Radeon Software for Linux 21.50 Driver Prepared For Release

The Radeon Software for Linux packaged enterprise driver is preparing for its Q1'2022 update.

Currently AMD lists the Radeon Software for Linux 21.40 series as the latest available version on their website, but with the new repository format for this packaged enterprise-focused driver, they have now begun publishing the 21.50 driver assets.

Radeon Software for Linux 21.50 driver packages for RHEL/CentOS, SUSE Linux Enterprise, and Ubuntu have been uploaded to their package repository.

No change-logs have yet to be posted, but the public change-logs tend to be light on the details... I'd expect Vulkan 1.3, continued refinements to the Radeon RX 6000 series support, and the other usual maintenance items. The 21.50 series is also presumably what has important fixes for the AMD HIP GPU acceleration for Blender although that support for the Blender Linux builds has already been diverted now to Blender 3.2.

I am crossing my fingers on any Vulkan ray-tracing improvements as well, but for the most part the most interesting AMD Radeon Linux driver changes for Phoronix readers happen already within the upstream AMDGPU Linux kernel source tree and most readers preferring upstream Mesa to what is found in these packaged drivers intended for enterprise Linux users.

Those wanting to try out the Radeon Software for Linux 21.50 packages ahead of the official announcement can do so via the repo.radeon.com.