fglrx
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into AMD Catalyst. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2011. |
| Developer(s) | Advanced Micro Devices |
|---|---|
| Stable release | Catalyst 11.2
/ February 15, 2011 |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Type | Device driver |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | ati.amd.com |
fglrx (now Catalyst) was the name of the Linux display driver used for ATI Radeon and ATI FireGL family video adapters and stands for "FireGL and Radeon for X". It contains free open source as well as proprietary and closed source parts.
Reception
AMD/ATI Linux support has been criticized due to perceived stability and performance issues as well as lack of options, which has led to some AMD/ATI proprietary drivers not being well received.[1][2][3][4] The state of the driver has improved over time with AMD trying to work in concert with application developers recently, but this is expected to be a slow process,[5] although for most instances the drivers are considered be solid enough for most tasks.[6]
AMD/ATI has also been praised for its Linux graphics work outside of it's Catalyst driver support, including provding documentation and limited support, as well as some actual active development, to various free software drivers.[6] This is in direct contrast to AMD's main competitor in the graphics field NVIDIA, which does offer its own proprietary driver similar to Catalyst, but does not provide any support or assistance to any free graphics initiatives.[7]
Alternatives
For ATI cards and the X.Org Server, a number of open source drivers are available.
See also
References
- ^ AMD Linux 2008 Year in Review on Phoronix. Mostly negative forum response.
- ^ Insight Into AMD's Linux Driver Development (2007)
- ^ The State of ATI Drivers on GNU/Linux (2006)
- ^ A Look at the State of ATI Linux Drivers (2005)
- ^ WineD3D developer statement concerning fglrx (2008-12)
- ^ a b An overview of graphic card manufacturers and how well they work with Ubuntu Ubuntu Gamer, January 10, 2011 (Article by Luke Benstead)
- ^ NVIDIA's Response To Recent Nouveau Work Phoronix, December 14, 2009 (Article by Michael Larabel)
External links
- Unofficial Linux ATI Wiki
- The Fglrx page on the Thinkpad wiki
- fglrx options use in X configuration files (x*.conf). This is a manpage created from public records and is available here via cvs.
- R520 Card specifications released to public by AMD.