Ubuntu – AMD/ATI drivers from website vs. proprietary drivers in Ubuntu 12.04 Repos

12.04atidriversgraphicsradeon

I have 2 questions regarding to different AMD Radeon drivers:

  1. What is the difference between the 3?

    • AMD/ATI Driver ( 12.04 Repo )
    • AMD/ATI Driver, Post release update ( 12.04 Repo )
    • AMD/ATI Driver 12.4 ( AMD Website )

  2. If I install the "Post release update" driver from Ubuntu Repos; Will I get future driver updates from Ubuntu, In other words what's Ubuntu Radeon driver update policy?

Best Answer

Here are the differences,

The fglrx package, contains the driver version available at distro release.

The fglrx-updates package, contains the newest driver version packaged for Ubuntu.

The AMD website download, provides the newest driver released.

It takes time to properly package the official AMD releases, so fglrx-updates might not always be the absolute newest release. fglrx-updates is often still very recent, It was specifically packaged for Ubuntu, and I normally prefer it to the other options. The only time you would want to go either up, or down, is when a specific situation arises.

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