AMD's Catalyst 15.9 Now Available For Linux Gamers

[dungeon]

It really hurts to use debian fglrx packages, they come usually weeks after amd release...

Well not usually, 15.7 was there something like day after release Not that AMD releases drivers often and regulary in the first place, there is not timed releases.

and are less tested than amd drivers that are used also in other distros.

Why do you think they are less tested on Debian? For example there are black VTs with new Catalyst but only when you use xserver 1.17, while it works fine on 1.16 which is what Debian stable uses SteamOS too, etc...

As you might see I have been using almost 20 days the new driver before debian release.

I used 15.9 on day one too, just patched existing debian package with ubuntu patches for 4.2.

Catalyst is also patched for kernel 4.3, but not by amd or debian

Catalyst is AMD driver, you won't have what to patch if they didn't release anything Debian patched it for Debian use of course.

If you compare Amd to Nvidia, only a little change is needed to make nvidia 355 compile with kernel 4.3

So how is that different? nvidia driver also needs patching, isn't it Sometimes patching is easy sometimes not for both...

Not sure on what do you complain, seem on who do patching actually and on time. You think AMD needs to provide official patch on every RC release kernel and xserver, etc...? While even stable point releases kernels breaks sometimes

[dungeon]

I just created custom kernel 4.2 from debian source like i have done for 4.1.6. I used an hour to get Catalyst working again with 4.1.6. First debian driver conflicts with GPL flag in kernel 4.2, so to go further, i needed to edit firegl_public.c as usual. Then the driver did not find /proc/ati/major. A lot of problems and debian patches are not tested well. Also there is several debian packages and it is more complex to install and uninstall via command line than original Catalyst.

So debian fglrx is not recommended.

Well point of fglrx packaging is that all debian kernels works with that fglrx package, not with something else ... And they do work 3.16, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 debian kernels i tested all of those, user does not need to do anything just install

Of course for custom (no, even god does not know what random user can customize differently ), it might not work

Maybe ask bridgman how much driver is tested internally on complete undefined behavior

[bridgman]

You have not _run_ the debian fglrx driver. It will cause Fatal error due to module licensing in kernel 4.2. In firegl_public.c you should have:
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
not:
MODULE_LICENSE("Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY");

AFAIK we can not claim GPL licensing for the module since it is closed source. NVidia can't claim that either, can they ?

As we move to the amdgpu kernel driver (which is fully open source) we will pick up a GPL-compatible license, probably the usual "GPL plus additional rights" IIRC.

EDIT - I did some searching but didn't find any reports of module licensing causing errors. Can you provide more details please ?

Closest thing I can think of is kernel function exports being marked GPL-only which means closed-source drivers can't use them. Is that what you are talking about ?

And i am so pissed for your and bridgman net behivour that soon i will buy nvidia 750ti that my son have already.

What did I do ?

[dungeon]

EDIT - I did some searching but didn't find any reports of module licensing causing errors. Can you provide more details please ?

Closest thing I can think of is kernel function exports being marked GPL-only which means closed-source drivers can't use them. Is that what you are talking about ?

By looking at patches only this one looks like something debianxfce might pointed out:

https://sources.debian.net/src/fglrx...pl-only.patch/

And i am so pissed for your and bridgman net behivour that soon i will buy nvidia 750ti that my son have already.

My behavior is like that because i want to know what issue you have with fglrx packaged in Debian. So i asked what issue you have with fglrx in Debian, as i am user of Debian too who does not have problem with Catalyst packaged there

So to me it seems, your problem is just specific to yours custom kernels not with debian kernels... that might easely be user error - you missed something there, etc...

[bridgman]

Makes sense, but surely the inability to use GPL-only functions applies to any closed source driver including NVidia's, right ?

[dungeon]

Makes sense, but surely the inability to use GPL-only functions applies to any closed source driver including NVidia's, right ?

Sure.

debianxfce seems pissed by AMD, then pissed by Debian, then pissed by bridgman, then pissed by me... so i dunno what next will be

Untill he figure out that this is nothing but because nvidia driver is released often with patches applied, while for fglrx *user can see* patches separate because it is not released that often... to me it is same thing

[dungeon]

I am pro sw developer, sure i understand how to configure my kernels. Nobody has catalyst working with kernel 4.2, see ubuntu and unofficial amd bug reporting site.

Well I am not nobody i got 15.9 working day one in Debian Sid and kernel 4.2, believe it or not it worked for me stright away. After some weeks replaced my deb packages with regular debian fglrx packages which came in and that also worked too stright away.

Not sure what is wrong with Ubuntu if they don't have that working, i heard they not have llvm 3.7 for i386 thus not current radeonsi mesa... and that also just works here in Debian for many months.

And in the debian patches there is no fix for tblstate GPL error. This proves that you have not tested tglrx with standard 4.2 kernel. I do not know what hack you have with binary kernels but in the debian source there is GPL flagged exports that cause fglrx to fail and are not fixed in any debian patches.

There is no hack, just regular debian 4.2 kernel in Sid and default flgrx packages now and it just works fine

[dungeon]

I do not believe, ubuntu people have had for a long time 4.2 kernel and there is a bug raports for example in launchpad too. Also here ubuntu users have problems:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum...nux-4-2-kernel

Yes i heard of that on Ubuntu, but Debian is different - all i can say believe it or not it works here

edit: And that link is from august, that is patching for Catalyst 15.7.

Next debian version is in testing, sid is unstable and not even packaged or tested distro like testing is.

Yes that is true, it is also true that testing lags behind unstable here and there, more or less... couple days to couple months

It seems that your goal is to have unstable systems, my goal is a bit different.

I am now on Debian stable where i backported fglrx 15.9 package from Sid and here it works too... no black VT issue on 1.16 xserver

Basically whatever i use fglrx works for me, with any released kernel and any released xserver and packaged in some debian branch it just works

[dungeon]

Even xserver logind behavior changed in Sid couple days ago and fglrx still works fine

Remember to install xserver-xorg-legacy package once xserver packages hit testing, it contain wrapper needed by non kms drivers, etc:

https://packages.debian.org/sid/xserver-xorg-legacy

[dungeon]

It was not hard to guess that you are debian maintainer. Just remember there are n*n pc hardware and software configurations, what works for you might not work for 100 000 debian users. Try your stuff on Kaveri platform and uptodate stretch with kernel 4.2, for example.

There is a long history of debian fglrx package lagging behind catalyst users patches. Now you have just copied ubuntu patches and bring same problems to debian users.

It is AMD Kaveri on that Debian Stable that machine also has Bonaire card now (fglrx works on both of those chips). And my Debian Sid is on AMD Kabini, also works of course. And I am not coping anything now, i use default packages distro provide for quite some time.

And I am not debian maintainer, just veteran Debian user i just learned deb packaging something like 14-15 years ago

Debian stable uses ancient kernel, so it is not hard to make catalyst work, because catalyst work out of the box with kernel 3.16

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/linux-image-amd64

http://support.amd.com/en-us/downloa...s=Linux+x86_64
"Linux kernel 2.6 or above (up to 3.19)
"

In debian stable you have 3.16 default kernel, but you also currently have 4.1 kernel in backports repo (whatever kernel is in testing after some time moved for stable backports) - and of course fglrx works there with both kernels.