H and use the open source driver with Ubuntu Jaunty. This box has no need of 3d or compiz effects. The 2d desktop is fast and stable, and the xv video is smooth. The box runs a Samsung LCD TV through the VGA connector. It plays and records Digital TV and plays xvid videos. The TV goes to sleep and wakes when it should. For this purpose the open source driver is great and updates occur through the normal update process.

The next step of adding proper 3d support for all cards will free us from fglrx for ever. When that happy day arrives we will all be better off because everything will "just work" - any distro, any kernel.

Personally I would rather AMD stopped development of fglrx for the end user altogether (keep it for the corporate FireGL) and put resources into finishing the open source stack.

My main computer is using Nvidia and the ATI HD3450 card I bought a year ago in high hopes of open source goodness gathers dust. By the time I can use it, it will be so out of date it will be replaced. Lucky it did not cost much.

I applaud the effort being made to create the open source driver. When finished it will be a huge boost for GNU/Linux. Sometimes it is hard to be patient.

[krazy]

How did you get Xv to work? What driver do you use? What's your xorg.conf settings?

Kubuntu Jaunty (using 2.6.30 now, but it also works on the default 2.6.28 kernel)
my xorg.conf is empty. The kernel uses radeon by default.

[grege]

How did you get Xv to work? What driver do you use? What's your xorg.conf settings?

This works for both my HD3000 series cards.

You need a 6.12 driver or newer

Section "Device"
Driver "radeon" # can also put "ati"
Option "DRI" "true"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection

Ubuntu Jaunty has a 6.12.1 in the repos or you can add xorg edgers from PPA to get newer drivers.

This will give 2d only - there is no 3d support for newer cards yet.

[krazy]

Personally I would rather AMD stopped development of fglrx for the end user altogether (keep it for the corporate FireGL) and put resources into finishing the open source stack.

Hah! that's what they did and many short-sighted people bitched about it.

I applaud the effort being made to create the open source driver. When finished it will be a huge boost for GNU/Linux. Sometimes it is hard to be patient.

agreed.

[mendieta]

I upgraded to 9.6, working just dandy.

It did take me hours and hours (over several weeks) to get 9.5 working in Ubuntu 9.04. I found the answer here:

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=6794

Specifically:

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=6794&page=79

sudo rm /etc/ati/amdpcsdb
sudo aticonfig --initlal -f --overlay-type=Xv
sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str="DDX,EnableRandr12,FALSE"
ssudo aticonfig --dtop=horizontal

Sadly, I reported this in the ATI unofficial bug-tracker with all sorts of details and no one ever answered.