Short Summary

In a word as hundred, fglrx is now a dead horse!

We had the hope of getting it working for Leap 42.2 in October, but except freezing kernel and xorg, you will not get what you would expect: a stable xorg session

Say goodbye fglrx!, repeat after me, goodbye fglrx.

If you are locked down and forced for any reasons to use fglrx with your gpu, and are still using 42.1, then don’t upgrade to 42.2, without a plan B

It has no more support from AMD upstream, and that’s it!, if someone want to break its computer, it’s still possible to pick the last files and try it by yourself, but the repository will never contain it for 42.2 (see below how-to)

That’s said, I’m not still sure, to keep for a long time the repository, I’ve been managing since 6 years now.

A bit of history

In 2010, when we were working hard to get 11.1 out, the news that no supported ATI (at that time) will be available for end-users, as we have for nvidia gpu

I didn’t check back the irc log, but we were a few, that would like to have this still available, by pure commodity. Especially that I’ve just exchanged a non working gpu by my new hd5750.

I remember the first chaotic steps, how to build that, and create repeating builds, what about the license? Did we have the right to offer a pre-build rpm etc. I spent some time fixing all of this stuff.
And start the build on real hardware. Hey afterward kvm was really in infancy stage.

Release after release amd/ati and openSUSE, the driver was build, on hardware for each supported distribution. When beginning of 2013 Sebastian Siebert, who got some direct contacts with AMD, release
his own script, we collaborate to have the possibility to build on virtual machines, which allow me to simplify the build process, as having on kvm for each openSUSE release supported.

Afterward, AMD start to split fglrx with the fglrx for HD5xx and above, and fglrx-legacy. So 2 drivers to maintain, but as always with proprietary software, the legacy version became rapidly obsolete,
and non usable. Not that bad, in the meantime the AMD effort on the free and open source radeon driver, quickly overcome the performance of legacy.

Still from 2013, to 2016 I’ve been able to propose ready to use rpm for several version of openSUSE’s distributions. I think the repository serve quite well end users, and I never got big flames.

I can’t avoid to mention the openSUSE powered server and sponsored by Ioda-Net Sàrl that has serve this objective so well during that time frame.

Future of the repository

Now that fglrx is becoming obsolete, I think seriously about why the repository online should stay online.

At openSUSE project level, we still have 13.1, 13.2, 42.1 and 42.2 that are mostly active. 13.1 is already almost out of the game of evergreen,
13.2 will follow soon, and I don’t know yet the exact plan for 42.1, but it will certainly go out of maintenance in less than a year.

If you feel or have the need of the repository, please express that in the comments below.

Wait there’s amd-gpu-pro, no?

Yeap there’s a closed driver, called amd-gpu-pro, available, for newer cards. But there’s two things that bring me out of the game, first I don’t have those newer gpu,
and don’t have the need to replace my hd5750 for the moment. The second and certainly the most important, those drivers are only available for Ubuntu or at least in .deb format.

I will certainly not help proprietary crap, if I don’t have a solid base to work with, and a bit of help from their side. I wish good luck to those who want to try those drivers,
I’ve got a look inside, and got a blame face.

For crazy, and those who don’t love their computer

So you want to loose your time? you can! I’ve kept in raw-src directory all the script used to build the driver.
They differ a bit compared to Sebastian Siebert last version in the sense of making Leap 422 as a possible target.
If you dig a bit around, you should be able to build them, but you’re alone on that way, you’ve been warned!

I’m not against a republished version, if someone find a way to make them working, just drop me a message.

That’s all for this journey, Have Fun!

Important note: The driver does not work on openSUSE Tumbleweed. Unfortunately, the version of X-server is too new for the driver.

SHA1 is obsolete by now. The script used SHA256 for integrity of the downloaded files.

New Feature from packaging script:

• systemd support

Resolved Issues:

• [SWDEV-82980] Ubuntu 15.10 fails when building the .deb packages

Link: AMD Catalyst 15.12 Release Notes

Downloads:

• Script: makerpm-amd-15.12.sh
• SHA1: makerpm-amd-15.12.sh.sha256

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

Bruno Friedmann will build the new RPM packages in the fglrx repository. Stay tune!

If you find any issue with the driver. Don’t hesitate to contact me. I am in contact with AMD and can forward your issue to the right place. Feedback are welcome.

A report of your system is very helpful beside your feedback. You can generate it with the script:
su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.12.sh -ur'

Have a lot of fun!

Sebastian
openSUSE member / Official AMD Packaging Script Maintainer for openSUSE
German Blog: openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.12 als RPM installieren

Tumbleweed beware : broken Xorg

It seems since the release, that a number of report of broken xorg with gdm, ssdm and so… segfaulting

You can still use the previous version hanging on the server. But I doubt it would work better

As soon, with Sebastian Siebert we have a patch for, I will republish a new build

Informations & bugreport Sebastian’s blog or lizards.o.o

The proposed drivers support kernel up to version 4.4

AMD release note available

Sebastian Siebert posts about fglrx

If you have any problems with the driver, don’t be afraid to report to Sebastian (German and English bugreports are gladly accepted).
he will try, as far as I am able to reproduce the bug. Together with the necessary system information, he will go directly to the right place at AMD to have the bug fixed in the next driver release.
Thank you very much, Sebastian.

See below what to do in case of troubles.

Or you can also ping him on irc (freespacer)

Debugging troubles

I recommend in case of trouble the use of his script which can collect the whole informations needed to help you. then you just have to issue a simple commande in console to collect all informations, you can review them, and finally transmit them.
Check the website to get the latest.

su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.11.sh -ur'
The system report 'amd-report.txt' was generated.                                                                                                          [ OK ]
Do you want to read the system report 'amd-report.txt' now? yes/no [y/n]: y
Are you sure to upload the above-named system report to sprunge.us? yes/no [y/n]: y

The report was uploaded to sprunge.us.
   The link is:  http://sprunge.us/eMEB

Copy paste the link in the comment zone of Sebastian post

All proudly distributed by openSUSE powered server and sponsored by Ioda-Net Sàrl

I have adapted the AMD driver to the Kernel 4.4 (rc3). For the moment it works for Kernel 4.4-rc3. Unfortunately the AMD driver has a compatibility issue in combination with the GNOME Desktopmanager and X-Server. As a workaround, I recommend for GNOME another Desktopmanager such as lightdm until the issue is hopefully fixed.

Resolved Issues:

• [SWDEV-55204] Stuttering when running glxgears with VSync enabled
• [SWDEV-7339] Intermittent mouse cursor corruption

Link: AMD Catalyst 15.11 Release Notes

Downloads:

• Script: makerpm-amd-15.11.sh
• SHA1: makerpm-amd-15.11.sh.sha1

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

Bruno Friedmann will build the new RPM packages in the fglrx repository. Stay tune!

If you find any issue with the driver. Don’t hesitate to contact me. I am in contact with AMD and can forward your issue to the right place. Feedback are welcome.

A report of your system is very helpful beside your feedback. You can generate it with the script:
su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.11.sh -ur'

Have a lot of fun!

Sebastian
openSUSE member / Official AMD Packaging Script Maintainer for openSUSE
German Blog: openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.11 als RPM installieren

Important note: The first beta version of openSUSE Leap (future openSUSE 42.1) was released a few days ago. However, the AMD driver has not been adapted yet to the new upcoming openSUSE version. In the next days I will working on this and release a new update for this script.

Important note 2: After some experimentation with the GNOME Desktopmanager, unfortunately it does not work with the driver. Because actually something seems to be amiss. To this end, I will contact the AMD developers. As a workaround, I recommend for GNOME another Desktopmanager such as lightdm until the issue is fixed.

Resolved Issues:

• [425910] Driver installation sometimes fails on Ubuntu 14.04.3
• [424450] Company of Heroes® 2 – Game crashes while running the performance test
• [424794] Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor – Corruption observed in game
• [424882] DIRT® Showdown – Corruption observed in game
• [425234] DIRT® Showdown – Game crashes after the loading screen
• [424802] DOTA™ 2 – Application hang observed while exiting the game
• [424255] AMD Catalyst™ Installer removing EGL links resulting in Xserver/Xorg load failure
• [423471] Unable to switch desktop mode after installing AMD Catalyst™ driver
• [423735] Renaming Counter-Strike: GO and other Steam game binary improves performance

Known Issues:

• [419960]: Vari-Bright on some configurations is not decreasing brightness as expected

Link: AMD Catalyst 15.9 Release Notes

Downloads:

• Script: makerpm-amd-15.9.sh
• SHA1: makerpm-amd-15.9.sh.sha1

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

Bruno Friedmann will build the new RPM packages in the fglrx repository. Stay tune!

If you find any issue with the driver. Don’t hesitate to contact me. I am in contact with AMD and can forward your issue to the right place. Feedback are welcome.

A report of your system is very helpful beside your feedback. You can generate it with the script:
su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.9.sh -ur'

Have a lot of fun!

Sebastian
openSUSE member / Official AMD Packaging Script Maintainer for openSUSE
German Blog: openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.9 als RPM installieren

Important note: This driver supports also X-Server 1.17 on Tumbleweed. GNOME Desktopmanager (gdm) is working partially, so you need a workaround. Who has activated the automatic user login in GNOME and want to make a user change, they get a black screen on TTY-console and the login manager seems to be crashed. This issue can be solved when the automatic user login is disabled in GNOME.

For GNOME user with gdm: Execute the following command as root after the installation of the AMD driver and before restart the machine:
sh makerpm-amd-15.7.sh --install-gdm-fix

To revert the changes:
sh makerpm-amd-15.7.sh --uninstall-gdm-fix

New Features:

• AMD PowerXpress support for laptops equipped with Intel 6th generation (Skylake) CPUs
• Linux Platform Atomics & SVM Fine Grain Buffer support for Carrizo APUs
• Multi-Device support for OpenCL 2.0

Resolved Issues:

• [421317] Segmentation fault observed while launching some OpenGL games in RHEL7.1
• [419365] Error message observed during installation through rpm package in RHEL 6.5, 7.0
• [419162] System hangs while running Dying Light
• [421858] clinfo could not recognize up to four GPU devices

Known Issues:

• [419960]: Vari-Bright on some configurations is not decreasing brightness as expected

Link: AMD Catalyst 15.7 Release Notes

Downloads:

• Script: makerpm-amd-15.7.sh
• SHA1: makerpm-amd-15.7.sh.sha1

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

Bruno Friedmann will build the new RPM packages in the fglrx repository. Stay tune!

If you find any issue with the driver. Don’t hesitate to contact me. I am in contact with AMD and can forward your issue to the right place. Feedback are welcome.

A report of your system is very helpful beside your feedback. You can generate it with the script:
su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.7.sh -ur'

Have a lot of fun!

Sebastian
openSUSE member / Official AMD Packaging Script Maintainer for openSUSE
German Blog: openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.7 als RPM installieren

Warning: This driver based on an old development fork and does not support X-Server 1.17 on Tumbleweed. GNOME Desktopmanager (gdm) is also broken for the moment. My suggestion for you, stay on the latest AMD Catalyst 15.3 Beta.

New Features:

• Support for SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop 12

Resolved Issues:

• [417630]: Fixes the issue of discrete GPU not being powered off in Power-Saving mode on some PowerXpress AMD GPU + AMD APU platforms
• [416499]: Fixes minor screen corruption when resuming from S3 caused by display hot plugging

Known Issues:

• [419960]: Vari-Bright on some configurations is not decreasing brightness as expected

Link: AMD Catalyst 15.5 Release Notes

Downloads:

• Script: makerpm-amd-15.5.sh
• SHA1: makerpm-amd-15.5.sh.sha1

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

Bruno Friedmann will build the new RPM packages in the fglrx repository. Stay tune!

If you find any issue with the driver. Don’t hesitate to contact me. I am in contact with AMD and can forward your issue to the right place. Feedback are welcome.

A report of your system is very helpful beside your feedback. You can generate it with the script:
su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.5.sh -ur'

Have a lot of fun!

Sebastian
openSUSE member / Official AMD Packaging Script Maintainer for openSUSE
German Blog: openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.5 als RPM installieren

1. Check if the update repository already exists and is enabled.

$ zypper repos –uri

You should have the following enabled

3 | openSUSE-13.1-repo-update | openSUSE-13.1-repo-update | Yes | Yes | http://download.opensuse.org/ports/update/13.1/

If not, then add it

$ zypper addrepo –check –refresh –name ‘openSUSE-13.1-Update’ http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1/ repo-update

2. Refresh and update your system

$ zypper ref && zypper update

3. Remove all third party/OBS repos you no longer need.

$ zypper lr

# Remove with

$ zypper rr (alias or number)

4. Change all remaining repo URLs to the new version of the distribution (needs to be run as root).

$ cp -Rv /etc/zypp/repos.d /etc/zypp/repos.d.Old

5. Change the repos.

$ sed -i ‘s/13\.1/13.2/g’ /etc/zypp/repos.d/*

6. Refresh new repositories (you might be asked to accept new gpg key)

$ zypper ref

If you haven’t removed third party/OBS repositories you may encounter some errors as these repositories may not exist yet or they may have different unguessable URL. It is always recommended to remove them and add their newer version after upgrade.

7. Upgrade

$ zypper dup

Now you have to wait. Reboot at the end, just to be sure that everything went smooth.

Unfortunately there is no release notes from AMD. This update can solve the issue with PowerXpress but I can not really verified this because lack of such hardware.

Another side note I have implemented a workaround in the script to get the driver works with the GNOME Displaymanager + GNOME. It is a little cruel hack but it works for the moment. Thanks to the user that they posted the article in my blog.

For GNOME user with gdm: Execute the following command as root after the installation of the AMD driver and before restart the machine:
sh makerpm-amd-15.3-beta.sh --install-gdm-fix
If you update the AMD driver, so the workaround does not work anymore. It is important that you do not delete the file /amd_xversion and is needed for the workaround.

To revert the changes:
sh makerpm-amd-15.3-beta.sh --uninstall-gdm-fix

Before I forget it: All user from openSUSE Tumbleweed can also install the driver. But remember, Tumbleweed is under heavy development. I can not guarantee that the driver works in the future yet.

Downloads:

• Script: makerpm-amd-15.3-beta.sh
• SHA1: makerpm-amd-15.3-beta.sh.sha1

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

The above named installation guide is only for the stable driver but you can adapt it for the beta driver.

Bruno Friedmann will build the new RPM packages in the fglrx repository. Stay tune!

If you find any issue with the driver. Don’t hesitate to contact me. I am in contact with AMD and can forward your issue to the right place. Feedback are welcome.

A report of your system is very helpful beside your feedback. You can generate it with the script:
su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.3-beta.sh -ur'

Have a lot of fun!

Sebastian
openSUSE member / Official AMD Packaging Script Maintainer for openSUSE

German Blog: openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.3 Beta als RPM installieren

Nah Open Source/Free Software doesn’t matter anyway

In year 2014 wasn’t just year on Linux getting into you hands as Android. It was strange year in Linux land. Probably biggest Linux hater from Redmond that called Linux Cancer said ‘hey Free Software and Open Source are cool! We take cherrys like Apple and sell them to you in nice package and there nothing wrong with that (And I’m with them.. it’s what they can do if you buy it)’. Small IoT (Internet-Of-Things, Industrial Internet or choose your favorite term) ARM SOC boards are so Nineties. MIPS made proud comeback! Once it was SGI’s own bitch but now there is growing mass of small very cheap wireless boards started to flow in. All supporting Linux and most have also Android. Targeted to next big thing that you are doing when not playing.

In Finland where I’m located this have been year of economical rumble (read economical crash). Mass layoffs, industrial work places are getting rare and Nokia was sold to that huge firm from Redmond. Selling Nokia out was end of Finland’s mobile dreams as they now have new tablet and fear not also Jolla is launching their new shiny Sailfish tablet and got very good funding through indie-go-go. Ok nobody really wants this tablet because of Android but it’s good to see there is guys and girls that still think with punk attitude and believe that very small firm like Jolla can produce something that big players can’t.

Year 2014 also was big climate is changing year. USA and China make promise to cut their carbon dioxide emission till 2030. USA will do something and China says their peak will be 2030. Does this stop global warming probably not but at least now it’s official that climate is changing. How this is relevant with Linux? Most of these calculation are done in ‘super computers’ and those run tadaaaa… Linux. They don’t run Fedora or openSUSE because they are mostly very fast calculators but they run Linux kernel and something that as immortals never will know because most of them doesn’t calculate climate change things. They calculate nuclear war scenarios. Hello Dr. Falken shall we play a game? Linux++ and HP Machine anyone?

Firefox which is now 10 years old. They broke up with Google because as you can see they don’t need that search flow anymore. Firefox preset for searching in USA is now Yahoo, Russian Yandex and China Baidu. Mozilla also made bold moves with Firefox OS in 2014. More phones and if you need low end cheap phone so you should consider Firefox OS phone 25$ that is very cheap.

So what happened in Linux land

openSUSE made only one release 13.2 but then rumbled big changes in. openSUSE is also catching up popular rolling release method like Arch Linux with Tumbleweed but this year openSUSE upstream Factory also become a rolling release and then it get together with Tumbleweed. It’s good thing! Really things get tested and traditional releases are more stable. Hooray for that. There was and gigantic war against systemd and you can start sending me millions of hate mails for a start because I Like it! It’s modern and does everything that was wrong with Linux init. No more big tune this tune that complex learn curve up to your a** stuff very neat simple configuration. Ok it’s bloat.. but why don’t you start hating Linux kernel. It’s not very UNIX nether it’s doesn’t just one thing like BSD micro-kernel approach. But that is what I wanted to say about that. If you fork Debian just to have Sysvinit I think you are little bit over reacting but best luck to you I’m nothing but thumbs up get it rolling! At the end this feels like Pulseaudio hating campaign. Everybody hated it first but now nobody even notices that they are using it.

Also it becomes clear 2014 that Desktop Linux will never come. Time just passed by and people moved to other things and we have desktop Linux Google’s Chromebooks. In year 2014 It also becomes clear that nor Tizen or Ubuntu phone will be huge success at least it takes little bit longer. My hope is that X will die in great crash of meteorite or let me rephrase how about Wayland project will never take X-windows place and things never become sweet again. Canonical  shiny move with Mir display server will shake things up if it becomes successful. Time will tell how things end up will Mir be successor of X or should it be Wayland?

So what to give as present if you want to give Linux based device?

There is so many Linux gift list to choose from that I just link to them so you can choose from yourself.

This was how I see year 2014. Let’s meet interesting year 2015 which is just few weeks away and light will come back and darkness fade away.