why does fglrx suck so hard?

[next9]

I don't understand why ATI does not support Xorg 1.7 in current fglrx, but release pre-release 10.4 with that support for ubuntu only?

Why is that? Why is AMD always months behing X server, and if they release some pr-release driver, it is always only ubuntu DEB. It should not be any difference offer it as traditional installation script. Why are ubuntu users exclusively preferred over Fedora, Arch or other distros?

[droidhacker]

I don't understand why ATI does not support Xorg 1.7 in current fglrx, but release pre-release 10.4 with that support for ubuntu only?

Why is that? Why is AMD always months behing X server, and if they release some pr-release driver, it is always only ubuntu DEB. It should not be any difference offer it as traditional installation script. Why are ubuntu users exclusively preferred over Fedora, Arch or other distros?

Its a bit of an odd thing, isn't it, that the primary developers of the open source drivers are AMD+REDHAT, but that the early binary drivers tend to favor ubuntu....

There IS a reason why this arrangement actually makes sense:
Ubuntu's goal is to work "out of the box" as well as possible in order to draw a variety of users. They tend to focus more on stability than Fedora does, so when they make a change, things need to be able to *work* for everyone.

Now FEDORA on the other hand, has moments of being a bloody mess. It is most definitely NOT stable, and as soon as any version of fedora begins to approach stable, it goes EOL. Which is fine, given the goals of the project -- to push the limits.

Now in order for FEDORA to achieve its objectives, the developers need to have feedback on the components that they are working on. The fact that fglrx DOES NOT WORK on Fedora means that EVERYONE with an AMD GPU will be using the OSS driver, which means that any kind of glitches with it will get much more recognition.

And this is not only from the perspective of REDHAT, but also from the perspective of AMD -- AMD needs the same feedback on the open source Radeon drivers as RH needs, and therefore it is actually in their best interests NOT to supply a version of FGLRX for Fedora.

RH has their stable distro -- RH, and that distro is VERY well supported by fglrx! In fact, RHEL is always at the VERY TOP of the list of supported distros in the catalyst release notes! And if you look closely, you will see that the "new feature" of catalyst 10.3 is, in fact, support for RHEL 5.5 -- and that happened BEFORE its release, which was TODAY (march 31).

So you can see, it is actually in AMD's BEST INTERESTS to NOT support the latest Fedora. In contrast to this, NVIDIA actually *DOES* have it in their best interests to support the newest thing right away -- this is because they don't need the feedback from a second driver project since they don't HAVE ANY open source driver worth mentioning. As a result, THEIR GOAL is to make the user experience as seamless as possible by supporting all the newest components.


Right now, we are at a moment in time when the spring distros are staring to materialize. Ubuntu is about to switch up to 1.7, Fedora 13 will go with xserver 1.8 (1.7.99.902 currently, which is a 1.8 prerelease). F13 goes for release in just over one month, at which time F12 goes into maintenance mode and gets fglrx. Fedora, always being one xserver ahead of ubuntu, typically doesn't get the fglrx. Especially when AMD needs feedback on open source.

Who wants to guess if fglrx 10.4 will work with F13?
** some mumbling has it that 1.7 drivers *may* just work unaltered with 1.8, but I haven't seen any actual evidence of this. I doubt, however, that this particular Fedora cycle will be as crucial for AMD driver feedback (i.e. with the overall stability of everything up to R700, the fact that R600G is in such an early stage, and the fact that R800 is in such an early stage -- probably will need the feedback again during the reign of F14). We do know that the 5xxx GPUs are NOT adequately supported by the open source drivers yet, so for this release, it might make more sense to have a compatible fglrx.

[Panix]

I thought the problem with 'support' in Fedora is the constant changes (i.e. updates and developments) and AMD/ATI can't keep up.

It seems they can hardly keep up with a 'stable' distro let alone one that is bleeding edge and progressive such as Fedora.

[droidhacker]

I thought the problem with 'support' in Fedora is the constant changes (i.e. updates and developments) and AMD/ATI can't keep up.

It seems they can hardly keep up with a 'stable' distro let alone one that is bleeding edge and progressive such as Fedora.

Nope. If they wanted to keep up with Fedora, they could easily. They keep up with the stable distros perfect.

[Panix]

Nope. If they wanted to keep up with Fedora, they could easily. They keep up with the stable distros perfect.

And you know this, how? You work for ATI?

I guess the timely maintenance can be illustrated by the various posts of Ubuntu and SUSE users who say this isn't working and that isn't working with the 'recent driver update.' I am just saying I don't see evidence that it 'works perfect.'

Also, I read a lot of people bash the 'fglrx' drivers but I guess they never use 3D.

[droidhacker]

And you know this, how? You work for ATI?

I guess the timely maintenance can be illustrated by the various posts of Ubuntu and SUSE users who say this isn't working and that isn't working with the 'recent driver update.' I am just saying I don't see evidence that it 'works perfect.'

Also, I read a lot of people bash the 'fglrx' drivers but I guess they never use 3D.

There will always be people with problems. Their existence really doesn't mean much.

I will reiterate: It works fine (within current objectives) with the supported distros.

And how do I know all this? Because EVERYONE with a need DOES manage to keep up with Fedora. I figure pretty much that that fact PROVES that it CAN BE DONE.

[agaida]

oh oh oh, I have kept my trap shut up until now --- firstly I am one of those horrible Ubuntu users, so please shoot me for that, secondly I am not 100% loyal to either graphics card camp, please shoot again, thirdly despite running linux on and off for years I still cannot write kernel code or even simpler things, more shooting please

now that hopefully all flaming on me has been done

i) why bash fglrx? its not perfect far from, it segfaults on my mobility 5650 - nobody is forcing you to buy ati/amd, you can and should complain but all this flaming nonesense is getting my nerves and makes the whole linux thing look really bad

...

btw when is this fglrx driver going to work with my hd 5650 mobility in ubuntu 10.4 ?? I am waiting you now!!

I'm not reaching 5 Posts, so you must build the link by yourself

https(://)launchpad(.)net(/~)info-g-com(/+)archive(/)xserver-xorg-1.7.6-gc

hope that will work

[bugmenot2]

I tried out the 10.4 release.

It crashes only once every 5 hours instead of once every 30 minutes like before. So the new release is like ten times better than the last one!

AMD ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111...........



































..... NOT!

[Jecos]

It's been 3 years since I left ATI cards. I come back and can't even get the damn driver to work at all!! excuse me if I lose my mind because I actually went back ATI instead of getting another nvidia.

[mugginz]

i have the same problem on this Ubuntu 10.04 system:

glxinfo|grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 8600 GT/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.2.0 NVIDIA 195.36.15
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.50 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
OpenGL extensions:

i can't install the nvidia.com 195.36.24 driver ;-)

• Blacklist drivers
• Boot into text mode
• Install driver
• Reboot
• Profit

Details

• Blacklist drivers
  • drop this
    

    blacklist nouveau
    blacklist lbm-nouveau
    blacklist nvidia-173
    blacklist nvidia-96

  • into this
    

    /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf

• Boot into text mode
  • Reboot machine
  • Hold down shift key before GRUB starts so as to go into the grub menu
  • Press E to edit the boot options
  • Add the word "text" (no quotes) to the list of kernel options
  • Press CTRL-X to begin booting into text mode

• Install driver
  • You'll now be at a text console
  • Login
  • Change to the directory where the driver is
  • run "sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-195.36.24-pkg1.run" (This file will need to have execute rights)
  • Make sure when it asks if it can modify xorg.conf you allow it.

• Reboot
  • CTRL-ALT-DEL

Hey, presto. Newest driver.