13 Years After Launch, The Open-Source Radeon Linux Driver Sees Occasional ATI R5xx Fix

[phoronix]

Phoronix: 13 Years After Launch, The Open-Source Radeon Linux Driver Sees Occasional ATI R5xx Fix

It's not too often these days that new kernel updates bring changes to the pre-GCN Radeon Linux driver, but overnight a fix has been queued for helping out at least some users still running with ATI R5xx series hardware...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ATI-R5xx-PLL-Fix-Linux-5.2

[xxmitsu]

The power of opensource, when even users can fix issues..

[mphuZ]

The power of opensource..

Poking around with dried mammoth s**t?
There are better examples than this one!!!

[Ardje]

Poking around with dried mammoth s**t?
There are better examples than this one!!!

Actually this is a good example... My T430 notebook in a repair got replaced by a T430 with an Nvidia optimus. Yes, it has a higher resolution display, but in every other respect the HD4000 has better support than the Nvidia NVS-5400M. While the opengl might be faster to some extent on the nvidia, it still is outdated and pinning that notebook in a medieval period, while the HD4000 gets TLC. There is a higher chance of a game working good on the HD4000 than the Nvidia working at all.
So yeah, the power of opensource is that perfectly good systems (the T430 should be faster than my steam machine CPU wise), can still be used, and that means less waste. This also means that cpu prices can rise again, because we don't change them that much anymore.
At least now I know that my next steam machine will not sport an Nvidia.

[Jabberwocky]

Poking around with dried mammoth s**t?
There are better examples than this one!!!

Dried mammoth s**t (R580+) still has better memory bandwidth than current time Intel GPUs. 😂

[libv]

First off, it's only been 11.5 years for the forked driver.
Secondly, i fixed the PLL issues before this driver even existed. But i fixed it the way a true display driver developer solves it, not with brainless "let's approach the pll calculation from the other side" logic inherited from ATI.

[jabl]

Nice that people are still working on this. When updating from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, my Radeon R515 (I think?) stopped working properly when using an OpenGL accelerated desktop such as Gnome. It worked fine for some time (tens of minutes after reboot?) until suddenly all fonts disappeared from my terminals; only remedy I every found was either rebooting or switching to a non-OpenGL desktop (I used i3). I never reported it as I never found any reliable method to reproduce it.

Anyway since then I switched my home desktop to newer HW that didn't suffer from this.

[starshipeleven]

First off, it's only been 11.5 years for the forked driver.
Secondly, i fixed the PLL issues before this driver even existed. But i fixed it the way a true display driver developer solves it, not with brainless "let's approach the pll calculation from the other side" logic inherited from ATI.

You fixed it in your mind or in an actual driver that is in use at the moment?

[sa666666]

First off, it's only been 11.5 years for the forked driver.
Secondly, i fixed the PLL issues before this driver even existed. But i fixed it the way a true display driver developer solves it, not with brainless "let's approach the pll calculation from the other side" logic inherited from ATI.

You know it's been a decade or more since your spat with ATI/AMD. I think it's time to either let it go, or seek professional help. Holding a grudge for this long is not good for your long-term mental health.

[libv]

You know it's been a decade or more since your spat with ATI/AMD. I think it's time to either let it go, or seek professional help. Holding a grudge for this long is not good for your long-term mental health.

I am confronted with the half-arsed code that these political/power players produced almost all the time. Such as the stupidity i am uncovering in KMS and atomic now that i am bringing up an all-in-one device for FOSDEM video capture. This was also not a one-time thing, but one big event on a long string of nasty games, and the technical deficiencies that are a result of this are still omni-present and do not get solved.