AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support

[Melcar]

No he is not.

You are probably running an old version of Linux. And thus the drivers even installed in the first place. Give it a try on any new Distro and see if it works for you

We all know Phoronix is biased towards ATi, so don't take the "enthusiasm" seriously.

He said he's using Intrepid. Definitely not an old distro.

[cruiseoveride]

And intrepid is not using the official drivers.

They had to hack it to get it to work.

So the point still stands, "ATi Drivers are absolute bullshit"

[BlackStar]

No he is not.

You are probably running an old version of Linux. And thus the drivers even installed in the first place. Give it a try on any new Distro and see if it works for you

Please re-read my post. As the commenter above points out, I'm running Intrepid.

We all know Phoronix is biased towards ATi, so don't take the "enthusiasm" seriously.

It's pretty obvious that phoronix is ati-biased, but that doesn't make spreading FUD right.

Ati support on linux has been ridiculously bad in the past - I've experienced that first hand. But right now, the open drivers work great for R500- (if you don't mind GL1.3) and the blob has become good enough for general use.

Are things perfect? Not by a long shot: power draw is still high, pci-e to agp bridges still fail to function, suspend can still be unreliable. Since last October, however, the drivers have been progressively getting better, and there's no sign of stopping (the 8.11 betas in Intrepid have brought some massive speed increases).

I don't expect things to become perfect. Hardware and software is just moving too fast right now for that. Even nvidia and intel, both with historically better linux support, have trouble keeping up. My personal wish is for feature parity on 3d drivers at some point in 2009, but it's a fact of life that no software can ever be perfect.

And intrepid is not using the official drivers.

They had to hack it to get it to work.

So the point still stands, "ATi Drivers are absolute bullshit"

AFAIK, ubuntu shipped with 8.11 betas - the final version expect later this month. The did that in hardy with firefox 3 betas if you recall - big deal.

If you don't have anything constructive too add, why don't you refrain from posting?

[pamindic]

I'm sorry, but you are simply spreading FUD here.

I object to that. I'm not spreading anything - I'm recounting my experience, and I can't get the 4850 to operate with a 1600x1280 monitor. And my 4 years of grief with ATI are sadly not propaganda but a reality. I've no axe to grind.

(correction - I mean 1680x1050)

[BlackStar]

I object to that. I'm not spreading anything - I'm recounting my experience, and I can't get the 4850 to operate with a 1600x1280 monitor. And my 4 years of grief with ATI are sadly not propaganda but a reality. I've no axe to grind.

Our experience is very different, it seems (only 2.5 years of grief here )

Maybe a custom modeline can take care of the monitor issue? I have to do that to get my preferred resolution (1400x1050@85). Yours does seem kinda strange (1600x1280) - don't think that's supported out of the box.

[Yfrwlf]

I object to that. I'm not spreading anything - I'm recounting my experience, and I can't get the 4850 to operate with a 1600x1280 monitor. And my 4 years of grief with ATI are sadly not propaganda but a reality. I've no axe to grind.

(correction - I mean 1680x1050)

Not horribly surprised, I've spoken to others who have sort of "odd" monitors that completely fail to display the proper resolutions and such on, even with the newest drivers that come with the newest kernels. All I can recommend is that

a) try a completely bleeding-edge kernel/x.org to see if it correctly deals with it, like Ubuntu 9.04 alpha or something

b) you try both the ati, radeonhd, and fglrx drivers to see if you can get the monitor working correctly with any of them. For the fglrx try using the Catalyst control center too, since it's still not completely compatible with xrandr so using the Gnome resolution thingy for it might not be as good.

c) try modelines in xorg.conf like it was suggested, or search around on the net for Linux compatibility with that particular monitor and such

d) use a different monitor or graphics card

It's stupid that the monitor being properly detected is tied into the graphics card and drivers. You'd think if xorg/kernel could see the monitor correctly, it shouldn't matter what graphics card or driver you're using as far as displaying the same resolution and such as long as the driver is capable of displaying it. If X.org/kernel says oh yeah, that's this model monitor, you can do this max resolution and Hz and such, so output that type of signal if you can, that the driver/card should just shut up and do it if capable, but I guess that's not how things work? >.<

[bridgman]

Pamindic, you're using Ubuntu 8.10, right ? If so, can you pastebin the logs from the fglrx driver that shipped with the distro ? Please use the restricted driver manager to enable fglrx, not a separate install.