Operating Systems Distributions Supported
The latest version of the ATI Catalyst Linux software suite is designed to support
the following Linux distributions:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux suite
- Novell/SuSE product suite
- Ubuntu
System Requirements
Before attempting to install the ATI Catalyst Linux software suite, the following
software must be installed:
- XOrg 6.8, 6.9, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 or 7.4
- Linux Kernel 2.6 and above
- glibc version 2.2 or 2.3
- POSIX Shared Memory (/dev/shm) support is required for 3D applications
Note: The ATI Catalyst Linux software suite may install on a number
of other Linux distributions. Refer to the Package Generation installation
instructions for more information.
Note: AMD has contributed packaging scripts to allows creation of
other packages, but does not necessarily test, verify or warrant the reliability.
Currently Red Hat Enterprise Linux suite and Novell/SuSE product
suite are supported Linux distributions.
The ATI Catalyst Linux software suite no longer provides precompiled Kernel
Modules; all installations require GCC compiler and kernel-headers or kernel-
source in order to enable 2D and 3D acceleration.
For best performance and ease of use, AMD recommends the following:
- Kernel module build environment
- Kernel source code include either the Kernel Source or Kernel Headers
packages
- The RPM utility should be installed and configured correctly on your system,
if you intend to install via RPM packages
- The following packages must be installed in order for the ATI Catalyst
Linux driver to install and work properly:
- XFree86-Mesa-libGL
- libstdc++
- libgcc
- XFree86-libs
- fontconfig
- freetype
- zlib
New Features
This section provides information on new features found in this release of the
Radeon Display Driver. These include the following:
- Support for New Linux Operating Systems
- Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition: Information Center Enhacement
- ATI Stream Computing Support
- SurroundView support
Support for New Linux Operating Systems
This release of ATI Catalyst Linux introduces support for the following new
operating system:
- Ubuntu 8.10 support – early look
Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition: Information
Center Enhacement
This release of ATI Catalyst Linux introduces enhancements to the ATI Catalyst
Control Center Linux Edition – Bus bandwidth and memory bandwidth information
is now included in the Information Center.
ATI Stream Computing Support
With the release of ATI Catalyst 8.12 users can unlock the potential of accelerated
applications enabling ATI Stream technology for millions of ATI Radeon
graphics processors worldwide
- ATI Stream computing harnesses the tremendous processing power of the
graphics processing unit (GPU) for high-performance, data-intensive computations
over a wide range of scientific, business and consumer applications.
- ATI Stream technology enables the hundreds of parallel Stream cores inside
AMD graphics processors to accelerate general purpose applications. These
capabilities will allow ATI Stream-enabled programs, for a variety of different
tasks and from a growing number of software vendors, to operate with optimized
performance or with new functionality.
SurroundView support
This release of ATI Catalyst Linux enables users to render multiple OpenGL
applications across single/multiple displays.
- SurroundView can be enabled across a single discrete ATI Radeon
graphics accelerator (ATI Radeon X1300 and higher product) and an AMD
Integrated graphics product ( ATI Radeon 1200 Series, ATI Radeon 3100
Series, ATI Radeon 3200 Series and, Radeon 3300 Series Integrated graphics)
Resolved Issues
The following section provide a brief description of resolved issues with the latest
version of the ATI Catalyst Linux software suite. These include:
- Primary display will remain blank after task switching between virtual terminals
with dual displays running in Single Independent mode
- Executing Glxears may cause the operating system to stop responding
- Some systems may become unstable when running multiple OpenGL applications
with an ATI Radeon HD 3200 Series adapter
- Catalyst Control Center fails to identify the correct display type connected
- Segmentation fault may occur when enabling bios version on systems with
three or more adapters
- Executing 'Glxgears' may cause the operating system to stop responding
- CrossFire logo is not shown when playing 3D applications in full screen mode
for 64bit Linux distributions
- Desktop corruption may occur when task switching from multiple X windows
keeping one console in text mode
- Alientrap NEXUIZ,a delay may occurs when exiting the game
- X11Perf benchmark no longer causes a segmentation fault durring execution
- SUSE 10.3 32bit: Unable to set modes higher than 1600x1200 from command
line
- SUSE 10.3 32bit: CRT screen corruption may occur after setting horizontal
and vertical sync ranges
- System with multi adapters may experience problems installing the display
driver
Known Issues
The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated
with the latest version of ATI Catalyst Linux software suite. These issues
include:
- Poor performance may intermittently be noticed when running GTKPerf on
systems containing an ATI Radeon HD 38x0 or newer product
- SUSE 10.3 64bit: Connecting a DFP display device as a secondary display
device may occasionally result in the secondary display device failing to display
an image
- Red Hat 5.2 32bit, KDM X windows may restart when user selects to "Start
New Session" during user switch
- System does not switch to "Optimal Performance" when running on AC
power and returning from sleep
- This version of the Catalyst Control Center - Linux Edition shows the wrong
version for the Catalyst driver, the version should be 8.12
|
