Do you prefer the free radeon graphics driver or the proprietary fglrx driver?

[oscarivera9]

As of now I am using the free radeon driver for my Radeon HD 5770 graphics card and everything works well. However, I've got Steam installed and it suggests that I install the AMD proprietary driver for better compatibility with some games. I'm thinking about switching.
I wonder how the community feels about proprietary graphics drivers.
If you have ANY AMD/ATI graphics card do you prefer to use the free radeon driver or the proprietary fglrx driver?

[Jakin]

If there isn't any issues when using it, Proprietary all the way.

[deadflowr]

If there isn't any issues when using it, Proprietary all the way.

I go in the opposite direction.

As in, if there aren't any problems, use open-source drivers.

Less hassle the better.

[Autofac]

Since installing 12.10 I haven't gone back to fglrx and things have been fine. The last time I tried to install it on 12.04 it gave me some grief and I had to reformat, nothing lost, just an annoyance.

Since 12.10 I've put another HDD in and threw xp on it to use solely for gaming, so the driver issue on ubuntu isn't really an issue for me any more.

[mamamia88]

When it comes to drivers I want the people who know the hardware best to develop it. In that case I would go with the proprietary version. I don't get why they just don't open source drivers though. Let other people do all the work for you and you end up with a better driver with less monetary input

[MadmanRB]

Usually the ooen drivers do fine but they can do better.
Though personally I am going to move to nvidia once I get some money in my pocket.

[Eglefino]

In principle are drivers/software 'from the house' the best, because in general the AMD/ATI company and even other software companies develop all for MS Windows-software (that's the easy way). Both drivers/software companies have tested their drivers well but those companies are not get used with our software and drivers.
For me personal doesn't matter which drivers I can use, if it's just still working well .

The software future shall give a better solution for good working browsers/platforms as p.e. Ubuntu and the well-known in the market should get less users because their software has a high price $$ and as p.e. a 'MS Windows'-user you are a tester since you bought the software till the next version you have to buy again, after you made this more times you get an empty purse! And maybe you make a look to another platform... all first steps are difficult, but we all made that step.

With Linux/Unix-distri you get the a better support as with MS Windows, because all support in the world was made by Windows-users which have not the technical high standard.

With all drivers/software there is no computer the same and if the computer is the same.... in theory it isn't possible but in practice all drivers/software working different.

I use the AMD/ATI/XFX HD-5770 1Mb with 3D Juniper and (Open CL/Open GL) version 3.2 (I thought), in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynxs) my graphic card was working out of the box, but 12.04 LTS (it was terrible in more ways ), but with Cairo-Dock-Core the graphic was working well... pfff. How it's possible...
I'm using Ubuntu still 14 months (after about 31-years of Windows) but I'm a happy Ubuntu user!! Every time If I have some small problems, I thinking by my self, it cannot be more worse as with Windows-software!

If you haven't worked with MS Windows yet, stay with the choice you made before and don't give it a try....

~ I'm open, honest and sincere to myself, to my partner and to others...! ~

[JDShu]

The oss drivers are far more stable and slick than the proprietary drivers. In fact when it comes to desktop experience, I don't think that anything beats the radeon drivers (well perhaps the intel ones). If you're chasing frame rate for games, or have a very new card, then perhaps fglrx is the only option. Given the choice however, I would always recommend the oss.

[tjeremiah]

using the newest AMD beta drivers with no problems.

[mips]

Neither. nVidia proprietary drivers