AMD is getting back in the Linux game with a huge driver release that should be able to save face on the open source platform.

It’s not clear why AMD chose to virtually ignore the Linux platform in the last couple of years, but it seems they are back with a vengeance.

Until 2011, there were a lot of AMD / ATI drivers updates, accompanied by generous changelogs. For some unknown reason, the changelogs stopped appearing and the number of driver updates decreased.

Not so long ago, Linus Torvalds gave the finger to Nvidia and the card manufacturer took notice. They’ve started increasing the pace of driver releases, and when Valve announced their plans to release their client on Linux, Nvidia followed with a flurry of changes.

AMD could not wait on the sidelines any longer and now they’ve released a major update for their drivers, with tons of improvements.

Highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.1 Driver:

• XServer 1.13 support has been added; • Ubuntu 12.10 production support has been added; • Driver release version has been added to GL_VERSION; • An X crash for AMD PowerXpress A+I High-Performance mode on Ubuntu 12.10 has been fixed; • A segmentation fault which occurred when users exited QtOpenGL applications such as AMD CodeXL has been fixed.

The latest version of the AMD Catalyst Linux software suite is designed to support the following Linux distributions:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux suite 5.7, 5.8, 6.2 and 6.3 • SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP4 and 11 SP2 • OpenSUSE 11.4 and 12.1 • Ubuntu 12.10

Also, the AMD Catalyst Linux software suite has a few system requirements which have to be met: Xorg/Xserver 6.9 and above (up to 1.13), Linux kernel 2.6 or above (up to 3.5), glibc version 2.2 or 2.3, and POSIX Shared Memory (/dev/shm) support (required for 3D applications).

A complete list of changes can be found in the official announcement.

Download AMD Catalyst 13.1 Driver right now from Softpedia.