AMD Puts Out An OpenGL 4.2 Linux Driver

[matthew11093]

It doesn't support GNOME Shell AND it has a watermark.

[madbiologist]

It doesn't support GNOME Shell AND it has a watermark.

The watermark is because it's a beta version. If you don't need OpenGL 4.2 support, stick with Catalyst 11.7. Catalyst 11.7 is even in the Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" repositories now.

[PsynoKhi0]

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

Which none of the distributions officially supported by fglrx ship with... How many times does that have to be said? Seriously?
If it's not officially supported the implicit message is: you're on your own, but by all means, roll up your sleeves, track bugs, and fill in helpful tickets.
When someone is knowledgeable enough to tinker with the DE, that's the least they should be expected to accomplish.

[RealNC]

Which none of the distributions officially supported by fglrx ship with... How many times does that have to be said? Seriously?
If it's not officially supported the implicit message is: you're on your own, but by all means, roll up your sleeves, track bugs, and fill in helpful tickets.
When someone is knowledgeable enough to tinker with the DE, that's the least they should be expected to accomplish.

You fail to understand the point. The simple fact that it's unsupported means suckage. You can't say it's alright just because they put the label "unsupported" on it. From that point of view, I could offer a driver that hangs your system when trying to use a resolution of 1920x1080 and then declare that resolution "unsupported" and therefore my driver must be, like, totally awesome.

No. It would still suck. Just like fglrx does. If you suck, you label stuff "unsupported" and that makes you a quality product? Don't make me laugh :-P

[d2kx]

The final 11.8 driver is out in two days anyway, so if you don't need OpenGL 4.2 right now, just wait a bit.

[madbiologist]

From that point of view, I could offer a driver that hangs your system when trying to use a resolution of 1920x1080 and then declare that resolution "unsupported" and therefore my driver must be, like, totally awesome.

No. It would still suck. Just like fglrx does. If you suck, you label stuff "unsupported" and that makes you a quality product? Don't make me laugh :-P

Different context mate. If Ubuntu 11.04, Fedora 15 et. al. didn't support 1920x1080 then what you say might be valid. Also, ATI do not declare support for desktops or other components, instead they declare support for distribution versions, as PsynoKhi0 said. KDE 4.7 just happens to be so new (_still_ less than a month old) that no distributions have it yet. As you said, KDE released betas and RCs of 4.7, but I don't think even Fedora 15 had those.

Just stick with KDE 4.6 for now and you'll be OK. Or use Unity

[v8envy]

Just stick with KDE 4.6 for now and you'll be OK. Or use Unity

Or do what the majority of users playing with GPUs on Linux do: run nvidia hardware. Their blob may have its own set of bugs but due to much wider end user adoption and unilateral developer support it's far more likely to "just work." I don't like it either, but that's current reality -- use the nv blob now while waiting a few more years for fglrx and radeon drivers to mature and improve.

If you're fine with older hardware (with the caveat it'll likely be unsupported much sooner than contemporary NV hardware), older software (while not being very demanding in terms of performance or desktop features) fglrx is slowly maturing to the point of being an option. NV had about half a decade head start on the blob and a decade on the open source driver so there's plenty of catch-up to do.

Neither AMD driver is "there" yet. And neither one is likely to be "there" for at least half a dozen more GPU hardware cycles. Expecting magic just because you bought the wrong hardware for your needs and expectations just isn't realistic.

[mirv]

Oh look, a troll.....

[v8envy]

This and other boards are full of disappointed people expecting the impossible from AMD drivers. Partly because others cause these unrealistic expectations by attacking anyone who says differently with useless "troll" responses.

Do you disagree that the NV blob *CURRENTLY* works better for Wine, Gnome Shell and KDE 4.7? I also find it works better for OpenCL (with the NV blob you can compute without firing up an X session) and video playback. Sure, it could be because all Linux software other than fglrx is crap and should be rewritten to work nicely with fglrx, but realistically that just isn't going to happen.

Are you implying that it's realistic to buy less functional hardware today and then address that by whining on message boards? Instead of a useless response point out where I'm "trolling."

Until then I stand by my statement. For a desktop user expecting today's NV grade feature set the only reasonable option is to use NV hardware and software.

[mirv]

This and other boards are full of disappointed people expecting the impossible from AMD drivers. Partly because others cause these unrealistic expectations by attacking anyone who says differently with useless "troll" responses.

Do you disagree that the NV blob *CURRENTLY* works better for Wine, Gnome Shell and KDE 4.7? I also find it works better for OpenCL (with the NV blob you can compute without firing up an X session) and video playback. Sure, it could be because all Linux software other than fglrx is crap and should be rewritten to work nicely with fglrx, but realistically that just isn't going to happen.

Are you implying that it's realistic to buy less functional hardware today and then address that by whining on message boards? Instead of a useless response point out where I'm "trolling."

Until then I stand by my statement. For a desktop user expecting today's NV grade feature set the only reasonable option is to use NV hardware and software.

the nvidia blobs quite often don't "just work" (quite a few people have, or have had, power issues, broken desktops, non-functional x, etc etc etc). If you come along saying that nvidia are perfect, amd suck, well that's basically troll speak. AMD's drivers are not less functional than nvidia's, aside from the gpu video accel, and currently both have enough issues with wine, and with any desktop they're about on par. Now the open source drivers (which I don't use) are apparently very nice for a desktop, though performance and opengl need more work (except I see with older hardware, then it's top notch already).
If you're suggesting that people should ignore the faults of the nvidia drivers because wine devs have had more time to work around nvidia driver bugs (a wine status that already belongs mostly to the past - I'm not sure it's even applicable today) then yes, I'll call out troll.