AMD's Catalyst Misses The Support Train, Again

[RealNC]

I've perfectly understood, and that's why I disagree. If the driver supports cards designed for the consumer market (designed mainly for gaming), then I fail to see why it would be aimed at business use only.
This sounds as a bad excuse for their poor Xorg support.

Maybe. But the point is that fglrx has not supported, or only supported very poorly, functionality that matters to multimedia/desktop users, while GL workstation features were working perfectly.

[spykes]

Maybe. But the point is that fglrx has not supported, or only supported very poorly, functionality that matters to multimedia/desktop users, while GL workstation features were working perfectly.

That's still another issue, resulting of the "half full glass" AMD's strategy, regarding their Linux support.
A support where the user has to choose between a good openGL driver with a poor desktop support, or a good desktop support with a poor openGL drivers (depending on your choice between free or closed source drivers)... Sad.

[mirv]

That's still another issue, resulting of the "half full glass" AMD's strategy, regarding their Linux support.
A support where the user has to choose between a good openGL driver with a poor desktop support, or a good desktop support with a poor openGL drivers (depending on your choice between free or closed source drivers)... Sad.

It's only half full when you use your glass, not AMD's.
AMD maintain a monthly release schedule. I personally like this. AMD could very well open beta drivers and have things into the hands of users sooner, but result is possibly more bugs, and the loss of monthly updates.
Even if people here say that AMD don't have to support beta drivers, I can bet that more people will be crying out for full support if AMD did just that. It would also take up the devs' time - in an ideal world, they could release and "forget" beta drivers, but in the real world this simply wouldn't happen.

Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have faster support with new xorg or kernel releases (they are catching up - and would have caught up except for the last minute xorg changes), but they have by no means missed any support train, and have not missed any goals or messed up anything. They are simply continuing with their driver development model, which for them works (and I don't think anyone can deny that).

[accumulator]

That's still another issue, resulting of the "half full glass" AMD's strategy, regarding their Linux support.
A support where the user has to choose between a good openGL driver with a poor desktop support, or a good desktop support with a poor openGL drivers (depending on your choice between free or closed source drivers)... Sad.

What's wrong with sticking to your half year old distribution for a few months longer? Support is there if you need it, just not for the bleeding edge, but some just want it all, for free, now. Now that's sad.

Granted, the catalyst driver is still not perfect, but remember the situation just 3 years ago?

In fact, I've switched to AMD shortly after they announced their release of documentation, and moving the linux driver development more in sync with the windows driver. I have not been disappointed.

[spykes]

They are simply continuing with their driver development model, which for them works (and I don't think anyone can deny that).

It would be better if it was working for the users too.
Joke apart, what I expect from AMD as a user, is to have the same support level Nvidia brings to its hardware. For now, they still fall short on this objective.

[mirv]

It would be better if it was working for the users too.
Joke apart, what I expect from AMD as a user, is to have the same support level Nvidia brings to its hardware. For now, they still fall short on this objective.

Nvidia has its fair share of problems too. I've never had AMD drivers cook the card.
I suspect what you mean is that both companies fall short of the ideal levels for users.

[spykes]

I suspect what you mean is that both companies fall short of the ideal levels for users.

I agree with that, but let's be honest, on the proprietary stuff Nvidia does a globally better job than AMD.
When I buy a Nvidia card, I'm pretty sure it's gonna work with my latest distribution of choice, and that I will have 3D acceleration with it.
It's less true with an AMD card.

[mirv]

I agree with that, but let's be honest, on the proprietary stuff Nvidia does a globally better job than AMD.
When I buy a Nvidia card, I'm pretty sure it's gonna work with my latest distribution of choice, and that I will have 3D acceleration with it.
It's less true with an AMD card.

Although I personally have always had fewer problems with AMD cards, you're probably right there. Still, AMD are catching up fast, so we'll see what it's like in another couple of months (though I doubt the video accel scene will change much that fast).

[RealNC]

What's wrong with sticking to your half year old distribution for a few months longer? Support is there if you need it, just not for the bleeding edge, but some just want it all, for free, now. Now that's sad.

Support is lacking also in older distros. Tear-free compositing is still not supported correctly. H.264 acceleration is still lacking.

[d2kx]

A Catalyst 11.4 special build just dropped in Ubuntu natty with Kernel 2.6.38/Xserver 1.10 support.