AMD updates Catalyst for Linux

[zekrahminator]

Anyone who owns an AMD graphics card and runs it under Windows knows that driver updates are complete and frequent. However, change the operating system, and this level of support seems to evaporate. You're lucky to even get a LiveCD to boot if you have an ATI card in your system, and even if you manage to install a version of *nix, good luck getting 3D applications to run bug-free.

Thankfully, AMD decided to listen to their customers. The latest AMD Catalyst for Linux is much cleaner, much more efficient, and much faster than the older version of Catalyst. Classic *nix functions, such as switching between X server and CLI are much smoother/don't freeze the system, and late 3D applications (even simple ones such as Google Earth) actually work now, which couldn't be said for older versions of AMD Catalyst for Linux.

Granted, the Linux version is not as fully featured as the Windows version. However, it is just as functional, and just as stable, as the Windows version, which is a huge step in the right direction for *nix users.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Jimmy 2004]

Is *nix supposed to be an abbreviation for both Unix and Linux - because Linux doesn't end in nix?!

Or am I just misunderstanding your *nix?

 

[zekrahminator]

Yeah, when I say *nix, I mean Linux and Unix, because I'm far too lazy to write out "Linux and Unix" all the time .

 

[ktr]

fantastic news for the *nix community.

 

[Jimmy 2004]

Yeah, when I say *nix, I mean Linux and Unix, because I'm far too lazy to write out "Linux and Unix" all the time .

Then you should be writing *n*x

 

[zekrahminator]

But then, it could stand for a lot of other things, and might confuse people that have absolutely no idea what Linux, Unix, or *nix is, so it's best to just abbreviate to *nix .

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Then you should be writing *n*x

Linux is included in the *nix because its basically a form of unix

The * could just be used to infer it includes everything xD

 

[WarEagleAU]

Good news. Thanks for the post Zek.

 

[Batou1986]

its about damn time

 

[Solaris17]

YES woot!!! now maybe ill get 3d acc to work!

 

[Atech]

Linux is included in the *nix because its basically a form of unix

The * could just be used to infer it includes everything xD

GNU's Not Unix.

Technical minded people should know their recursive acronyms off by heart

There are many features to Linux that are more similar to Plan 9 than Unix.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

GNU's Not Unix.

Technical minded people should know their recursive acronyms off by heart

There are many features to Linux that are more similar to Plan 9 than Unix.

And theres many features that are almost identical to unix...

 

[Atech]

And theres many features that are almost identical to unix...

There are many features in Windows that are identical to Unix, after all they took a hell of a lot of BSD code and just rammed it into their code base. Does that make Windows basically a form of Unix?

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

There are many features in Windows that are identical to Unix, after all they took a hell of a lot of BSD code and just rammed it into their code base. Does that make Windows basically a form of Unix?

Features != core

Unix was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-sharing configuration. Unix systems are characterized by various concepts: the use of plain text for storing data; a hierarchical file system; treating devices and certain types of inter-process communication (IPC) as files; and the use of a large number of small programs that can be strung together through a command line interpreter using pipes, as opposed to using a single monolithic program that includes all of the same functionality. These concepts are known as the Unix philosophy.

Under Unix, the "operating system" consists of many of these utilities along with the master control program, the kernel. The kernel provides services to start and stop programs, handle the file system and other common "low level" tasks that most programs share, and, perhaps most importantly, schedules access to hardware to avoid conflicts if two programs try to access the same resource or device simultaneously. To mediate such access, the kernel was given special rights on the system and led to the division between user-space and kernel-space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

The GNU Project, with the goal of creating a Unix-like, POSIX-compatible operating system composed entirely of free software,

Its essentially unix.

 

[Atech]

Features != core

Urm, GNU nor Linux do not contain any of the same source code, see SCO v. IBM.

Or if you mean the POSIX, then it applies equally to Windows. Windows is fully POSIX compliant, which is basically, what makes Linux close to Unix.


As for the logic of basic concepts, then that logic extends to incorporating Plan 9 as "basically Unix". Linux and Plan 9 share the "everything as a file" concept, which Unix only partially shares.


Edit: As for design philosophy, GNU and Unix are far, far apart for the most part when it comes to userland programs One tool for one task is not the matra at the heart of developers of software for GNU

Edit #2: As for the goal, the goal wasn't to create a Unix-like system, the reason it turned out Unix-like was because that's what worked well. Plan 9 worked better, hence Linux was changed (or evolved, as F/OSS software tends to do) into more of a Plan 9 - like system.


In my view, Unix-like != basically Unix. That's at the heart of our disagreement, I believe.

 

[zekrahminator]

Before you descend into a technobabble-filled battle of wills, please remember to keep it clean (no insults of each other's mothers, for example) .

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

In my view, Unix-like != basically Unix. That's at the heart of our disagreement, I believe.

If programs can be ported with little hassle between unix "variations", then IMO its basically unix.

It doesn't have to contain the same source code to be "almost the same".

Behavior is essentially the same in a lot of cases...

A BMW is a car. A F1 car is a... car... while different, they both still scoot you along the road the same way ;D

 

[Atech]

If programs can be ported with little hassle between unix "variations", then IMO its basically unix.

Any POSIX compatible program can be ported with little hassle to Windows :/

I presume you can see my logic here, fallacious or not:

Antecedents:
If programs can be ported with little hassle between Unix "variations" then it's basically Unix
Windows is POSIX compliant
Linux is POSIX compliant

Consequents:
Windows is basically Unix
Windows is basically Linux
Linux and Unix are basically Windows

Edit:

A BMW is a car. A F1 car is a... car... while different, they both still scoot you along the road the same way ;D

That analogy only serves to show that both Unix and Linux kernels, or operating systems depending on semantics.

 

[zekrahminator]

Wow, you really know your stuff .

To me, Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows are all just different operating systems, which all try to do the same thing: Make the computer do what the user wants it to do . They just had different approaches to the same thing, work a bit differently, and do different things. I leave it at that and don't really care otherwise .