Jaskanwar Singh
Aspiring Novelist
[Phoronix] Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 On Linux Review
so why do people complain of amd linux drivers?
so why do people complain of amd linux drivers?
Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 On Linux
well, there is a reason for that.
Before AMD took over ATi. ATi was notorious for Linux drivers. Never ever worked. nVidia has traditionally worked always fine. Catalyst (aka fglrx) in Linux only started improving around late 2009.
Catalyst has improved enormously now as far as Linux drivers are concerned. But it still lags behind in supporting latest X.org releases. You couldn't use the latest Catalyst when Ubuntu 11.04 and Fedora 15 were released. Catalyst only started working fine two months after their release. (This time it works fine with Ubuntu 11.10 on release)
AMD graphic cards do work fine out-of-the-box because of the officially supported open-source driver. AMD tends to make the technical documentation of their graphic cards open for this. This driver offers excellent 2D but very bad 3D support. So, games don't work fine - desktop effects work fine. There is an open source driver named nouveau for nVidia which nVidia DOES NOT support. This is a reverse engineered driver - not as good as the AMD open-source one.
Now, I use Arch Linux. nVidia proprietary driver is in the [Extra] repository which means it is fine. Catalyst rots in AUR (Arch User Repository) which means it might work fine/might not - use at your own risk. They should work on elevating Catalyst from AUR to [Extra].
Then none of the companies have offered support to dynamic switching (AMD Bacon and nVidia Optimus) on Linux. nVidia has had one card killing driver. I'll conclude by saying, both suck.
Here's a joke. Vamsi has HD 4890. Sound over HDMI worked out-of-the-box with Ubuntu (open-source driver) without the need of Catalyst. It never worked in Catalyst (Linux and Windows). lol.
Before AMD took over ATi. ATi was notorious for Linux drivers. Never ever worked. nVidia has traditionally worked always fine. Catalyst (aka fglrx) in Linux only started improving around late 2009.
Catalyst has improved enormously now as far as Linux drivers are concerned. But it still lags behind in supporting latest X.org releases. You couldn't use the latest Catalyst when Ubuntu 11.04 and Fedora 15 were released. Catalyst only started working fine two months after their release. (This time it works fine with Ubuntu 11.10 on release)
AMD graphic cards do work fine out-of-the-box because of the officially supported open-source driver. AMD tends to make the technical documentation of their graphic cards open for this. This driver offers excellent 2D but very bad 3D support. So, games don't work fine - desktop effects work fine. There is an open source driver named nouveau for nVidia which nVidia DOES NOT support. This is a reverse engineered driver - not as good as the AMD open-source one.
Now, I use Arch Linux. nVidia proprietary driver is in the [Extra] repository which means it is fine. Catalyst rots in AUR (Arch User Repository) which means it might work fine/might not - use at your own risk. They should work on elevating Catalyst from AUR to [Extra].
Then none of the companies have offered support to dynamic switching (AMD Bacon and nVidia Optimus) on Linux. nVidia has had one card killing driver. I'll conclude by saying, both suck.
Here's a joke. Vamsi has HD 4890. Sound over HDMI worked out-of-the-box with Ubuntu (open-source driver) without the need of Catalyst. It never worked in Catalyst (Linux and Windows). lol.
OP
Jaskanwar Singh
Aspiring Novelist
thanks for info ico. 
thanks for rep cilus and skud
moreover that article is on February 23, 2011. latest may be better.
thanks for rep cilus and skud
moreover that article is on February 23, 2011. latest may be better.
OP
Jaskanwar Singh
Aspiring Novelist
^thanks for link buddy. rep+.
d6bmg
BMG ftw!!
But still it will need days to reach where nvidia have reached already.
I'd classify both nVidia and AMD drivers on Linux as sh!t. Each has their own problems.
I have a XFX HD 6950 2GB (yea, it's reference) now. For the first time I'll be using AMD/ATi GPU on a desktop of mine. Let's see how it goes in Arch Linux.
I have a XFX HD 6950 2GB (yea, it's reference
) now. For the first time I'll be using AMD/ATi GPU on a desktop of mine. Let's see how it goes in Arch Linux.That's only true for the open-source driver for nVidia cards - nouveau. The proprietary 'official' driver from nVidia is different.
OP
Jaskanwar Singh
Aspiring Novelist
I'd classify both nVidia and AMD drivers on Linux as sh!t. Each has their own problems.
I have a XFX HD 6950 2GB (yea, it's reference
That's only true for the open-source driver for nVidia cards - nouveau. The proprietary 'official' driver from nVidia is different.
congrats ico. pics?
No issues whatsoever on Ubuntu 11.10. Everything is smooth and works fine.
As far as Arch is concerned, the latest Catalyst 11.10 doesn't support the latest X.org 1.11. I said the same thing in my post #3 - delay in supporting the latest X.org releases at time.
yup, I can downgrade to X.org 1.10 and then use Catalyst. Hardly a 5 minute job for me. But if I really had to do this, I wouldn't be using a bleeding-edge distro like Arch at the very first place.
Using the OSS driver on Arch hence which works completely fine. The only issue is my GPU's fan spins on max speed.
As far as Arch is concerned, the latest Catalyst 11.10 doesn't support the latest X.org 1.11. I said the same thing in my post #3 - delay in supporting the latest X.org releases at time.
yup, I can downgrade to X.org 1.10 and then use Catalyst. Hardly a 5 minute job for me. But if I really had to do this, I wouldn't be using a bleeding-edge distro like Arch at the very first place.
Using the OSS driver on Arch hence which works completely fine. The only issue is my GPU's fan spins on max speed.
OP
Jaskanwar Singh
Aspiring Novelist
thanks for info ico