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Yes, AMD should definitely dedicate an entire team to focusing on writing drivers for desktop Linux. An OS that currently captures less than 1% of the overall

by tw04 10y ago

Yes, AMD should definitely dedicate an entire team to focusing on writing drivers for desktop Linux. An OS that currently captures less than 1% of the overall desktop gaming market[1]. In other news, McDonald's should really start tailoring their marketing and in-store experience to people making over $10 million/year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Market_share_vs._installed_base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Market_share_vs._...

quetzthecoatl 10y ago
Isn't it because the high end hardware becoming useless because of the very lack of drivers? Nobody wants to spend lot of money on hardware and don't get to use it optimally. Driver support on platform -> Games released on platform -> Gamers using the platform.
- notalaser 10y ago
  Linux drivers on the nVidia side are OK. I've had excellent performance, and no trouble with them for what I think are already 10 years now, if not more. Lack of driver support is not what's stopping people from releasing Linux games.
  - Certhas 10y ago
    And they are closed source. AMD tried to go open source and upstream and found out that that is not viable, because they would need to duplicate a lot of work in order to avoid putting abstractions in the kernel. The upshot is, kernel developers have been complaining about nVidia lots for the route they took. When I install Linux on a reasonably recent desktop I still have to fiddle with boot options and/or blacklist the nouveau driver for some nVidia cards. And now nVidias approach has been completely vindicated.
    - hashhar 10y ago
      This. Exactly this. The treatment AMD got from LKML was slightly deserved but doing that they alienated a hardware partner and indirectly set the precedent for doing closed source binary releases that use HAL anyway. It sucks for the consumers and that's what drives the installed base of Linux.
      - anonbanker 10y ago
        > slightly deserved ATi was legendary for their terrible drivers. The fglrx drivers took literally 5 years to not suck on first-generation radeon cards. By "not suck", I mean that the system would not have kernel panics at least once a day due to them. While they were piling on support for newer drivers in their proprietary stack, they were leaving triaged bugs open for years. When AMD bought them out, they didn't fire every developer they had and replace them with better talent, which is why we're seeing this LKML thread today. I attempted to use ATi/AMD video cards in systems every time they'd make a big linux announcement, to attempt to support them for their decisions. Every time, I would have new linux converts telling me they were going back to windows due to how unstable their linux systems were, all thanks to these terrible bug-ridden drivers. I and many other linux zealots now refuse to use ATi/AMD video cards to this day for that reason. It's clear that AMDGPU is only slightly improved from that situation, so I don't anticipate myself changing that opinion any time soon. The open radeon/radeonsi/radeonhd drivers are substantially more stable than the proprietary ones, adhere to kernel standards, and are now starting to reach feature/performance-parity with the proprietary drivers, with barely any help from ATi/AMD. The Linux kernel will be just fine without ATi's terrible code infecting the tree. Eventually, the vendors start playing ball once they realize the kernel doesn't budge on code quality/standards, as the net80211 debacle proved. If they had just released all the specs without substantial NDA's in the way, ATi could rely on the volunteer kernel hackers to produce a driver that outperformed their windows equivalents, just like how Intel is currently benefitting.
        hashhar 10y ago
        You make some really valid points. I'm sorry I overlooked the part about past drivers because I haven't had the misfortune of experiencing them (from what you say I feel lucky for that). I don't have an AMD card handy but could you tell me more about the open radeon drivers? And if we do have those, why did this discussion start in the first place? Are you talking about the Intel firmware or the OpenGL mesa drivers? I would say it has improved but the one pain of tearing videos and panning windows makes me really sad.
  - Zardoz84 10y ago
    > Linux drivers on the nVidia side are OK. Except for the annoying tearing. I'm considering a RX480 for my next GPU thanks to it.
quanticle 10y ago
But then why bother? Why even pretend to support Linux? The fact that the Linux team at AMD exists means that upper management must see some value in keeping them around.
- qb45 10y ago
  > some value I think you have answered your own question here :)
- Zelmor 10y ago
  Fear of missing out on market segment, as well as support for super-computer configurations. Without keeping a foot in the door for these segments, they risk fading away into obscurity like 3dfx did back in the days (for other reasons, however).
  - anonbanker 10y ago
    For perspective, 3dfx had stellar drivers for their cards, and never had issues with linux kernel maintainers refusing merges of their code for lack of quality.
angry_octet 10y ago
They are doing to to compete in the high margin part of the market, which is workstations, cloud rendering, GPUs, and console contracts. They care zero about low end linux desktop. But what nvidia learned is that the people who do all that high end stuff would much prefer it to just work, and will steer business accordingly.

by tw04 10y ago

quetzthecoatl 10y ago

Isn't it because the high end hardware becoming useless because of the very lack of drivers? Nobody wants to spend lot of money on hardware and don't get to use it optimally. Driver support on platform -> Games released on platform -> Gamers using the platform.

notalaser 10y ago
Linux drivers on the nVidia side are OK. I've had excellent performance, and no trouble with them for what I think are already 10 years now, if not more. Lack of driver support is not what's stopping people from releasing Linux games.
- Certhas 10y ago
  And they are closed source. AMD tried to go open source and upstream and found out that that is not viable, because they would need to duplicate a lot of work in order to avoid putting abstractions in the kernel. The upshot is, kernel developers have been complaining about nVidia lots for the route they took. When I install Linux on a reasonably recent desktop I still have to fiddle with boot options and/or blacklist the nouveau driver for some nVidia cards. And now nVidias approach has been completely vindicated.
  - hashhar 10y ago
    This. Exactly this. The treatment AMD got from LKML was slightly deserved but doing that they alienated a hardware partner and indirectly set the precedent for doing closed source binary releases that use HAL anyway. It sucks for the consumers and that's what drives the installed base of Linux.
    - anonbanker 10y ago
      > slightly deserved ATi was legendary for their terrible drivers. The fglrx drivers took literally 5 years to not suck on first-generation radeon cards. By "not suck", I mean that the system would not have kernel panics at least once a day due to them. While they were piling on support for newer drivers in their proprietary stack, they were leaving triaged bugs open for years. When AMD bought them out, they didn't fire every developer they had and replace them with better talent, which is why we're seeing this LKML thread today. I attempted to use ATi/AMD video cards in systems every time they'd make a big linux announcement, to attempt to support them for their decisions. Every time, I would have new linux converts telling me they were going back to windows due to how unstable their linux systems were, all thanks to these terrible bug-ridden drivers. I and many other linux zealots now refuse to use ATi/AMD video cards to this day for that reason. It's clear that AMDGPU is only slightly improved from that situation, so I don't anticipate myself changing that opinion any time soon. The open radeon/radeonsi/radeonhd drivers are substantially more stable than the proprietary ones, adhere to kernel standards, and are now starting to reach feature/performance-parity with the proprietary drivers, with barely any help from ATi/AMD. The Linux kernel will be just fine without ATi's terrible code infecting the tree. Eventually, the vendors start playing ball once they realize the kernel doesn't budge on code quality/standards, as the net80211 debacle proved. If they had just released all the specs without substantial NDA's in the way, ATi could rely on the volunteer kernel hackers to produce a driver that outperformed their windows equivalents, just like how Intel is currently benefitting.
      - hashhar 10y ago
        You make some really valid points. I'm sorry I overlooked the part about past drivers because I haven't had the misfortune of experiencing them (from what you say I feel lucky for that). I don't have an AMD card handy but could you tell me more about the open radeon drivers? And if we do have those, why did this discussion start in the first place? Are you talking about the Intel firmware or the OpenGL mesa drivers? I would say it has improved but the one pain of tearing videos and panning windows makes me really sad.
- Zardoz84 10y ago
  > Linux drivers on the nVidia side are OK. Except for the annoying tearing. I'm considering a RX480 for my next GPU thanks to it.

quanticle 10y ago

But then why bother? Why even pretend to support Linux? The fact that the Linux team at AMD exists means that upper management must see some value in keeping them around.

qb45 10y ago
> some value I think you have answered your own question here :)
Zelmor 10y ago
Fear of missing out on market segment, as well as support for super-computer configurations. Without keeping a foot in the door for these segments, they risk fading away into obscurity like 3dfx did back in the days (for other reasons, however).
- anonbanker 10y ago
  For perspective, 3dfx had stellar drivers for their cards, and never had issues with linux kernel maintainers refusing merges of their code for lack of quality.

angry_octet 10y ago

They are doing to to compete in the high margin part of the market, which is workstations, cloud rendering, GPUs, and console contracts. They care zero about low end linux desktop. But what nvidia learned is that the people who do all that high end stuff would much prefer it to just work, and will steer business accordingly.