ATI Releases AIGLX Linux Driver

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."

Bullshit...

[MostAwesomeDude]

...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."

Re:So..

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

..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".

Re:Site not upgraded?

[darthpenguin]

Try this link: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run [akamai.net]

Re:Bullshit...

[qbwiz]

You seem to be a bit confused. ATI has not released the source to fglrx, and they haven't yet released the spec for doing 3D.

I don't normally reply twice, but...

[MostAwesomeDude]

...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/ [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.

Not quite my experience...

[Junta]

The SLUB problem was that laptop would never complete suspend. The manifistation of it was that the half-moon would just keep blinking and never go solid. Now with 8.42 (mind you, hacked for a FireGL PCIID), it completes suspend. Resuming however, has yet to return me a working screen. However, if I kill X with alt-sysrq-k, and I can set capslock and change VTs, indicating it almost works. I'll play with the resume scripts, but it appears that the SLUB-blocking-suspend was addressed, but for some strange reason, it still doesn't resume right.

Ahh... closed source drivers.

Re:Bullshit...

[cachimaster]

There are unofficial patches to make it work with 2.6.23 in the Phoronix forum. Also, i got compiz-fusion working (With a little tweaking) on Gutsy perfectly. So much for the "Ati drivers suck" meme.

Let me know...

[Junta]

So far, I've gotten it to suspend, and resume successfully in Gutsy, *but* the catch that makes it useless, is I essentially make /etc/acpi/resumed/65-console.sh *not* attempt a single chvt, and so I can never get back to X. So the kernel seems fine, but X won't come back and chvt will hang in the process. Have tried saving vbestate and post_video, and neither, but of those two there is no success. The graphics did work with the vbestate saving and post_video in text consoles though....

URL

[detain]

ati.com was still linking to the old driver for me, im not sure if it is for everyone else, however, this URL
should let you download the new driver:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run [akamai.net]

Re:Bullshit...

[Anonymous Coward]

[blockquote][blockquote]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.[/blockquote]
Umm... there's a reason they call it the "bleeding edge". Sometimes it hurts.[/blockquote]

Except the 2.6.23 is the previous *release* (stable version), 2.6.23.1 being the newest release, and 2.6.24-rc1 being the bleeding edge.

The different versions and URLs

[DrYak]

• 8.42 : is currently *being* released, links are not updated everywhere. But a few google request may bring you to forums where it is already available [fuckinggoogleit.com]. For exemple, Phoroinix [phoronix.com] have published a link to the driver they did test. I think the release is not official yet because of the reported problems with 2.6.23 kernel. The same google search can also bring out patches to circumvent those problems [phoronix.com] and even howtos about using the new AIGLX [ubuntuforums.org] for desktop compositing.
• 8.41 : Is the previous release. It was mainly centered around bringing RadeonHD support on linux. Thus some bugs may have managed to slip by with older chipsets. IT IS available on the ATI [amd.com] website. But it comes with a caveat [amd.com] explaining the situation, that this driver is mainly targeting Radeon HD and that it's "use at your own risk" with previous chipset generations. You're still free to try it on X800XL if you want (Phoroinix [phoronix.com] did it in their).
• 8.40 : is the latest release using the older code base. Currently it is what has been the most widely tested and debugged for older chipset, so that's why it's the first thing you land on.
• There's a nice wiki [cchtml.com] about ATI on Linux, with distro specific pages, links to the latest bleeding edge versions and such.

GPL drivers are currently standard on most distribution for cards up to R4#0 (Radeon X8#0). If you want bleeding edge you can get them from freedesktop's git repository.
GPL drivers for R500 and up are currently being created. You can get the currently couple of working pieces from its corresponding irregular devel companion [livejournal.com].

You either have to wait more time until it's trivially offered as the first choice on the ATI selector (for the binary drivers) out of the box with major distros (for the GPL driver).
Or you have to accept "bleeding edge" mean, understand that all those drivers are fresh from the oven, not thoroughly tested thus maybe not ready for the public at large, and that you need a little bit of google before assembling the necessary pieces, or use specialised resources like the afore mentioned wiki.