AMD sucks

[67GTA]

I'm a little butt hurt right now. I've been waiting for the next AMD catalyst update so I could install it for kernel 3.4/3.5. Well, 12.6 stable was announced yesterday. For some retarded reason AMD has dropped support in 12.6 for anything under HD5xxx. So now my 3 year old $1000 Dell Studio laptop is no longer supported! It has an integrated Radeon HD 4570. WOW! I don't understand why a three year old graphics card is too old to support. I've never liked AMD anyway, but was the only option available to get my laptop with the other options I wanted. I have a seven year old Nvidia card in my desktop that was supported with the latest 302 nvidia version! I guess me and many others are screwed for the future because the open source radeon driver isn't even in the same universe as the fglrx driver. 3 years... REALLY... WTF. END RANT.

PS Anybody want to buy a Dell laptop?

[wh0rd]

Well at least the open source drivers work pretty well.

[67GTA]

The performance isn't too bad, but the power management stinks. The open source drivers make my fans run at full speed constantly. If I set it to low power to quiet them, performance lags. Maybe this will spur some better open source drivers.

[jpenguin]

wow, that stinks; My desktop has a Radeon HD 4890. Yes the opensource drivers have become pretty good; but COGS uses GL extensions that aren't in MESA.

My lappy has a nvidea cord

[tek_heretik]

I have to agree, I have never had good experiences with their processors or graphics chips (formerly ATI), their processors have sucky little caches, lol, makes them 'race', I can trip up an AMD CPU in a heartbeat, just throw something intensive at it, lol. Their support has always sucked and their products are second rate. Nope, I don't work for Intel, just don't mind paying a little more for reliability, consistency and quality. I was just at the AMD website trying to find the white paper for my gf's processor's maximum operating temperature, eventually found it, but man, what a chore! She had a clogged heatsink (really bad stock heatsink designs too, always have been), at least the sucker didn't do a 'Chernobyl' like previous AMD CPUs. Win-DOHs 7 sucks too, I was pulling my hair out after a couple of hours of trimming the fat from that mess, I hope they keep moving stuff around on their mainstream users, people hate learning where things are after being buried or moved (or 'good' features removed, lol, surprise!) at each release.

[dtr]

For graphics, I personally prefer Nvidia, it's worth spending a bit more for it. Yeah, I know it's hated by some because it's not open-source, but their products work well. As for CPU's I've been using AMD for years without incident.

[dequire]

For graphics, I personally prefer Nvidia, it's worth spending a bit more for it. Yeah, I know it's hated by some because it's not open-source, but their products work well. As for CPU's I've been using AMD for years without incident.

Same here - I have only used AMD for the past 7 or so years now and I love the bang-for-the-buck they give you over Intel. Currently running a 4-core X2 645 3.1Ghz processor that I think I paid $100 for. Intel can't even dream of touching that. On this rig I also have an ATI 6770 card that works perfectly in Linux.

I can relate the the OP though about ATI dropping support for a 3-year old card - That kind of stinks.

[NoWorries]

I also am not happy with AMD. I have an ASUS F3Jr with an ATI Radeon X2300 Graphic Card. I bought it in June 2007 and I cannot use the fglrx-amdccle driver for the Catalyst Control Centre. I have to use the xserver-xorg-video-ati driver. This gives adequate performance with the exception that the system crashes on some screensavers!

It is indeed a great pity that AMD don`t support older video cards.

[wh0rd]

That really sucks. I have an old Nvidia from way back that's still supported.

What I wish we really had was an alternative graphics manufacturer, something that's well supported with open specs for developers to support for as long as possible. I really hate having to buy from these poor choices.

[67GTA]

Well, it seems to get worse. Been lookin online at newer laptops, and it seems almost all new nvidia graphics cards in laptops use the optimus hybrid technology which is not supported in linux either. I've read about the bumblebee/ironhide projects, but both are just hacks/workarounds. The intel hd 3000 graphics that they are paired with have gotten horrible reviews.

[SteveRiley]

What I wish we really had was an alternative graphics manufacturer, something that's well supported with open specs for developers to support for as long as possible. I really hate having to buy from these poor choices.

Intel? Their new HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) is looking very good under Linux.

From Phoronix:
* Intel HD 4000 Ivy Bridge Graphics on Linux
* The Open Source Linux Graphics Card Showdown
* Intel Ivy Bridge on Linux: Two Month Redux

Intel appears to have learned from the Sandy Bridge fiasco; Ivy Bridge development is progressing very well.

[67GTA]

Looks like a little good news. Albert Milone has patched the current 12.4 catalyst drivers in 12.10 to work with kernel 3.4/3.5. I just downloaded the daily 12.10 ISO, and will install tomorrow to go kernel freeze hunting with kernel 3.5 and fglrx. Yah! I will have to buy him a beer. FYI, the lightdm in 12.10 is nice. It can show images for users. I might hold off a while before buying a new laptop to see how the Intel graphics progress. It would be so much simpler to have 3D out of the box vs fighting with the bumblebee hack for Nvidia. I'm not an extreme gamer anyway. Mostly Minecraft and kpat.

[tek_heretik]

Intel? Their new HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) is looking very good under Linux.

From Phoronix:
* Intel HD 4000 Ivy Bridge Graphics on Linux
* The Open Source Linux Graphics Card Showdown
* Intel Ivy Bridge on Linux: Two Month Redux

Intel appears to have learned from the Sandy Bridge fiasco; Ivy Bridge development is progressing very well.

I soooooooooo want to build an Ivy Bridge machine, I am salivating and shaking like a jonesin junkie, lol.

Only I want a 3820, don't want or like onboard graphics.

[sumski]

AMD Releases New Catalyst Legacy Driver
Note:
a) this is beta
b) xserver 1.12 should work
c) kernels >= 3.4 don't work unless you patch the drivers
Overall, i agree with the OP