Slashdot Mirror
AMD Starts Rolling Out New Linux Driver Model, But Many Issues Remain
An anonymous reader writes: With the upcoming Linux 4.2 kernel will be the premiere of the new "AMDGPU" kernel driver to succeed the "Radeon" DRM kernel driver, which is part of AMD's long talked about new Linux driver architecture for supporting the very latest GPUs and all future GPUs. Unfortunately for AMD customers, there's still much waiting. The new open-source AMDGPU Linux code works for Tonga/Carrizo GPUs but it doesn't yet support the latest R9 Fury "Fiji" GPUs, lacks re-clocking/DPM for Tonga GPUs leading to low performance, and there are stability issues under high-load OpenGL apps/games. There's also the matter that current Linux users need to jump through hoops for now in getting the code into a working state with the latest kernel and forked versions of Mesa, libdrm, new proprietary microcode files, and the new xf86-video-amdgpu user-space driver.
Graphics is a patent minefield - it's one of the most legally aggressive areas in computing. Both parties have a strong commercial incentive to keep their technology secret - both to stop their rival stealing ideas, and to avoid inadvertently revealing any code that infringes upon a patent they were not aware of at the time. This slows down open-source development as every change needs to be examined by legal experts, and most legal experts are very cautious in their advice.