Microsoft's Azure Linux Introduces New AMD Graphics Driver Options

Microsoft's in-house Linux distribution known as Azure Linux is out with its 3.0.20250102 update today. One of the interesting changes in this release is adding new AMD driver package repositories for allowing Azure Linux users to fetch the latest official AMDGPU driver packages or alternatively the newest "preview" driver packages.

Headlining the Azure Linux 3.0.20250102 release notes today was mentioning "Add AMD PMC repo for tdnf." When digging into that, they are new AMD graphics driver repositories at packages.microsoft.com for offering the newer official AMDGPU driver builds or alternatively the newest preview package builds compared to what is shipped in Azure Linux's default kernel.

This pull request introduces those new AMDGPU driver package repository options for those wanting to fetch newer AMDGPU kernel drivers on Azure Linux systems. That pull request simply is summed up as:

"Enable users to download AMD GPU out-of-tree driver and related packages from packages.microsoft.com"

Given the focus of Azure Linux mostly on the server/cloud side, the AMD graphics use here is most likely with the AMD Instinct accelerator products in mind as opposed to Azure Linux desktop use with Radeon graphics cards -- but there's nothing stopping you from doing so.

In addition to adding these new AMD driver repositories, today's Azure Linux 3.0 update also adds the containerd2 package, distrusted CAs are now added to cert bundles, updates to the NVIDIA graphics driver packaging, enabling SELinux for the Live OS ISO flow, and many package updates for shipping bug/security fixes.

Downloads and more details on the Azure Linux 3.0.20250102 release via GitHub.