I think the problem with the Catalyst drivers is actually the policy of only supporting enterprise Linux distros, which is utterly ludicrous because as a percentage of Linux desktops, enterprise distros probably cover less than 1%!
The people who really *need* 3D drivers are those running home Linux desktops - why on earth can't ATI support them in a timely fashion? If they did, then the enterprise distros would automatically get support too (since they always lag behind w.r.t. versions).
Hence, anything non-enterprise (OpenSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu non-LTS) Linux will inevitably use a later kernel and X server than enterprise distros and Catalyst inevitably becomes immediately unusable upon release of the latest non-enterprise distro version.
The biggest Catalyst disaster of the last few years was the release of Fedora 9 - I can guarantee you that there were more users of F9 within a month of its release than *all* the enterprise Linux distros in the world combined.
And did ATI care? Nope, they sat on their fat arses for month after month, not supporting the kernel/X server combo that F9 shipped with. It took 4.5 months (yes, months) before a Catalyst driver finally came out that worked - so long that I stuck with F8 and jumped to F10 a few months after that.
Now we're in the same vicious cycle with Fedora 11 - one of the best Linux desktop distro users out there (particularly for programmers) and completely unsupported for multiple months *again* by ATI. This time, it looks like a kernel 2.6.29 issue (F9 mostly had the X server to blame) and it isn't the only non-enterprise distro suffering this problem.
And what do we read in the release notes for Catalyst 9.7? Not support for a later X server release, not support for a newer kernel (leaving Catalyst now 3 versions behind, which is an absolute disgrace), but the addition of support for an obscure enterprise Linux distro (Red Flag DT 7.0 - barely used in Western countries where I suspect the bulk of ATI's Linux market is) that's probably running a crusty old X server/kernel combo and not used by many desktop users anyway (can you see a lot of Chinese people paying top Yen for an obscure enterprise Linux distro on their desktop? Nope, I can't either).
Basically, ATI have badly let down Linux desktop users in the last couple of years and this latest 9.7 release shows no sign of fixing that either. At this rate, I'm wondering if Fedora 12 will be out before ATI supports Fedora 11, it's getting that ridiculous!
Before you mention the "radeon" and "radeonhd" drivers, I've tried them both and they simply don't work well - monitor alignments are wrong, refresh rates aren't set right and the 3D acceleration is either poor or non-existent. The Catalyst driver, when they eventually update it for the X server/kernel I run, is the only one that does its job properly, albeit sadly many months late.
Get your arses into gear, ATI! You may have a monthly release schedule, but it's virtually worthless if your latest release doesn't work on the latest versions of world's most popular Linux destkop distros (Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE).
The people who really *need* 3D drivers are those running home Linux desktops - why on earth can't ATI support them in a timely fashion? If they did, then the enterprise distros would automatically get support too (since they always lag behind w.r.t. versions).
Hence, anything non-enterprise (OpenSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu non-LTS) Linux will inevitably use a later kernel and X server than enterprise distros and Catalyst inevitably becomes immediately unusable upon release of the latest non-enterprise distro version.
The biggest Catalyst disaster of the last few years was the release of Fedora 9 - I can guarantee you that there were more users of F9 within a month of its release than *all* the enterprise Linux distros in the world combined.
And did ATI care? Nope, they sat on their fat arses for month after month, not supporting the kernel/X server combo that F9 shipped with. It took 4.5 months (yes, months) before a Catalyst driver finally came out that worked - so long that I stuck with F8 and jumped to F10 a few months after that.
Now we're in the same vicious cycle with Fedora 11 - one of the best Linux desktop distro users out there (particularly for programmers) and completely unsupported for multiple months *again* by ATI. This time, it looks like a kernel 2.6.29 issue (F9 mostly had the X server to blame) and it isn't the only non-enterprise distro suffering this problem.
And what do we read in the release notes for Catalyst 9.7? Not support for a later X server release, not support for a newer kernel (leaving Catalyst now 3 versions behind, which is an absolute disgrace), but the addition of support for an obscure enterprise Linux distro (Red Flag DT 7.0 - barely used in Western countries where I suspect the bulk of ATI's Linux market is) that's probably running a crusty old X server/kernel combo and not used by many desktop users anyway (can you see a lot of Chinese people paying top Yen for an obscure enterprise Linux distro on their desktop? Nope, I can't either).
Basically, ATI have badly let down Linux desktop users in the last couple of years and this latest 9.7 release shows no sign of fixing that either. At this rate, I'm wondering if Fedora 12 will be out before ATI supports Fedora 11, it's getting that ridiculous!
Before you mention the "radeon" and "radeonhd" drivers, I've tried them both and they simply don't work well - monitor alignments are wrong, refresh rates aren't set right and the 3D acceleration is either poor or non-existent. The Catalyst driver, when they eventually update it for the X server/kernel I run, is the only one that does its job properly, albeit sadly many months late.
Get your arses into gear, ATI! You may have a monthly release schedule, but it's virtually worthless if your latest release doesn't work on the latest versions of world's most popular Linux destkop distros (Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE).
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