AMD Catalyst 8.02 Linux Driver

Whether it is a big or small update, every month AMD releases a new Catalyst package for both Linux and Windows for their supported ATI Radeon products. Last month in the Catalyst 8.01 Linux driver the changes had just consisted of a few bug fixes and nothing more. Today the Catalyst 8.02 Linux driver has been released, and like last month, it's short on the change-log. The fglrx changes are very brief and the driver version is still in the 8.45 release stream and wasn't even bumped to 8.46.x.

The bug fixes present in the Linux version of Catalyst 8.02 include fixing a crash on resolution changes when using ATI's Big Desktop mode, a segmentation fault when the X server starts and failed to initialize DRI because of an improperly formatted BusID, fixing an X server freeze because of the ATI Events daemon running when shutting down, and fixing a hang in the first GLX application on X server 1.4. Unfortunately, for those with AGP problems there is no fix available in this release. On the plus side, Compiz does now work with X Server 1.4 in Catalyst 8.02. That's basically all that makes up the Catalyst 8.02 Linux driver... Like every month, there are also a few packaging script updates. More information on that can be found from viewing the git activity at Phorogit.

Catalyst 7.12 was also a bug-fix release, so it's going on a few months now since any major changes to this binary Linux driver. Of course, in this time there's been new product support added for the Radeon HD 3400 and Radeon HD 3600 series along with the dual-GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2. On the closed-source side, could AMD be preparing for some major updates in the coming releases? This is the first time in many months that the release stream version wasn't even bumped. Even though last quarter they released their new OpenGL driver and introduced AIGLX support (and began a new open-source strategy), we have reason to believe that AMD does still have a few tricks left in its Linux bag that could make 2007 look mundane. For what it's worth, next month is the one-year anniversary of the AMD Catalyst Control Center for Linux.

Share your thoughts, speculations, and technical issues on the AMD Linux drivers in the Phoronix Forums.