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ATI Releases AIGLX Linux Driver

Posted by kdawson on from the making-compiz-sing-and-dance dept.

Michael writes "A month after AMD released a Radeon HD 2000 'R600' Linux driver based on their new Linux driver codebase, they have now released another driver that provides AIGLX support used for Compiz and Compiz Fusion. In addition to this long-awaited AIGLX support, this driver also addresses issues with previous Radeon product families, performance improvements, AGP fixes, and added features to their graphical control panel. Phoronix has a review of the 8.42 Linux driver with all of the details about this much-anticipated release."

6 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Bullshit... by MostAwesomeDude · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...at least in my experience.

    Problem one: Doesn't actually work with Compiz. While AIGLX works, XComposite does not, and loading Compiz results in massive screen corruption. Joy.

    Problem two: Anybody who had XVideo problems before, will probably still have them now. Sad but true. Ditto with font selection and rendering.

    Problem three: While X.org server 1.4 is supported, Linux 2.6.23 is not. Anybody running on the bleeding edge is once again locked out.

    I'm sure more bugs will show up, but I'm pretty disappointed that they haven't improved the heavily broken XComposite support that they claim "works just fine."

    --
    ~ C.
    1. Re:Bullshit... by FMZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Problem three: While X.org server 1.4 is supported, Linux 2.6.23 is not. Anybody running on the bleeding edge is once again locked out. Umm... there's a reason they call it the "bleeding edge". Sometimes it hurts.
    2. Re:Bullshit... by DeadManCoding · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While the system may still be broken, it doesn't matter. The Linux community (myself included) has wanted better open source drivers for video cards, and AMD is finally making good on it. I may not be able to play bleeding edge games on my Linux system, but the software is getting there, and that's the important part.

      --
      "The only constant in the universe is change." - Unknown author
  2. Re:So.. by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 5, Informative

    ..will it run on Linux? Seriously...

    From TFA: "but there are a few words of caution. Be forewarned that there is a bug in Compiz 0.3 affecting the fglrx 8.42.3 driver and there may be a few other situations where Compiz or Compiz Fusion may not work immediately. The bug found in Compiz 0.3 and that's causing havoc with fglrx 8.42.3, has been resolved in Compiz 0.6. Next month in fglrx 8.43, AMD will be introducing a workaround for Compiz 0.3 support. "

    So that's a definite "Maybe".

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
  3. Suspending? by The+Analog+Kid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can you suspend your laptop using these drivers. There was a problem using the 8.40.3 drivers and any distro that uses the SLUB allocator that causes the system to hang while trying to suspend. Since most distros (if not all) are moving to SLUB this is a pretty big issue, ATI is usually behind the 8-ball though so I'm not getting my hopes up.

  4. I don't normally reply twice, but... by MostAwesomeDude · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...this is not an open-source driver.

    There are three ATI drivers. There is fglrx, which is this driver that was just released. There is radeon, which is the open-source driver that controls Rages, R200s, R300s, and R400s. And there is radeonhd, which controls R500s and R600s.

    fglrx has many issues. It now has AIGLX, but it still has broken XComposite. Xvideo doesn't work for many people. Direct 3D rendering is slower than on Windows. The entire driver is closed-source and shims a binary blob into the kernel. But, it still offers 3D for R400, R500, and R600 chipsets.

    radeon is the dependable open-source driver for older Radeon-based and Rage-based cards. It works excellently, with direct rendering for all chipsets up to the R200 series. People are working on R300/R400 direct rendering right now; see http://tirdc.livejournal.com/ .

    radeonhd is a brand-new open-source driver that controls new R500 and R600 cards. It has no direct rendering yet, but there is a promise from ATI/AMD that documents pertaining to direct rendering will be released sometime soon without NDA. This driver is still being worked on, but it offers satisfactory 2D for many people.

    --
    ~ C.