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Ubuntu Drops Support For AMD's Catalyst GPU Driver (phoronix.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and newer will no longer be supporting AMD's widely-used Catalyst Linux (fglrx) driver. AMD has dropped support for this proprietary AMD driver in favor of encouraging users to use the open-source AMDGPU/Radeon drivers. While the fglrx/Catalyst driver is notorious among Linux gamers, this will represent a regression for many AMD Linux users due to the open-source driver only having OpenGL 4.1 support compared to OpenGL 4.5 in Catalyst, lower performance in common gaming workloads, incomplete OpenCL compute support, no CrossFire multi-GPU support, and other missing features. Much of the missing functionality will end up being implemented by AMD's new AMDGPU driver stack but that is still months away from being truly ready and will only benefit the very latest Radeon GPUs while the fglrx-free Ubuntu 16.04 is set to ship in April.
nope, the open source drivers are garbage, people will install the binaries from the vendor themselves
Linux was never meant for gaming.
And neither was Windows.
There's an interesting concept called "progress" that you might want to learn about.
If AAA games ever do run on Linux, and run just as well as they do on Windows,then that will be the beginning of the end for Windows.
Everyone knows Radeons suck under Linux, just drop a cheap nVidia card in and be done with it. Next problem.
Dropping support for something without having a reasonable replacement is usually a bad idea. But it's a good idea if you're trying to decrease choice, increase frustration, and leave the people who depend on you hanging. It might make things easier on the development side, but the long-term affects can be far reaching. Personally, I'd think the people who would have a problem with this would just move to a distribution that *does* have it - and then you've lost market share. It's hard to get back people who have already moved away.
Keep running fglrx until the open source drivers are up-to-snuff.
As long as there is a road map, we should be good.
If they had dropped fglrx and didn't have a plan to replace it then there is a problem.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
People run Linux for a variety of reasons, most of which aren't directly that the software is open source. If you want wide adoption of Linux, or a particular distribution, you have to cater to a wide range of users with a wide range of wands and needs. It's great that you're passionate about open source, but not everyone is that way, nor do they need to be. If you want people to use open source software, you have to satisfy many needs in the process. Sometimes that means being pragmatic and accept that a closed source solution is the best choice until a suitable open source solution is available. That people want their computer to be usable for their needs isn't stupid at all. I run Linux on several of my computers and I have many reasons, but open source is pretty far down on the list. I value that I don't have to pay for a lot of the software that I use, but I'm willing to donate to a few projects in return. I value the relative security, stability, and privacy afforded by running Linux. Some of the software I use for my job requires that I run Linux or a similar system. Some of these tools for visualizing meteorological data require a fair amount of video horsepower, so I certainly value any performance boost from the video driver. If all things are equal or pretty close to equal, I prefer an open source solution over a closed source solution. But it's pretty far down on my list of priorities. It doesn't mean that my needs are stupid at all, despite what you say.
Oh boo hoo, someone likes something that I don't. Perhaps people like having systems that actually work? Furthermore, how many people actually care if the video driver is open source? I know that I've never looked at the source for a video driver, and have no interest in doing so. Therefore, it makes no difference to me (and plenty of people like me) if it is closed source or open. I'd rather play the game then sit there and audit code.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
This is why people don't like the GNU groups - you are all about freedom as long as it is what you choose for others.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
yeah if you use the proprietary nvidia drivers it works great. too bad the open source one sucks.
Do you really think any significant portion of gamers and other end users care about that? They want their systems to work well, they don't want to be writing driver code and recompiling hardware drivers.
So stop saying you care about the four freedoms and just admit the community only cares about free as in beer because that is EXACTLY what we are talking about here. One company has completely opened their code, the other is so hostile to Linux that Linus Torvalds himself gave them the finger and said "fuck you!" to the company.
If that is the way the community truly feels, that all that matters is it being FAIB? Just download and run the Win 10 insider edition, its FAIB for anybody. If you actually care about the four freedoms? Then show companies that it matters that they support FOSS by buying their products. Yes it will take time to reach feature parity, they are building the entire graphics stack from scratch minus the proprietary Intel code (Intel owns HDCP which has to be stripped out) but they have full docs and support from AMD so they are doing exactly what the community asked them to and completely opened the specs.
If the community refuses to support them after doing all they were asked to do? Then you have NO right to bitch when companies refuse to support Linux because Linux users will have shown that support does not turn into sales.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.