AMD Puts Out An OpenGL 4.2 Linux Driver

[RealNC]

OpenGL does not cover XRandR, or any of the X window extensions. Not everything with a driver supporting a compositing desktop is OpenGL.

I said "standards *like* OpenGL". XRandR is also a standard, and so are X extensions.

What do you expect me to do in an argument? List all existing standards in the world just so you won't have a counter-argument or what?

[mirv]

I said "standards *like* OpenGL". XRandR is also a standard, and so are X extensions.

What do you expect me to do in an argument? List all existing standards in the world just so you won't have a counter-argument or what?

My mistake, I misunderstood and thought you were only referring to OpenGL.
Still...you're assuming all application and drivers adhere to any spec. Not always the case. It's also true that many specs leave some areas open to interpretation, and then both applications and drivers have bugs to iron out on top of that, and then applications can work around drivers bugs from one vendor and so break things on a different vendor, and drivers may have to work around application work arounds...and it gets a little messy and takes time to sort out.

[RealNC]

The way I see it, there's only three desktops to test against. Gnome, KDE and Compiz. Can't be that hard, really. And KDE 4.7 has been around for quite a while now (alphas, betas and RCs also serve to check your code against new versions early on.) How much time do they need? Right now, years it seems.

[mirv]

The way I see it, there's only three desktops to test against. Gnome, KDE and Compiz. Can't be that hard, really. And KDE 4.7 has been around for quite a while now (alphas, betas and RCs also serve to check your code against new versions early on.) How much time do they need? Right now, years it seems.

I think it's mainly because AMD prefer to wait until something is more stable. Gets support out a bit later, but probably saves them some wasted testing. As their supported distro list generally (note: generally, but not always) only picks up things once they've gone stable, then it's ok. Yes, sucks if you want to try things out straight away, but from a business perspective it kind of makes sense that way (with fglrx).

[RealNC]

I think it's mainly because AMD prefer to wait until something is more stable. Gets support out a bit later, but probably saves them some wasted testing. As their supported distro list generally (note: generally, but not always) only picks up things once they've gone stable, then it's ok. Yes, sucks if you want to try things out straight away, but from a business perspective it kind of makes sense that way (with fglrx).

How so? From a business perspective, it makes more sense to be ready when stuff goes prime time. The fact that open source software gives you free access to early releases is a bonus that AMD doesn't take advantage of. Being late is not good, neither from a business nor any other perspective. If they test now rather than when Ubuntu happens to pick up the new version, they save themselves some headaches and extra costs, because they increase their time window. They have more time to get ready before it's time to support the new Ubuntu version.

I really fail to see the logic.

[mirv]

How so? From a business perspective, it makes more sense to be ready when stuff goes prime time. The fact that open source software gives you free access to early releases is a bonus that AMD doesn't take advantage of. Being late is not good, neither from a business nor any other perspective. If they test now rather than when Ubuntu happens to pick up the new version, they save themselves some headaches and extra costs, because they increase their time window. They have more time to get ready before it's time to support the new Ubuntu version.

I really fail to see the logic.

See their list of supported distros for fglrx, and what softare versions are in use there. They most likely do have support for things early, but only internally. Maybe you don't like it because fglrx isn't developed to specifically support you - but deal with it. If you want bleeding edge, go with the other offering - open source drivers.

[RealNC]

See their list of supported distros for fglrx, and what softare versions are in use there. They most likely do have support for things early, but only internally. Maybe you don't like it because fglrx isn't developed to specifically support you - but deal with it. If you want bleeding edge, go with the other offering - open source drivers.

I don't want bleeding edge. Just stable. KDE 4.7 *has* a stable release now.

[mirv]

I don't want bleeding edge. Just stable. KDE 4.7 *has* a stable release now.

Well, then they're in a position to start testing with opengl 4.2 right now. If you want fglrx with kde 4.7, then wait for it to be in a supported distro. Or just use the open source drivers.

[RealNC]

I *am* using the open drivers. Here, I am just commenting on why fglrx sucks so badly.

[madbiologist]

"Unsupported"? The whole point of standards like OpenGL is that there doesn't need to be specific "support" for applications. The support is for OpenGL and its specs, not for KDE or Gnome.

That is true, but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world. AMD have a history of releasing drivers with support for specific operating systems, and hence the components they contain (kernel, xserver, KDE/GNOME, Firefox, Blender, etc), sometimes long after those components are first released. However, as energyman pointed out, most of us don't upgrade to the newest version of KDE or whatever as soon as it is released - we wait until the next distro release. Mirv also referred to this. Rolling release distributions such as Arch are the obvious exception, but AMD has never officially supported them. Again, I agree the support should be for the specs. At this point in time AMD's support for the parts of the OpenGL spec used by KDE and Firefox is clearly incomplete/broken, but it will improve in time. NVIDIA's blob and the Intel driver are also likely to contain incomplete/broken support for parts of the OpenGL spec, but it's not exposed in those applications. In fact I think someone pointed out just that earlier in this thread with regards to the NVIDIA driver and a game they were developing.